Thurtle family affair at Silverstone
Arthur and Boysie Thurtle bagged the spoils in their mighty Chevrolet Camaro at Silverstone on Saturday (31 May) in the latest round of the Heritage Grand Touring Car Challenge.
For the third race in a row, victory went to a father and son pairing as Rick Lloyd and Matthew Wurr gave chase in their Morgan Plus 8 as three family pairings packed our the top 10.
Qualifying
Just 0.316s covered the top five cars in qualifying, although the Thurtles were only fifth fastest. Instead, it was the similar Camaro of Alec Hammond/Graham Hathaway that topped the times sheets by just 0.021s from the Rick Lloyd Morgan Plus 8 which, with regular co-driver Peter Horsman on duty elsewhere, was again shared by Matthew Wurr.
The Donington Park winning Sunbeam Tiger of Chris Beighton and Jon Finnemore was third fastest with solo driver Chris Williams fourth fastest in his Morgan Plus 8.
The Thurtles were fifth ahead of the George Miller/Les Goble shared Aston Martin DBS V8.
The McCarthy family MGB GTV8, which would be started by father Roy, was the leading Class C car while the Peter Wheeler/Ben Samuelson pairing in Wheeler’s Aston Martin DB4 were just fractions away and best of the Class E runners.
In another giant-killing exhibition, Harvey and Clive Death had their Cooper S in front of some far more powerful cars en route to heading the Class A runners.
Race
On duty first, Arthur Thurtle had a blistering opening lap during which he went from fifth to first ahead of Hammond, Lloyd and McCarthy. Sadly, already missing was the Beighton Tiger. Lloyd ousted Hammond on the second lap and made inroads into Thurtle’s lead.
Such was Thurtle’s furious pace, that only Lloyd was able to live with it, but live with it he did and by the end of six glorious laps, they were nose to tail. By now Thurtle, in the much heavier car, was hatching a new game plan.
As he later explained, he felt it prudent to let Lloyd through and then try to keep tabs on him. "I felt that if I pushed too hard, maybe I might spin. I knew Rick’s co-driver wasn’t as fast as him, so I thought that if I could keep things together and then give Boysie the chance to have a go at him, we could still win," said Thurtle Snr.
As the laps unfurled, so Hammond hung on in third spot but came under ever increasing pressure from Williams. For several laps, they ran as one with Williams eventually pushing Hammond into the tiny mistake he needed to snatch the place.
Powering out of Luffield, Hammond slid wide on the kerb and just avoided going into the gravel, but it was enough to hand the advantage to Williams. But it didn’t last and, one lap later, Hammond had reasserted his authority over Williams.
Meanwhile, up front Thurtle became the first of the front-runners to make his pit stop on lap 19. Lloyd now continued to stretch his advantage until pitting after 22 laps. In by this stage for driver changes were the McCarthys and Williams together with Robin North who got the Mustang he shares with daughter Zoe as high as fifth.
On lap 22 the second placed Camaro of Hammond went missing and the presence of the safety car a few laps later indicated that something was amiss. In fact, Hammond had become the innocent victim of a mishap that befell Neil Cunningham (sharing Bob Pepper’s Mustang) at Becketts.
The Mustang’s throttle had jammed open as Cunningham swept through Maggotts and though he managed to quickly kill the engine, he was by now on the grass and heading straight across towards Becketts.
The Mustang shot across the bows of the Camaro, damaging the front of Hammond's car in the process, and with its front suspension broken, the Mustang finally came to rest on the short straight up to Chapel on the Grand Prix circuit, facing the way it had come. "I feel so sorry for Alec, he was the totally innocent party in my incident," said Cunningham.
Meanwhile, the safety car had picked up Wurr rather than the race leader, which was by now, with the lack of a pit stop, Mike Luck’s Jaguar E Type. The field circulated for several laps like this until eventually being waved through to allow the safety car to pick up the E-Type. But Luck immediately pitted as he’d come to the end of the pit stop window and so the safety car had to find Wurr once more.
The safety car duly pulled off with just over thirteen minutes to run and Thurtle Jnr had Wurr in his sights. As they hurtled towards Copse for the 33rd time, Boysie dived past into the lead and soon put some distance between himself and the chasing Wurr.
Williams finished third, one place and 12 seconds ahead of the Class C winning McCarthy family duo. The Luck E Type now driven by Jonathan Edwards was the final un-lapped runner in fifth spot.
Miller and Goble rounded out the top six, one place ahead of the Class E winning Wheeler/Samuelson pairing. The Death brothers bagged Class A honours, and while the other class fastest laps were set early on, Harvey had enough grip left to record his best race lap on the 39th lap.
Results - 50 minutes
1 Arthur and Boysie Thurtle (Chevrolet Camaro) 43 laps in 50m 33.367s (83.64mph); 2 Rick Lloyd/Matthew Wurr (Morgan Plus 8) +7.646s; 3 Chris Williams (Morgan Plus 8); 4 Roy and Russell McCarthy (MGB GTV8); 5 Mike Luck/Jonathan Edwards (Jaguar E Type); 6 George Miller/Les Goble (Aston Martin DBS V8); 7 Peter Wheeler/Ben Samuelson (Aston Martin DB4); 8 Robin and Zoe North (Ford Mustang); 9 Ian McCallum/Pete Foster (Aston Martin DB5); 10 John Shoesmith/Ray Barrow (Chevrolet Camaro). Class winners: Thurtle/Thurtle; McCarthy/McCarthy; Wheeler/Samuelson; Harvey and Clive Death (Mini Cooper S). Fastest lap: Lloyd 1m 03.608s (92.76mph).
Report by Paul Lawrence
