Race Report: Brands Hatch, 19 August 1973

This was the latest round in the Forward Trust Championship and most of the usual runners were present at Brands Hatch.

Mike Wilds jumped in amongst the front row from the second when the flag fell, as Ian Taylor and Tony Brise moved across to cover Wilds pole sitter Mo Harness led into Paddock, unluckily for Wilds he had anticipated the starter and was awarded the usual one minute penalty. Behind Harness it was Taylor from Wilds and Brise with Taylor in a determined mood and making all possible efforts to take the lead and entering Paddock both cars touched, fortunately without causing any problems. Finally on lap 5 by taking a novel line across the grass at Clearways Taylor somehow forced his way past a surprised Harness. Wilds took advantage of Harness loosing concentration to move up to second as Harness now found himself under attack from Brise. Next up was Richard Robarts in his ex-Nick Crossley March from Alan Jones GRD and Buzz Buzaglo’s March, the last four all running nose to tail. With the leaders unaware of Wilds penalty Taylor was under increasing pressure from the Dempster March, on lap 14 Wilds feinted around the outside at Paddock, as Taylor moved across to cover Wilds dived to the inside and took the lead. Brise also managed to get ahead of Harness at Kidney and closed in on the leaders.

There were no further changes amongst the leaders and Wilds took the chequered flag only to find that with his penalty he had dropped to fifteenth. A surprised Ian Taylor thus found himself declared the winner from Brise in second and Harness in third. Robarts had been right with Harness but fuel surge was causing his engine to cut out dropping him to seventh at the flag. Leonel Friedrich moved up to challenge Harness having moved up from tenth at the start passing Alan Jones on lap 12 but couldn’t find a way past. Jones found himself embroiled in a tense battle with Buzz Buzaglo until Jones managed to open out a gap, Buzaglo then battled with “Teleco” until the pair of them came across the slowing Robarts and “Teleco” got ahead in the confusion. Pedro Passadore had been running with “Teleco” until he had a spin at Druids, a pit stop showed a damper had failed, Johnny Gerber had also been with them but a slipping clutch saw him retire.

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