Andrew Smith, right, arrives back in the paddock after his first run in the Hesketh 308.



Smith attacks the chicane at the Monaco swimming pool in the Hesketh ahead of American Chris MacAllister's ex-Niki Lauda Ferrari 312T2.


Ecurie Ecosse in Monaco

The Monaco Historic meeting in May saw a surprise late entry of Andrew Smith in Mike Wrigleys Hesketh 308E. As you can read elsewhere on the site Andrew races one of the Ecurie Ecosse Group C2 DFL engined Ecosse cars in historic sports car racing but to arrive at Monaco, having never driven a single seater of any time, to drive a Hesketh was surely tempting disaster. However, Andrew was unfazed by it all and laughed that he would have at least 20 yards to drive the car down the pit lane before he actually hit the circuit for first qualifying !! As it turned out he was not only sensible but quick. He kept his eyes glued on his mirrors and drove smoothly into 15th fastest out of 35 starters, a remarkable performance. He did the same in second practice and was even quicker and so the race looked promising however he retired early on. As Andrew said afterwards "I enjoyed the experience thoroughly, and very glad I did it. The input shaft failed on lap 3 hence my early retiral however the start and the first couple of laps were amazing."

Andrew now has the bug and is looking around for a Formula 1 car for historic events in the future.

Barry Wood in his ex-Ecurie Ecosse Cooper-Bristol also had a great Monaco historic event and was consistently fastest of all the Cooper Bristols in practice. However in the race he finished 9th overall in his race, a race won, incidentally by American Duncan Dayton with his Lotus 16, a car from another era in Grand Prix racing. However Barry is now looking forward to the BRDC Classic at Silverstone in July where he aims to finish ahead of his Cooper-Bristol rivals Paul Grant and Steve Russell.

Another ex-Ecurie Ecosse driver racing at Monaco had a less successful time. Bobby Verdon-Roe raced with the team in Vauxhalls in the BTCC some years ago. At Monaco, however, he was driving a McLaren M26 but hit the barriers hard and so returned to England saddened by the experience.