Autosport – 01 August 2019

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CLUB AUTOSPORT NATIONAL REPORTS

74 AUTOSPORT.COM 1 AUGUST 2019

Kneller leads the Standard and
Modified Pre-War field early on

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Victory in Under
30s Handicap race
went to Parkin

“I think every parent in the collecting area
took a large breath before they went out
and didn’t breathe again until they all got
back in! [But] it was incredibly well raced;
we had a huge variety of cars.
“They [the drivers] showed great skill
and huge responsibility. This year again
we have a wonderful range of cars, we
have a wonderful range of drivers.”
And there was more of the same in
driving standards, despite damp conditions
at Cadwell. Nineteen raced and one was
16-year-old Wilf Cawley, making his
race debut in an Austin 7. He’s a third-
generation competitor, following father
Dougal and grandfather Andy.
“They’re more fun than modern cars,
because modern cars are a lot more planted
and boring,” Cawley said. “[They have] nice
skinny tyres so nice gradual drifting.
“And you can work on them easier;
whereas a modern car you’d have to go to
a computer! My dad bought the car a few
years ago because he knew I was interested,

CADWELL PARK
VSCC
27 JULY

The Vintage Sports-Car Club’s Cadwell
Park meeting had an unusual feature. For
the second time, the club held a race only
for drivers aged under 30, after debuting
the handicap event at Mallory Park last year.
“At the VSCC we have an incredible
strength of youth,” said club president
Jennifer Lees, “because we have a number
who are from VSCC families and they’ve
brought in their friends to race with us.
And we went to them a couple of years ago
to say, ‘What would you like from us?’ They
said, ‘Could we have a race for under 30s?’
“We’ve got to listen to our youth.
They marshal for us, they take on other
responsibilities. One of the racers here has
asked if she can now be directly involved
in the organisation of the club.”
The inaugural Mallory race went well.
“[It] was very well populated,” Lees noted.

Parkin comes out on top against young rivals


and since then we’ve been trying to make
it work better.”
It’s aiding his engineering-related studies,
too. “Where everyone else is struggling
with the mechanics parts, it’s falling into
my head a bit easier after doing it in real
life,” he added.
The race was won by Louis Parkin in a
Frazer Nash Super Sports, which had started
alongside Jack Bond’s Vauxhall A/D Type
at the back but as the only two with a
credit lap. Bond finished third, pipped at
the last by George Scholey’s Austin Ulster.
“The handicap was quite kind to me,”
Parkin admitted. “She’s not the fastest
car but it’s a lot of fun. It’s much better
in the wet – the power isn’t up there
but the grip is.
“It’s good we’ve got a nice group of young
people keeping the sport alive and [who]
keep racing old cars, which I think is the
biggest win. There are not many other
clubs willing to do that.”
The Geoghegan Trophy Race for
Standard and Modified Pre-War Sports
Cars had the day’s most dramatic finish,
with Christopher Mann’s Alfa Romeo
Monza pipping Tim Kneller’s Riley
TT Sprite on the line by 0.19 seconds,
Kneller having led all the way beforehand.
Alexander Hewitson in his Riley 12/4
Special followed his double Donington
triumph with Spero, Voiturette and Melville
Trophy victory, after passing Andrew
Mitchell’s HRG late on, while John Reeve
won the Garry Whyte Riley Handicap
Race in his Riley Brooklands, the podium
finishers awarded with a bottle of whisky
each to honour Whyte, who was killed in
a Silverstone accident in 2014.
It was a good day for Frazer Nashes. In
addition to Parkin’s win, the annual Nash
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