Race Report: Thruxton, 18 August 1974

The field for this Forward Trust event was boosted by a couple of extra cars from the Italian series who were heading to a race in Scandinavia. Practice saw Mike Tyrrell (March 733) get his hat trick of pole positions setting a time 0.2 seconds quicker than Danny Sullivan in his similar car. Pre-race favourite Brian Henton was relegated to the back row after only a few practice laps due to a troublesome engine that needed changing.

Tyrrell lead away from pole position but once again it all went wrong for the Antiguan on the opening lap, as the field entered Cobb there was chaos with seven cars involved in an incident. The perpetrator wasn’t clear, some thought it was Moraes, others Tyrrell himself, either way Tyrrell was out on the spot as was the March-Lancia 733 of visiting Italian Marcello Rosei. At the end of the first lap it was Ribiero closely followed by Danny Sullivan with Henton who had taken to the grass at Cobb to avoid the kerfuffle up to third. Lap 3 saw Henton get within striking distance of Ribeiro and Sullivan, this lap also seeing the demise of Moraes with a puncture sustained in the opening lap incident.

Tony Rouff had moved up to fourth ahead of a group of cars that were soon to be reduced as a continuing consequence of the lap 1 accident, José Espirito Santo was black flagged on lap 3 with his oil cooler becoming unattached and Barrie Maskell was out with a flat rear tyre. Henton pushed Sullivan down to third on lap 5 and promptly set off after Ribeiro, behind Sullivan it was Tony Rouff, Dick Parson’s Ensign and Nick von Persian’s March but within three laps Parson’s was out with gearbox problems and von Preussen had his engine seize when he lost his oil cooler.
The field was failing fast there were now only six cars running of which only four were on the same lap, Henton was still trying to find a way past Ribeiro and on lap 9 he did it. Once ahead he immediately pulled away to take the victory by 2.6 seconds, Ribeiro finished second with Sullivan completing the podium in third.

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