The story so far......
| Rolls-Royce,
the ultimate road machine? Debateable. Rolls-Royce the
ultimate Banger? Without question! In fact so few
Rolls-Royce have found their way
onto the Banger racing scene that it is possible to track all of the
cars
that have appeared so far (ie 15/12/98).
The first car to appear was the
Silver Shadow of No 167 John Chambers of the "Bad Boys" at the "Mad
March TV Tear Up" on March 12th 1995 at the Angmering track near
Worthing. The appearance formed the basis of a Discovery TV
programme which I believe still has the occasional showing.
According to "BLITZ!" magazine the car was spotted in a breakers yard
and took a great deal of work to prepare for its swansong. No
pictures of this one I'm afraid so if you can help fill the gap please
let me know!
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It was to be another two and a half
years until the next Rolls Royce appearance at Firecracker V1 at Arena
Essex to be precise. This time
it was No 196 John Hendy driving a
beautifully prepared Silver Shadow which - not surprisingly - stole the
show during the
pre-meeting parade. It didn't last very long once the racing
started though! This car is shown in the photographs above.
The car
returned to Arena for Firecracker VII in November 1998 as a source for
spare
parts for John Hendy's second Rolls Royce racer. The picture on
the
far - right shows the wrecked motor from the previous year.
John Hendy wasn't the only Rolls
Royce
racer at Firecracker VII. He was joined by three other cars (No 754
Dave
Nicholls, No 600 Lee Wells and No 760 Terry Roberts) bringing the
running
total of cars raced to six and to start the day's racing the first all
Rolls-Royce race was held!
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This was a pretty tame affair with the two cars using Ford transplants
being well outpaced. Fittingly it was John Hendy who won the race
from the Suicide Squad's Dave Nicholls. This meeting attracted
considerable TV interest. Not
only did it feature on LIVE TV's regular weekly programme "Bangers and
Smash"
but also on BBC2's "Top Gear". Top Gear's Vicki Butler-Henderson
actually
drove car No 760 in the Rolls-Royce race finishing in fourth
place. |
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The "Top Gear" programme on 10 December
featured the Firecracker meeting and the in-car commentary
[/description] of Vicki Butler-Henderson makes quite entertaining
reading!
| "My choice of car for
today is this Roll
Royce. But its a Rolls Royce with a slight difference because
basically
it's a Ford Granada. Its a 2.8 V6 Granada engine and running gear
and
it is the noisiest Rolls-Royce I have ever been in. There is no
power
steering and there aren't even any windows. What am I doing
here?.
Finally my moment arrives, the extra special all Roller race.
These
four are Silver Shadows but I'm in one of the two with Ford workings
inside
which are pitted against two genuine Rollers. My car may not have
the
chrome of the Real McCoy but its certainly got the attitude.] Oh
my
God! Oh my God! Oh I just got hit! Oh my
God!
Oh no! I'm in last! I don't believe it! What a
disaster! The brakes are so spongy, the handling's all
over. Ohhh! I definitely wouldn't take this out on a
run down a supermarket because
you'd hardly get round the first bend of the roundabout. Its all
over
the shop! Oh two laps to go! I just want it to end!
Jolly
good fun. Excellent wheeze. Never do it again thanks very
much!" |
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My
reaction - and I suspect along with most others who saw the TV
programme - was "Wasn't
a pity she didn't drive it in the real race with more than 30 other
competitors!"
The real action took place in the
meeting proper when all of the Rolls-Royce came in for very close
attention
from fellow competitors. It was John Hendy who performed best,
dishing
out as good as he got, as shown in the pictures below.
The seventh Rolls-Royce to
appear on the race tracks was the No 16 car of Kevin Scott at the 1998
Spedeworth Banger Championship of the World meeting on 15 November 1998
- see pictures left and below. After partaking in the Best
Presented Car Award Scotty lost control early-on in his heat ending up
stuck on the centre. Surprisingly he did not appear again.
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A few weeks after the meeting Dave
Smith (Chair of the South West Banger Racing Club) explained what had
transpired on the night. It seems that having lost control and
ending up stuck on the grass in his heat Scotty returned to the
pits. At this point he was approached by a Belgian Rolls Royce
dealer who purchased the car there
and then for display in his showroom!
| The final pictures
were taken at Birmingham Wheels on 8th November. I was told
that this particular car was due to be prepared for the Christmas 1998
meeting at Mildenhall. The rather obvious point to make is that
there seemed an awful lot missing and that a tremendous amount of work
would be needed to get the car ready. I thought a nice touch was
the grass growing in the boot! In fact
this car did race at Mildenhall on 27th December. |
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This page have been made using the text
and pictures from Dave Carter
Throughout this website
Rolls-Royce logos, model names and other designations have been used
for identification and illustration purposes only. These names are the
property of the trademark holders as this is not an official
publication. The trademarks 'Rolls-Royce', the 'R-R' Logo, 'Spirit of
Ecstasy' and the 'R-R' Badge are the trademarks of Rolls-Royce
plc.
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