Motorsport Retro’s intrepid UK correspondent Graham Dalley recently returned from the VSCC’s Pomeroy Trophy, and comes bearing the gift of historic motorsport photos and a race report for your perusal.
The Vintage Sports Car Club are a hardy bunch, as was proved on the last Saturday of February 2013 when a fair few braved the sub-zero temperatures to attend the Pomeroy Trophy meeting or ‘The Pom’ as affectionately known. With a wind Chill measured at -8c and flurries of snow being blown across the Northamptonshire Circuit those that did turn up were well wrapped up and treated, as always, to an entertaining day. The Pomeroy Trophy is the only event that the VSCC runs which allows direct competition between post 1961 cars and Pre-war machines, which translates to some weird and wonderful cars turning out to do battle! This year’s event attracted no few one hundred entries ranging from the oldest, a 1914 Vauxhall A/D type owned by Alistaire Lockhart and driven by VSCC PR Manager Gillian Carr, and the newest entered and driven by Gareth Williams, a 2009 Aston Martin V8 Vantage.
The Pomeroy Trophy is awarded to the best overall performance across the five disciplines (tests) during the day, Test A, a timed slalom over a 250 meter course. Test B, a braking test. Test C, a standing start acceleration test over a 250 meter course. Test D a flying 250 meters run directly after Test C and finally after lunch Test E, a forty minute high speed regularity test on Silverstone’s Club Circuit.
There are two other trophies up for grabs as well, The Densham Trophy which is awarded to the best performance by a VSCC eligible Pre-war car not winning the title trophy and the Pomeroy Edwardian Trophy which is awarded to the best performance by a VSCC eligible Edwardian car or a car fitted with two wheeled brakes.
After a the mornings tests it was still all to play for and at the commencement of the regularity run, which isn’t actually supposed to be a race as such, two drivers decided to make a bit of a go of it, Tony Bianchi driving the 1958 Cadillac engined, Allard Farrellac Sports Racing, to give this magnificently mad fusion of American V8 and 1950’s British sports car chassis and the afore mentioned Gareth Williams Aston martin, the pair had a highly entertaining dice for most of the forty minutes of the run.
As you can see from the photographs the field was diverse! I did feel sorry for the drivers of the open topped cars who were in most cases very exposed to the weather, but in all cases there were smiles all round when the chequered flag waved and a good time appeared to be had by all. Other vehicles of note, a seemingly innocuous looking BMW 740i saloon driven by Oliver Mullard which was set up for drifting, which it did, particularly in the Luffield complex with great aplomb, although frowned upon by the clerk of the course as Mr Mullard was called before him after the run. Another slightly more comical entry was a 1982 Ford Cortina driven by Dougal Cawley, its sun strip proclaiming its occupants were “me” and “Aaarlass” with what appeared to be a stuffed ferret nestled in the grill! The oddest vehicle had to be a Ford Dorchester Limo entered by Andy Cawley which looked quite out of place tipping into the club circuit corners!
Once the dust had settled, the outright winner was Dudley Sterry driving a 1939 HRS Sports who gathered 423 points over the course of the day. Second, and claiming the Densham Trophy was Alistair Pugh, driving his beautiful little Frazer Nash/BMW 328. The recipient of the Pomeroy Edwardian Trophy for the second year running was Gillan Carr in the Vauxhall A/D type which was probably the most open of the open topped cars.
Next up for the VSCC is the Spring Start meeting a two day event this year with over 600 entries already confirmed as I write.
Photo Gallery and Race Report: VSCC Pomeroy Trophy 2013 is a post from Motorsport Retro, bringing you classic motorsport, cars, motorcycles and gear every day.