Doug Nye: 18 years of Goodwood Easter Monday race meetings, 1949-1966

Let’s look at the Easter Monday feature race winners over those 18 years:

1949 – April 18^th – Richmond Trophy for Formula 1 cars – Reg Parnell, Maserati 4CLT/48

1950 – April 10^th – Richmond Trophy for Formula 1 cars – Reg Parnell, Maserati 4CLT/48

1951 – March 26^th – Richmond Trophy for Formula 1 cars – ‘B. Bira’, Maserati 4CLT/48-OSCA V12

1952 – April 14^th – Richmond Trophy for Formula 1 cars – Jose Froilan Gonzalez, ‘ThinWall Special’ Ferrari 375

1953 – April 6^th – Lavant Cup for Formula 2 cars – Baron Emmanuel ‘Toulo’ de Graffenried, Maserati A6GCM

1954 – April 19^th – Lavant Cup for Formula 1 and 2 cars – Reg Parnell, Ferrari 625

1955 – April 11^th – Glover Trophy for Formula 1 cars – Roy Salvadori, Maserati 250F 

1956 – April 2^nd – Glover Trophy for Formula 1 cars – Stirling Moss, Maserati 250F

1957 – April 22^nd – Glover Trophy for Formula 1 cars – Stewart Lewis-Evans, Connaught B-Type ‘Toothpaste Tube’

1958 – April 7^th – Glover Trophy for Formula 1 cars – Mike Hawthorn, Ferrari Dino 246

1959 – March 30^th – Glover Trophy for Formula 1 cars – Stirling Moss, Cooper-Climax T51

1960 – April 18^th – Glover Trophy for Formula 1 cars – Innes Ireland, Lotus-Climax 18

1961 – April 3^rd – Glover Trophy for Formula 1 cars – John Surtees, Cooper-Climax T53P 

1962 – April 23^rd – Glover Trophy for Formula 1 cars – Graham Hill, BRM P578

1963 – April 15^th – Glover Trophy for Formula 1 cars – Innes Ireland, Lotus-BRM 24

1964 – March 30^th – ‘News of the World’ Trophy for Formula 1 cars – Jim Clark, Lotus-Climax 25

1965 – April 19^th – ‘Sunday Mirror’ Trophy for Formula 1 cars – Jim Clark, Lotus-Climax 25

1966 – April 11^th – ‘Sunday Mirror’ Trophy for Formula 2 cars – Jack Brabham, Brabham-Honda BT18

So the only three-time winner of the Easter Monday feature race was the veteran Derbyshire pig farmer/haulier/racing owner-driver Reg Parnell – while twice winners are Stirling Moss, none other – the irrepressibly extrovert Innes Ireland, driving once for Team Lotus and the second time for the Ken Gregory/’Pa’ Moss UDT-Laystall Racing Team – and, thirdly, Team Lotus’s Ireland-replacement, double-World Champion Driver Jimmy Clark.

Aristocratic winners count two – the diminutive yet so stylish (and so quick!) Siamese-born Prince Birabongse under his familiar pseudonym ‘B. Bira’ – and the burly, genial Swiss Baron de Graffenried, who was always such fun to meet and to spend time and listen to his yarns – some of occasional Munchausen proportions. 

Probably the first of the really professional drivers to excel in Goodwood’s Easter Monday feature event was ‘The Pampas Bull’ – Argentina’s ‘Pepito’ Gonzalez arriving as the hired gun to handle Tony Vandervell’s fast-developing ‘ThinWall Special’ with its 4½-litre V12 engine. He attacked the Motor Circuit with such rambunctious insouciance that it evidently barely registered with him whether he was hurtling down the Lavant Straight at 150mph – wheels ahead and all in line – or careering through Madgwick at 45-50 degrees to his intended direction of travel, his podgy figure just larded down into the green Ferrari special’s capacious cockpit, jowls joggling over the humps and bumps as he bounded down the verge – showering tuffets and gravel in his wake…and all the time with his foot firmly, unrelentingly, jamming the throttle pedal to the floor…

Roy Salvadori proved himself to be very much the urbane British professional – driving for one-armed Syd Green’s Gilby Engineering Company team in the Maserati 250F, and fast becoming renowned as an elbows-out, take-no-prisoners specialist on the wide-open British aerodrome circuits – who tended not to perform on the more dangerous public-road based courses in Europe, and especially at Dundrod in Ulster, which he detested.

Stewart Lewis-Evans – already recalled in this column, blog, whatever one calls it – was surprise winner with the unpainted ‘Toothpaste Tube’ wedge-profiled Connaught in 1957, the unassuming, slightly-built young South Londoner building his professional career at that time… assisted by his diminutive friend and adviser, Bernard Charles Ecclestone.

In 1958 Mike Hawthorn dominated the field, the paid “amateur” who really still raced just for the hell of it – and because he was particularly good at it – making the most of the Ferrari factory team’s only foray to the Sussex circuit.

John Surtees – also featured recently in this place, of course – won for the Reg Parnell-run Bowmaker team in 1961, by which time gentlemen drivers and private owners had largely been squeezed out of the system…with even private teams running full-time professional star drivers, services bought and paid for mostly with fuel company funding, other sponsorship providing an absolute cherry on the cake.

Graham Hill’s 1962 win for BRM – again as recently covered here – was just regard, a ground-breaking Formula 1 first for the memorable combination of the moustachioed North London brigand and what became his World Championship-winning BRM ‘Old Faithful’ – in its early ‘Stackpipe’ form.

The mouth-wateringly well-proportioned, supremely sleek, Lotus 25 spear was wielded to immense effect by everyone’s most revered Scotsman, Jimmy Clark through 1964-65 – and then for the Motor Circuit’s final season in 1966 – with the Duke’s capacity limit applied to everything, the sole 1-litre Formula 2 main feature fell to Jack Brabham – who been trying so hard to clinch the Easter Monday headline race ever since his British debut right here at Goodwood, back in 1955.

As I said, it’s that time of the year again – nice to look back, think back, and remember…

Images courtesy of The GP Library