drivingandlife: Vintage Memories

Rex, from Norfolk, UK, has just sent photos from his latest visit to Snetterton and a Vintage Sport Car Club meeting last Sunday. Share Rex’s memories with these great photos ....

Remembering the great Archie Scott-Brown

Snetterton has fond memories for me, as my Dad took me there when I was seven, to watch my first motor race. Snetterton is about 20 miles south of the City of Norwich, and like many other UK circuits was an ex-WW2 airfield . During that period, 1943-45, the USAF operated out of there using B26 Marauders and B17s .

Those early years of racing at the circuit were value for money for spectators. Often Graham Hill would compete in single seaters, and later in the day drive one of the lovely Mkll Jaguars or a Ferrari GTO. Jim Clark in a Lotus Cortina gracefully lifting a front wheel through the corners was also something to behold.

We followed local garage owner Jim Russell in his Cooper 500. As most people know he went on to win the Formula 3 championship three times ,and start his world famous Jim Russell Racing School.

Many years later I met Jim at my family’s Mercedes-Benz dealership, and he told me a very amusing anectdote.

He was one of the drivers of a Cooper 1100 sports car, attempting a speed record at Montlhéry, near Paris. Jim had trouble with the car slipping out of gear on the steep banking, and complained to John Cooper that he had enough to cope with without the problem of holding the car in gear.

John Cooper's reply that he would ‘sort it out’ left Jim wondering how they were going to have the time to remove and rebuild the gearbox! However when he returned all was revealed. A bungee fastener fixed into a hole drilled in the Cooper bodywork and clipped around the lever.

Different times!!