Founded in the year nineteen twenty-four February 1980

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EUROPEAN RACING MEMORIES AN UNDERSTATED off-white ski-jacket matched the mood of the plain but effective Golf GTi parked outside our London offices. Typically, John Fitzpatrick had arrived ahead of schedule. In the Porsche briefcase, which he criticised with a candour unawed by famous names that was to characterise the interview, were a selection of relevant and usable pictures from his racing career. However, this was not a hungry young driver conscious of his PR image but the precautions typical of a man who simply said, “I can be a bit of a pain really. The things 1 do, I like to do well. ...” A pause for a deprecating grin, “You could say that is why I did not make a go of single-seaters or rallying.” Perhaps the biggest surprise with a driver who won the British Saloon Car Championship in 1966 and who has twice won both the European GT Championship and the Porsche Cup (1972/74), is that he did not turn fully professional until, “about two years ago, after the Jaguar thing. Before that I did not really earn all my living from racing. I did not have to race to earn money, so I used to do it as a weekend thing that was fun, if you did well.” To support himself John first worked in the family specialist business of aluminium truck bodies; in fact there were actually two such companies to demand his business attention. A few years ago John became actively involved in a VW-Audi dealership in Solihull, not far from his home in Britain at Henly-in-Arden, Subsequently John Fitzpatrick has retained some financial interest in the dealership that bears his name, but it is run by others now. It was through friends in Shenstone Car Club that John “Fitz” Fitzpatrick begun to participate in motor sport. There was no family interest in the sport, in fact his mother hated it. “I just did all the Shenstone events in my 850 Mini. This was in 1961 and some of 1962 when I would take my road car along to driving tests, sprints, club rallies: anything. “There were really two phases to my rallying. The first spell was in the period we are talking about and I remember doing things like the Birmingham Post Rally ... that was a good one. The trouble for me was that I could never find a navigator who was not sick! I did events with quite a lot of people, even co-driving with Alec Poole. That was a disaster too, for I got sick then! Rallying was obviously no good to me, we could never to get to the finish.” Midlands motorsport at that time was rich in characters who were to play a part later in John’s life, especially John Handley (who now owns Broadspeed and Dealer Opel Team, as well as a successful roller chain business at Wolver-hampton) and Ralph Broad. John remembers his first race as “one of those reliability trials”, but is far clearer about the second and third races he did in 1962. “I was a clear and definite last at the back of the Snetterton field. I was going so slowly that I could sec my Mum having hysterics all over the pits. At Oulton Park for my third race we took along some of my mates and put the car on a trailer, purely for effect. We didn’t tie it on properly and it actually fell off the back on the way in. We really did not know until we came to unload. So it was a rather sheepish bunch who went back to that rough entrance and retrieved it!” The next step was to go down to the Broad family business “to get a few bits for the Mini. I built the engine myself” — another burst of laughter— “probably in the garden or something stupid like that, because it was all filled with sssh, you know what Naturally it blew up at our first Brands. The engine was destroyed, so we shot back to Birmingham and ‘nicked’ one from a customer’s car without telling Ralph. “The race went well, but I remember how we had to nip back and restore the engine to its rightful owner before telling Ralph. Actually, he seemed quite impressed with our initiative, for we had not known that this was common practice in racing. “Anyway he agreed to look after the 850 engine for me. I think it was on my car that we actually first put together the words Broad and speed. It was also painted up in what were to become Ralph’s colours for quite a few years regal purple with silver stripe.” Fitzpatrick was successful in all kinds of Minis, commenting today that it then took him time to adapt to each car before he could go quickly “Stewart or Clark were naturals who could go quickly