First win feelings

The SDC Classic Formula Ford championship produced another new winner at Donington: Jake Shortland.

Shortland and his Lola T440 won’t be in action at Brands Hatch next week, but they were very much in evidence at Donington, running the front all day and winning the first race.

With its forward seating position, high shark-fin rear bodywork and pointed profile, the T440 wasn’t hugely successful when it first raced in 1976, only winning one heat of the Townsend Thoresen championship that year, driven by future Lola director Mike Blanchet. However, it proved popular in Australia a few years later and even took Stephen Brook and Phillip Revell to the TAA Driver to Europe championship in 1980 and 1981 respectively.

Shortland is proving it can be competitive again.

“It gets a lot of attention,” he says.

“It’s nice to have something different and to show everyone it’s as good as the Van Diemens, really.”

This is his first win in cars.

“I won in karting a few years ago, back on short circuits, but that was a while back.

“It feels good. It feels like it’s been a long time coming. I haven’t really had the luck or the time in the car to be able to get this far, really.

“It feels nice to finally get there.”

Shortland will be out again at Croft, at the beginning of September.

(Image courtesy of Andrew Ellis)

Meet Calvin Bainbridge

There was another new face on the SDC Classic Formula Ford grid at Silverstone and he’s due back out at Donington. Calvin Bainbridge, driving father Mike’s Lola T200, picked up a ninth and fifth place in the first two car races of his career.

“It’s been quite a while. A 21-year gap,” says Bainbridge about the lengthy hiatus in his motorsport career. Although he grew up around the sport and around his father’s cars, he stopped karting seriously at the age of about eight and did not get back into a racing seat until last month’s International Trophy.

“The opportunity came up after studying at Silverstone College, for the mechanics side of it,” he explains. “So it came up recently.”

In perhaps the most convoluted route from junior karter to adult historic racer yet known, Bainbridge only decided to become a mechanic after several years as a successful chef, working in award-winning kitchens up and down the country. So how do you go from being a chef to being a mechanic?

“Dodgy knees! Old man knees I inherited from my dad!

“I couldn’t do the hours any more. Although I can’t actually do the physical work on the mechanic side any more.”

Driving a car still isn’t a problem for him, fortunately.

His career change has been pretty radical, but there are still some common attributes between a workshop and a professional kitchen.

“Attention to detail, probably, more than anything. You have to double-check everything with food, you have to double-check everything with cars when you’re setting them up, make sure everything is perfect.

“But other than that, there’s nothing really, to be honest!”

Bainbridge is scheduled to do six races this year, with more possibly next season. He will be in action at Donington for two of them tomorrow.

(Image courtesy of Ben Lawrence/HSCC)

Classic champion changes to Formula Ford 2000

Reigning HSCC Classic Formula Ford champion Jordan Harrison has bought a Lola T580 and will join the Formula Ford 2000 grid in 2023.

The switch followed a conversation with Simon Hadfield, who ran his car last year, at the end of the 2022 season, when Harrison was working out what he wanted to do next.

“It was quite funny,” he confides. “He said, if you win a championship once, that’s really good. If you win it twice, then that’s absolutely brilliant. But if you win in three times, then that’s a bit cute. Have you thought about doing something else?”

The only racing car that Harrison has ever owned is the Lola T540E which he has shared with his father Mark since 2018. Buying another car was not really on their radar. “We weren’t interested in having another car. Frankly, we don’t have a place to store two cars. It’s still a bit of an issue. We haven’t quite solved that.”

Harrison and his wife Sophia were belatedly celebrating their marriage when negotiations were taking place, once he had looked into Formula Ford 2000 as a likely new adventure.

“Whilst we were in Suffolk, Simon was texting me a bit. He sent me a link to a 580 from a guy called Phil Walker.

“He’d got it from the the engine builders, TKM. It’s like Trigger’s broom; it’s got a brand new chassis, with the exception of the hoop in front of the driver where the steering goes, and the chassis plate.”

Harrison and Walker exchanged messages. When Harrison mentioned that he had been racing a T540E, Walker remembered racing against a Mark Harrison in a similar car. It turned out he was talking about Harrison’s father (there are a few Mark Harrisons in UK motorsport) and their own car.

The T580 did not set the world alight in period and Harrison isn’t dreaming of running at the front just yet.

“It did okay in period. It won a few races in its first season (1978) and won a couple the year after that, but it wasn’t successful like some of the Reynards were.

“People assume that if you want to win in historic FF2000 you have to have a Reynard, and maybe you do. We’ll find out.

“The Hadfields like stuff that people think isn’t really fashionable and hasn’t won much before, and make it really good.”

There is some confusion over which class it will join.

“If you look in the regs, it’s Class A,” says Harrison. “But then if you look at how they classify the cars, it’s Class B.

“It’s about 5% of the original chassis number 16, although probably that’s being generous. They only made 17 of them.

“The engine is a bit of an unknown quantity but it did come from the engine builder. We’ve got Mike Moyers to do a new exhaust, which is the first thing we sorted properly with the other car as well.”

The Harrisons are set to begin testing shortly and aim to run the car for the whole FF2000 season. They have even bought a motorhome for the first time, having relied on hotels and rented motorhomes until now. “We had a tent the first year we did the Festival,” says Harrison. “It got down to like, five degrees.”

The T580 is currently with Hadfield and his team, although Harrison and his father plan to run it themselves.