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Coming out of the Hairpin on to the home straight, the rallycross circuit turned sharp right a dived down a large hole which was often very muddy with a large puddle at the bottom of it where the poor marshals used to stand getting covered in xxxx. I remember one very cold Winter's morning, either 1976 or 77 when we had a fire training day down there and we were told that we were very lucky to have a wrecked F1 tub to work on. This tub was set up with plastic containers full of petrol buried inside the car and slick tyres placed at each corner to give some sense of reality. The car was then set alight and in pairs we dashed across to put it out, all jolly good fun.
This is where my memory fails me me, but I do know that the tub was from a McLaren M23!!!, possibly either Mike Hailwood's or Denny Hulme's, what I do know it was scrapped to accident damage, the driver I believe suffering leg injuries and then it was donated to the Marshals to practice on.
Here though is the interesting part, I believe the several times burnt out aluminium tub found its final resting place there, and may still be buried there today. However many years later I believe McLaren were in dispute with someone who claimed to own this car (a possible ringer re-constructed). Mclaren claimed the car was scrapped and that there was no trace of what happened to it, I never knew what happened in the end as a lot of this goes on, particularly with classic aircraft such as Spitfires etc.
I am totally convinced that this was an M23 but I don't know exactly which one or what happened to it eventually, as young marshals we were just pleased to have a bit of fun with an F1 tub and come home to get out of the cold!
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