in anything, straight away. Nowadays experience lets me go fast straight away too, but it’s not a natural thing: experience is very important in touring and GT cars. That is why I expect at least another 3-4 years at the front in these cars.” In 1964-65 Fitzpatrick replaced Whitmore in the John Cooper Mini team, racing all three S capacity sizes in Britain and Europe. He chiefly recalls that: “Ralph bought an S for Handley and he could beat us: but 1 could beat John H. in a Downton Mini, for it was 10 classes better. “Why? Well there wasn’t so much in the chassis in those days, they were usually lowered, running on Konis, still had the tiny wheels and a rear roll bar . . . no really fancy spring rates or aerodynamics to worry about. So it more or less came down to the engine and Daniel Richmond — who was the nicest bloke you could ever wish to meet — simply provided the best. “Daniel always used to take you round to look at the latest tweaks he had produced, and I remember how his cars never had wide wheels or fancy stripes. I took my S down there and they did a super job. Daniel said to me, ‘Don’t tell Bunty (Richmond’s wife) that we haven’t given you a bill!’” At the close of 1964 Fitzpatrick made his first trip to Australia where he toured with Paddy Hopkirk and Rauno Aaltonen. This was mainly a publicity trip (they were looked after by Evan Green) but the team did the 6 hours at Sandown as part of the schedule. Later BMC returned (without Fitzpatrick) to win at Bathurst in the annual 500 “miler”. The 1965 season had variety, racing for Cooper again and rallying occasionally for Abingdon. John remembers the RAC in an MG-B as “a total disaster”, and hilariously recalls his 1965 outing in an 1800 with an ATV man alongside and a third passenger in the 23
ack. “At least we had our back seat man until we set out on the mountain circuit deciders as one of only 35 survivors,” John recalled. “Without the man in the back the hand¬ling was diabolical! It was undriveable. . . .” A twinkle of the eyes and Fitzpatrick brushed back grey-peppered hair over a hairline that has receded fractionally to acknowledge the years of crash helmets passing over, before he continued with his tale. “Well, perhaps I was going like a loonie as well! Trying to beat Paddy and Rauno with an 1800. Eventually there were simply no brakes. We teetered on the edge in darkness, not knowing what the drop was, 60 ft. or 600! Luckily it was only about 60 ft., but it took us an hour to get the car out: it was upside down and I remember studying the stream that was running through the open windows and across the roof!” For 1966 Fitzpatrick made the transition from front drive to rear as Broadspeed aligned themselves with Ford. Quite a shock decision at the time, as the Broad family had dealt with BMC for many years. Vivid memories include a letter from Henry Taylor, then Ford competitions manager, toward the close of 1966. “It was the year we took the British title with the Anglia. He was apologising that my retainer would be only £1,500 for the next season: the usual stuff about how it would be more next time,” Fitzpatrick remembered with a grin. More sombrely he recalled how Peter Proctor’s accident in an Anglia highlighted the lack of fire protection in saloons of the period. John felt that Proctor’s replacement, the attractive Anita Taylor, was “very good on fast circuits: you had to work very hard indeed if you were going to stay ahead of her. On the slower tracks I think she lacked the sheer strength to get the car round.” Of the change to RWD, one that few top Mini drivers made successfully at the time, John commented that the MG-B had given him some practice, though, “if you got into trouble with a Mini you just put your foot down and pulled yourself out of it. The Anglia was very underpowered (a 1-litre) and had to be driven very smoothly while trying to beat Unett and Calcutt in the Fraser Imps. We really had to fight for the title down to the last race. John Young had to beat Rhodes in the 1,300 class with his Superspeed Anglia and I had to beat the Imps: that is exactly what did happen, but it was a close thing”. A second season with Broadspeed and the Anglia followed in 1967, John remaining a Broadspeed contracted driver up to the close of 1972, having driven Escorts powered by 1,300 GT, 1,600 Twin Cam and capacities from 1.7-litres to 2.0 in Ford-Cosworth BDA engines. John drove both in Britain and Europe, the overseas contract (1971) was with Ford Koln. As the