Hey Andrew .. yeah I remember Rad Dougall...he had a certain Mr Rory Byrne with him at the time didnt he, designer of the Royales
I first met Frank at Mallory when he was with Ken Hensley Racing (I was actully a huge Uriah Heep fan so it was a dream come true) he was racing alongside Ian Taylor and Ken himself ocasionally raced.
I think it was the following season (77?) where Frank and Rad went head to head...Frank was racing the Foxwood Sytner Dulon and had the better of the first part of the season but Rad soon started to dominate...there were two championships running werent there I seem to recall Frank was in the running in one of them right to the end? could be wrong there of course. Good year that one..I even got farmed out one race at Snetterton to help Geoff Friswell (The Whizz) cos he had nobody with him that day
Frank switched to a Royale midway as it was evident that the Dulon was being roundly beaten.
I thought it was geat the following year when Rad won the opening round of the European F2 championship at Thruxton.
Sports 2000 was definitely a Howitt Printing Lola I thought it was a T490 but again I could be wrong there...the main protaganists that season were Frank, John Trevelyan, Chris Alford and John Webb...again he switched cars mid season from Lola to Tiga as he was beginning to loose his advantage. He had a pretty bad smash in testing at Mallory that year..was cut up by an FF1600 going into the esses and destroyed his car leaving him with broken ribs...crashed on the Wednesday but still raced at Mallory on the Sunday...the race was won by Paul Haywood with a decidely bent engine
Howitt Racing also sponsored a class B Clubmans that year for Gary Ferriman..he was racing against Nick Linney who spookily enough is now one of Franks big rivals in Historic Sports cars....I'll shut up now I'm rambling
I caught with Frank & Nick for the first time in about 22 years a couple of Sundays back at the BRDC Historics at Silverstone