Simms says that the Jomo design is fairly typical of the early Formula Fords . “ There ’ s nothing clever about it . This car was raced in Jersey on the sand . So when we got it , it was just horrible . It really was . It ’ s like the guy got a stick welder for Christmas and went to town . There was a little bit of a box section on it and that was a mess . We bought it and sat on it . It actually came with a spare chassis in various parts . So we ’ ve actually got two of these . We looked at the chassis , and basically we had to remake it because it was wrong , it had been absolutely wrecked . So we remade it and got it sorted out .
“ Keith turned up and he got his measure out . He confirmed that this was the chassis that he thought it was . He used to sell them as kits as well . You could buy the chassis and some uprights or you could buy whatever you wanted from him .”
Paul Simms originally saw the project for sale in Jersey and bought it , unseen . “ Dad bought it because his first car was a Jomo that he raced in Pre ’ 74 Formula Ford and he saw this one for sale as an absolute basket case . he paid somebody to go and collect it from the docks . He didn ’ t even see it . He just bought it and it was cheap ! So we put a gearbox with it and just slowly built it up over time . Dad made the chassis : we just copied the original one . We ’ ve had to have bodywork moulds made and all sorts because it was just a mess .
“ But we fell out of love with it for a bit because we couldn ’ t make it work . When dad passed , we just pulled it to bits . And I went right the way through the thing and started to look at everything , and it was really heavy .
Gone but not forgotten
So we got the weight out of it , and dad built a good engine just before he died .
“ So we stuck that engine in and rocked up first race and off it went ,” says Benn modestly of a famous double win at Snetterton in April . “ I had no clue ! I expected to be top five . So it was a bit of a shock to be right at the front .
“ We decided to go for a challenge this year . It ’ s a class B car after all so
Benn is chasing the Classic FF title
The simple lines of the Jomo
there ’ s no shame in that . And then it performed quite well and I think we caught a few people off the hoof , to be honest , but they soon caught up as they always do .”
Sure , the rest of the Classic pack closed the gap to the flying Jomo , but Benn brings a 30-point lead to Brands as rounds seven and eight open the second half of the season . Can anyone stop the 1968 Jomo winning the Classic Formula Ford title against the newer cars ?
Battling with Callum Grant at Cadwell Park
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