New at Old Irish Racing

Fabulous!

No excuse needed to buy this one, it is a fab subject and when the price is right, jump on it.

You get brownie points for the T70, one of my favourite sports racers. The Mk3B is just gorgeous and has a great soundtrack with the small block Chevy. I can remember seeing the Bonnier cars at Brands Hatch on several occasions. I may have the model that you have, indeed I bought two more T70's recently at my local toyfair. And other race cars, it was a good day for picking them up at good prices. Plus I do know a guy who owns a T70 Mk3B, it finished second at Brands last weekend. Oh, just remembered that I bought the new book on the T70, it covers all the races etc, it's very heavy and quite pricey at 90 pounds here but I found it with a site selling it for 65 pounds which was okay by me. The author is Gordon Jones.

I didnt need to see that!  😁 One could cut off the van body and extend the chassis, but not a project I want to take on right now.  Doesn't mean I won't try to find the van though!  😄

Nice find Jerry. This looks like it was driven right on the limit.

Ying and Yang - The two cars and drivers presented here are interesting studies in contrasts. One, Cooper and Stirling Moss were at the pinnacle of their careers. On the other hand, both Surtees and Sam Posey were both struggling to find their way. Cooper and Moss’ fortunes were unknowingly soon to drastically. Surtees and Posey were still full of hope that their fortunes would improve. Both drivers are favorites of mine and both have interesting (to me anyway) similarities. Both were good all round drivers, although Moss had more talent as well as luck in getting some of the best drives. Both were excellent authors and TV commentators, although Posey was by and far the more accomplished in both. Moss hoped for a World Championship which never came. Posey hoped for a F1 career that only lasted two races. Ying and Yang and important additions to my collection.

Cooper T53 – BRDC International Trophy, Silverstone, 1961 : Winner, Stirling Moss – Spark




The Intercontinental Formula was created in 1961 as an alternative to the smaller 1.5L F1 displacement limit imposed that year. Designed to give larger displacement formula cars a series to run in, the Intercontinental Formula allowed a maximum of 3.0L. While the series only ran one season, it did attract name driving talent, even if it was primarily British makes which contested the five races in the series, all in the UK. The dominant car in the series was the Cooper T53 and Stirling Moss won three races in Rob Walkers Cooper with the other two races won by Jack Brabham. One of Moss best formula drives was the BRDC International Trophy at Silverstone in this car.

While the FIA Never granted the Intercontinental status alongside F1, there were some great races as well as appearances of cars like the last Vanwall, the Fergusson, Scarab and Aston Martin formula cars which never ran in F1. Slippery track conditions brought on by heavy rain made the track treacherous and there were multiple spins and off-track excursions. Moss was first away to be passed by Brabham on the first lap. Both running masterful races, Moss got by Brabham on the 23rd of 80 laps and continued to pull away. By the time the rain had ended near race finish, Moss had lapped the entire field handily winning the race against some of racings best (Brabham, McLaren, Surtees, Ireland, Gurney, Bandini, Hill, Brooks and Flockhart)!





Surtees TS9B – US Grand Prix, Watkins Glen, 1972 – Sam Posey`- Spark




The United States Grand Prix at Watkins Glen was the final race on the F1 calendar in 1972. Even though he had lost the World Drivers Championship to Emerson Fittipaldi, Jackie Stewart dominated the last two races of the season in his Tyrrell. The race at Watkins Glen always offered up the largest amount of prize money of any F1 race and in 1972 that was $275K, with almost ever entrant getting good appearance money. As a result, the race had the most entrants with 31. Included among those was Sam Posey in a one-off drive in a Surtees like he did in 1971, this year in the TS9B. In 1971 he didn’t finish, in 1972 after qualifying 23rd he finished 12th, two laps down.




As a fairly new F1 team Surtees had a promising third F1 season in 1972, with one podium and each of the three team drivers scoring points so that Surtees finished 5th in the Constructors Championship. Sam Posey was racing a Surtees chassis in the American F5000 series and doing well. His team owners had sponsored him in his first Indy 500 ride and made a deal with Surtees to “buy” the car for the USGP, bringing their F5000 and Indy sponsor with them and Surtees I’m sure appreciated the extra cash. Posey did well for the first race he ever sat in the car. Enough so that Surtees offered him a job for the next F1 & F2 seasons. An offer he wisely declined. He pursued other options.


Post Script - Its hard to imagine in this day and age that even the back markers in today’s F1 grid would sell a one off ride to someone basically off the street, leaving their contract driver sitting on the pit wall. Yet this is what Surtees did in 1972, giving Tim Schenken’s ride to Posey. True, Posey and his car owners (one was Frank Carrillo of connecting rod fame) were good Surtees customers for their F5000 chassis, but Surtees obviously needed the cash they brought to the table to continue funding his F1 efforts. Schenken ultimately got to drive Surtees new F1 car in development for 1973 at Watkins Glen that weekend, but unbeknownst to him, his career at Surtees and in F1 was over (the likeable Australian did continue to do well in sports cars and co-founded Tiga Race Cars.)

Great car and model, great back story!