Race Report: Oulton Park, 29 April 1972

With another race at Thruxton on the following day and the lure of Shell Super Oil points on offer at Zandvoort only 14 cars made it to Oulton Park for this round of the Lombard North Central Championship. This was further reduced when during the very wet practice session second fastest Masami Kuwashima found a cracked cylinder in the Holbay of his GRD 372, Brian McGuire didn’t even make it this far when a cracked wheel was discovered on his Brabham BT38.

The track was drier for the race although still requiring wets to be fitted, Damien Magee needed a push start on the grid which resulted in a 10 second penalty. Rikki von Opel was slow away at the start and Tony Brise drove his Brabham BT38 past the Ensign to take the lead at Old Hall, next up were Damien Magee in his Palliser from the GRD of Andy Sutcliffe. Brise extended his lead at the front as Magee found himself trapped behind von Opel until lap 4 when the Ensign took to the grass at Knickerbrook, Magee shot past and began to whittle down Brise’s lead moving into first place at Lodge on lap 11. Magee held

on despite his Novamotor making worrying noises to take the chequered flag first but his penalty dropped him to second, Sutcliffe took third after outbraking von Opel into Old Hall on the last lap, the GRD driver being a little lucky as his engine cut out on the slowing down lap.

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