Castle Combe celebrates its milestone 500th car race meeting on Easter Monday, with 500cc Formula 3 cars rolling back the years to the Wiltshire circuit’s inaugural event, run behind closed gates by the Bristol Motor Cycle & Light Car Club on 8 July 1950.
The 500cc initiative, which blossomed rapidly from seeds sown by motorsport-hungry Bristol enthusiasts in 1946, was adopted as Formula 3 in 1950 and a key to Second World War aerodrome Castle Combe’s early success as a race track. Its opening meeting featured pre-war Morgan ace Clive Lones win the programme-closing 500cc event in his bright red Tiger Kitten II. Evolved from the first production Iota P1, which the class pioneer had debuted in 1949, Lones’s intriguing confection was powered by a JAP engine manufactured by JA Prestwich Industries in North London. The long-established and prolific marque’s accessible products played a pivotal role in the category’s growth.
Nonetheless, competitors enjoyed free rein to choose their engines, most of single-cylinder configuration sourced from motorcycles. While the inexpensive and readily available JAP overhead valve designs opened the doors to racing to many, more powerful and reliable overhead cam Manx Nortons – tuned by experts such as Francis Beart and Robin Jackson, Steve Lancefield and Ray Petty – soon outgunned them.
Even so, some drivers/engineers preferred to plough their own furrow. Vincent HRD units and Triumph twins were not uncommon, while others opted for BSA and Rudge motivation. Continental marques such as BMW and Gilera were also represented as the word spread.
With the Royal Automobile Club satisfied of the wartime aerodrome perimeter track’s suitability in practical terms at the trial event – a mix of car and motorcycle races – the first public meeting at Castle Combe took place three months later, on 7 October. An estimated 12,000 spectators witnessed Ronald ‘Curly’ Dryden (Cooper Mk2) and Stirling Moss (Cooper Mk4) win the 500cc F3 qualifying heats, the latter after a battle with Peter Collins in a sister car. Collins narrowly won the final from Dryden. Moss, slow away, was soon flying but was thwarted by engine issues.
Source: Autosport