Race Report: Cadwell Park, 13 July 1975

A disappointing entry of only 15 cars made it to Cadwell Park for this the ninth round of the BP Super Visco Championship, the following weekends support race at the British GP obviously deterring several runners from attending. Fortunately most of the top runners did arrive in an effort to increase their points tally.

Pole position went to Danny Sullivan whose works Modus was fitted for the first time with a Novamotor Toyota unit, equalling the Kentucky Kid’s time was the works March of Alex Ribeiro. Championship leader Gunnar Nilsson found himself near the back of the grid with a time of 1:31.2 after an off removed the nosecone and supporting frame from his March 753 and the Swede set his time without these important items fitted. Out in his spare BAF March 743 Rupert Keegan also did much of his practice without a nose being fitted.
Non-starters for the race were Bob Arnott who broke a timing chain tensioner in the engine of his March and Tim Brise who was unhappy with the handling of his Elden and decided to give the race a miss.

Sullivan made an excellent start to lead from Ribeiro who bogged down slightly on his getaway, Chris Barnett moved into third ahead of Ingo Hoffman, Patrick Neve and Dick Parsons. Sullivan quickly opened out a gap on his pursuers and then proceeded to hold his comfortable cushion with no apparent problem. Meanwhile Ribeiro had moved clear of the others in second, Barnett was still third with Hoffman close behind, Parsons was next up with Nilsson trying to make up for his lowly grid position and looking for a way past. Neve was beginning to drop away with brake problems, he would later leave the track and leave the Safir in a ditch when the brakes locked.
Nilsson literally pushed Parsons out of the way in his efforts to get through only to find the Modus driver repeating the compliment launching the March into the air. Nilsson fell back momentarily before launching another go, however his March was now a little twitchy following its flight and on lap 5 he lost the car at Charlies. At this point the F3 cars are in top gear and the March dug into the dirt and rolled several times before coming to a halt, Nilsson was able to extricate himself from the wreck luckily without doing himself any harm.
Back at the front Hoffman had got ahead of Barnett and was now closing in on Ribeiro, he continued to close despite his engine not sounding too healthy but a spin at the bottom of the Mountain saw him drop back behind Parsons. Barnett also spun but he bent his rear wing which punctured his oil tank causing his retirement. With a lap to go Ribeiro had a moment on the dirt at Gooseneck which allowed Parsons and a fast closing Hoffman to catch up but the positions remained unchanged at the flag. Rupert Keegan’s unhappy weekend continued when he had to retire from the race with a blown head gasket.

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