Quote:
Originally Posted by GTV6Racer
Couldn’t resist joining after seeing this thread, I do have this car in my garage and it is currently being refreshed for some more club racing. The car originally came into my possession in a bit of a sorry state but is in good shape now. The car came with Paul Smith’s ECU as pretty much the only identification of driver. However, it was fitted with an aluminium cage and evidence of plenty of jacking manoeuvres to the underside. Recently I found some yellow paint on the car which didn’t make a lot of sense. But then I recently saw a photo of a car run by Charles Brittz in the 1985 Silverstone Tourist Trophy race in the Alfa Romeo Owners Club magazine. I noticed that this car shared the same steering wheel and dashboard as mine. So it may be the case that Charles Brittz ran the car briefly after Paul Smith before it was turned into a thunder saloon. I have spoken to Terry Drury on the subject but all this happened a quite long time ago now and he was fairly sure that if the car had the Paul Smith ECU then it was Paul Smiths.
The car now is a far cry from the group A car that it originally was but in return it can give a good account of itself in club racing (so long as its dry) and I do still have all the bits to convert it back. Chris Snowdon helped me with building the car and his assistance was invaluable. Speaking of Chris I notice that there was a question raised earlier on in this thread about the Rob Kirby car that Chris owned. Basically the car was damaged in a qualifying session by Gerry Oddams at Castle Coomb I think. It was subsequently sold to Will Winterton who had it rebuilt by Chris Snowdon. As far as I am aware Will still has the car but it hasn’t seen the track to my knowledge since about 2001. When I last saw the car it was in good order.
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Thanks- that's great-it's always nice to know that another old BTCC car from this period is either still racing (albeit much modified) or tucked away in someone's workshop- a lot seem to have disappeared
The Charles Brittz deal was a one-off for the 1985 Silverstone TT- I'm guessing the pic in the Alfa Club magazine might show the car with sponsorship from 'Scope' or something like that?
Basically, four South African drivers came over to do the TT in cars leased from British teams- Brittz and Peter Lanz were in the Alfa and Tony Viana/Niccolo Bianco in one of Frank Sytner's BMW 635s. From memory, Drury BTCC regular Mark Hales also drove the Alfa in qualifying, but didn't race it- he was also entered in Geoff Kimber-Smith's Toyota Corolla
Brittz and Lanz finished 14th overall (5th in class), and the BMW pair came home 8th o/a. AFAIK, none of the four drivers appeared in the UK again after that
http://homepage.mac.com/frank_de_jon...lverstone.html.
I think it was pretty much the last appearance by the Drury team with the Alfas- they missed most of the late-season BTCC rounds, (although Barry Barnes drove one at the race supporting the European GP at Brands a few weeks after the TT) and Drury moved on to Escort RS Turbos for 1986