Leading the 70s pack at Brands Hatch
“ That ’ s the only racing I ’ ve ever made money out of .”
The Crossle was probably his last single-seater
“ Unfortunately , some guy called Ayrton Senna da Silva turned up that year , so he rather moved the bar . Roger was a lovely guy . It was in a Royale RP30 , but I ran out of money . A good friend Bob Stewart raced a Morgan and he said : ‘ you can ’ t not race so why not race my Morgan ?’ That was that was good fun for a while .”
Next , Dave went out and bought a Lola T490 and ran it in Sports 2000 . Then in 1986 , he bought a Lola T592 and won the Class B championship . That year , he was team mates with Ian Flux , and ‘ Fluxie ’ won the overall championship and Dave won the class B championship in a good year for the High-Tech team of Mick Mobberley .
“ Then I got another couple of Sports 2000s , which Gary James ran . He ran me for quite a few years and we had a Royale RP42 that we also raced in Thundersports . That ’ s the only racing I ’ ve ever made money out of . You ’ d get a
guest driver and share the costs and then the prize money , even in the lower class and the Sports 2000 class , was fabulous . You got over £ 500 just for turning up . During that time , Gary got me involved in 24-hour racing . He put me in his VW Golf and we shared it in the Wilhire in 1997 .
“ From that , I was invited to run a Civic in the Spa 24-hour race , which was wonderful because I ended up winning the King ’ s Cup , which was for the most consistent lap times for the whole race . So that was one of the highlights . Getting on the podium at the Spa 24- Hour and just seeing all this humanity
down below you is pretty good .”
After Sports 2000 , Dave spent a number of years racing in the ARP Formula 3 Championship with lots of success . “ Then I bought a newer Dallara F3 car from Steve Allen and part of the deal was that I was going to get a run in his March 761 F1 car , which I did at Donington . And when I got in the car , we never even checked the ride heights and after qualifying I got disqualified and put to the back of the grid . In those days , it was like a 30-car grid and in a 40-minute race I finished eighth overall and second in class . So I kind of got bitten by the bug .
In the ex-Alford Midget at Donington Park
57