AUTOSPORT HISTORICS
20 25 JULY 2019 AUTOSPORT HISTORICS
as the Revival’s Friday-
night Kinrara Trophy,
against Aston Martin DB4
GTs, E-types and Ferrari
250 SWBs. “The Cobra
is a totally different car,”
Hunt explains. “It went
through many iterations,
and this is a very early one- when the car was more
of a beefed-up AC Ace
than what you might
imagine a Cobra to look.”
It also has a worm-and-sector
steering box rather than rack-and-
pinion. “The steering tends to, at
speed, tie itself in a bit of a knot,
so it’s very physical to drive,”
explains Blakeney-Edwards.
“That’s the one car that I get
out of and feel absolutely exhausted every time I race it.”
Hunt adds: “What’s exciting about the Cobra is that it’s
very quick in a straight line, but then often outclassed in
the corners by the more refined machines.”
When asked for a standout win in any car, Blakeney-Edwards
and Hunt concur on them taking the Cobra to victory in the Royal
Automobile Club Tourist Trophy race for pre-1963 GTs in last
year’s Silverstone Classic. “We were absolutely over the moon
with that,” Hunt says. “We’d been trying for it for a number of
years and had often been pipped at the post by the DB4s.”
“It’s hard in the Cobra,” Blakeney-Edwards concludes.
“There are still many well-prepared cars of that ilk out there
now, pushing the boundaries. There’s development every year.” Q
“We look at engineering from first principles,” he adds,
“so we’re not that bothered if we aren’t a specialist; we’re
not proud, we’ll read the books, we’ll talk to people.”
And, he reckons, his firm has another key selling point. “We’re
known for running not-hooky cars,” he explains. “The cars are
absolutely straight, all within the rules. We don’t run any big
engines, and I think people respect that. As it’s always been with
racing, there are one or two [other] cars probably a bit borderline.
I think we have a reputation for running good, honest, straight,
but very quick cars. Our cars are quick and they are reliable.”
Blakeney-Edwards also gets plenty of opportunities to drive his
clients’ machines in anger. “I’m fortunate to get a huge amount of
seat time in all sorts of different cars, both testing and racing,” he
says. “The people I drive with, the [car] owners, people like Fred
Wakeman and Martin Hunt and Richard Cook, they’re all very
rapid drivers so we’re always a very strong pairing. It’s my theory
that if we get to the end of the race then we’ve got a very good
chance of being at the sharp end, which we normally are!”
In Hunt’s case, this was despite starting racing late in life,
and somewhat by accident. The co-founder and COO of hedge
fund firm Winton Capital, Hunt bought a rare 1953 Frazer Nash
Targa Florio but – despite a life-long motorsport passion – had
no intention of racing it.
“I fell in love with the shape and the design,” Hunt says. “My
thought was it’ll be lovely for driving down to the pub on a sunny
weekend or going for a road trip with the children. The chap I
bought it from, Peter Bradfield,
said, ‘You need to meet Patrick
Blakeney-Edwards, there are
lots of things you could do to
this’. Patrick and I got on like
a house on fire, and he said to
me on our second meeting,
‘Have you ever thought of
going motor racing? This is
a perfect place to start.’”
Hunt quickly added another
1953 Frazer Nash, a Le Mans
Replica. Its Bristol engine
produces 170-180bhp and the
car weighs in at around 850kg.
Hunt notes it took him two
or three years to get used to
its “skittish” handling. The
adjective Blakeney-Edwards
prefers for Nashes is “esoteric”.
“Frazer Nash was an
incredibly clever engineer,” Blakeney-Edwards explains. “Through
the chain drive, much more of the power went to the back wheels
rather than being wasted going through transmissions and
whatnot. Nashes, particularly when they’re set up well, are huge
fun to drive and very, very quick. You can make a Frazer Nash
do extraordinary things and fight well above its weight.”
With their strong traction, they’re particularly competitive in
the wet and on twisty circuits. Blakeney-Edwards and Hunt also
race a 3.4-litre Jaguar-engined HWM from 1954, “which is a really
unusual car”, Hunt notes. “It’s very much in the same sort of
category as a C-type. It’s not quite as beautiful, but potentially
quicker on a track because it benefited from a slightly more racy
chassis and it’s been able to be developed a bit more. It’s my
favourite car of all time because it can do anything and everything.
[It] can do Monaco [Historic], it can do Goodwood [Revival], it can
do the Mille Miglia, it can do a historic series like the Woodcote
Trophy, and at the same time it’s absolutely beautiful to drive.”
Hunt, driving alone, won the Freddie March Memorial Trophy
for 1952-55 cars in it at last year’s Goodwood Revival. The pair
also compete regularly in a Cobra 260 in pre-1963 GT races, such
Hunt has been
increasingly
successful in
his favourite
racer, the
HWM-JaguarJ BLOXHAM