Escort grew in cubic capacity and turned into a very sophisticated racing machine with the advent of the BDA engine, coupled to those extensively modified, big wing rolling chassis, Fitzpatrick’s reputation also expanded. No longer content with classwinning John F. was chasing outright victories. Fighting for just that opportunity at the Motor Show 200, closing the 1971 Group 2 season at Brands Hatch, “Fitz” in the immaculate white Broadspeed BDA was harrying Frank Gardner’s SCA 5.7 Camaro ruthlessly. Gerry Birrell could not believe his eyes, for as he nosed his silver Borehamrun Capri RS after the gigantic dust-up going on ahead, Fitzpatrick and Gardner collided. John recalled, “Frank went right into the bridge parapet before Clearways and I destroyed the Escort too.” Birrell simply shot through falling wreckage to take his last lap victory, and the only one of that Capri’s career in British Championship racing! However there was much more to it than that, as Fitzpatrick told us. “The irony was Frank and I had just been on holiday to Marbella with our respective families. We had spent the whole time as the best of mates, telling each other how fast our cars were and how we would blow each other off when we got home. . . . Ralph had also sold the Escort prior to the race but there wasn’t much left to offer afterwards!” The German connection The Fitzpatrick name was known in Europe from various forays in the sixties with both Minis and Anglias, but class winners normally do not get the big offers. Thus when John was offered other cars he took them up gratefully. While we thought of him mainly in the Broadspeed connection from 1966-72, he was piling up the miles in cars as diverse as the 250 LM Ferrari (“beautiful light steering and handled well.” he commented, though he did end up in a ditch in one at Brands during the 1967 l,000kms!), plus Bill Bradley’s fuel injected 910 Porsche, and Ben Pon’s Porsche 911. The latter was a significant outing in the 1967 Nurburgring 6 hours, for the car and Pon were very competitive. John also showed up well, though Lucien Bianchi’s Alfa GTA was the winner. It gave some of the Germans competing in their home race, the biggest motor sporting event in Germany outside the GP. an idea of what the quiet Englishman was capable of in a faster car. John remembers the 911s of that era as “very tailhappy, very much over-steering cars on the narrow wheels they had then and we didn’t have slicks either. Pon was very quick in it, faster than Stommclen, Mitter or Neerpasch”. John also drove a small-rear-engine design, the Abarth 1000 Berlina, and remembers one race in 1966 particularly well. “It was at Snetterton, and my team-mates included Alan Rees, Johannes Ortner and Giancarlo Baghetti. Rees had a car without belts in, I insisted on having them in my car, and Alan rolled hard enough to hurt himself. Signor Avidano (who manages Abarth for Fiat today) was team manager and he said it didn’t matter who won. “It poured with rain and I knew which way Snetterton went, so off I went, miles in the lead. I came in for a pit stop and it was a really leisurely affair. People wandered about cleaning the screen and making sure the others caught me up. I was so mad, when I did get out there, I spun twice on the first lap!” When John did calm down a little he forged back into the lead again, innocently saying afterwards that the rain was so heavy he didn’t see the final lap pit board asking him to slow down for the other Fiat-Abarths. Another team manager’s decision, this time towards the end of 1971, decided John’s German career. “I was in the Cologne Escort at Jarama, the last round 24
Page 1 and 2: February 1980 Motor Sport Founded i
Page 3 and 4: is more than twice as dangerous as
Page 5 and 6: and Swedish F3 driver Stefan Johans
Page 7 and 8: During the warm-up Andretti’s Lot
Page 9 and 10: go that there was no need for major
Page 11 and 12: acing a white, low-chassis. 100 m.p
Page 13 and 14: time, there comes the temptation to
Page 15 and 16: in a taxi, on a day of visits to hi
Page 17 and 18: layer of leather. The lid was then
Page 19 and 20: THE BANDAMA RALLY A TITLE collected
Page 21 and 22: FORD’S SABBATICAL IT is just over
Page 23: Apart from having to provide an ope
Page 27 and 28: Fitzpatrick’s opinions of the mac
Page 29 and 30: We got totally confused and found l
Page 31: the International Sporting Code and

Founded in the year nineteen twenty-four February 1980

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