AutoItalia – August 2019

76 auto italia

T

he success of the HRDC Classic Alfa race

at Donington last October encouraged

Julius Thurgood to push ahead with his

project to run three races in 2019. The first

was at Silverstone in April 2019 as part of

a large Vintage Sports Car Club (VSCC) meeting on

the National Circuit. It’s a long time since I last

attended a VSCC event, and there’s a big contrast in

the size of the cars – a 4.5-litre Bentley dwarfs an F3

Kieft-JAP, as an example.

Once again, Julius gathered an excellent entry, the

cars being split into three classes – Corsa, Monza and

Nord – headed by Donington winner, Chris Snowdon,

in Richard Melvin’s Alfetta GTV. This had benefited

from an engine rebuild during the winter and was

sporting new Yokohama A052 tyres. Also in the Corsa

class were Richard Drake in his Napolina-liveried

Alfasud Ti, John Symes’s GTAm replica and the

Alfasud Sprint 1.7 of Richard Ibrahim.

Spread over the other two classes were Giulia

coupes of various origins – GT Juniors with 2.0-litre

engines, proper 2.0-litre cars, GTAs and 1600 Sprints –

and it was going to be interesting to see how they

would match up to the Alfettas and Suds on a dry

track. Peter Smart and Ian Brookfield could make a

direct comparison as they were looking after both: two

2000 GTVs (to be driven by Mike Neumann and Ken

Rorrison) and an Alfetta (in the hands of Lawrence

Alexander). Neumann’s car was the one driven by Peter

in the Alfa Championship in the late 1990s (it was