The story of Formula Ford
Late in 1965, I became a director of Motor Racing Stables Ltd which was the Brands Hatch based racing
school. My co-directors were John Webb and Geoffrey Clark; John was 'Mister Racing' in those days and was the MD of Grovewood
Securities Ltd that owned Brands, Mallory, Snetterton and Oulton Park. I consider that John is the best promoter
that's ever been around UK motor racing; the man was non-stop ideas 24/7 and ran the business for Grovewood like clockwork
and very profitably. Geoffrey was a very smart guy who had previously run a school operation at Finmere, he met John, they
got on well and Geoff agreed to move operations to Brands in '64.
I became the third member of the team as it suited us all for various reasons to do with business
and racing. The operation was doing OK but, the big problem was that we were using F3 cars for the progressive pupils and,
though the cars had rev limiters and other safeguards, the weekly damage bill was killing the bottom line. One Saturday
night, we were all having dinner with our wives at John's house and we all got into conversation about this issue.
We decided that what was needed was a cheaper engine that was not race tuned and, a less expensive
chassis that was easy to repair and a tyre that was not an out and out racing one. If we could package this little lot then
we thought it would transform our business. We agreed that night that John would talk to Walter Hayes at Ford, I would go
and talk to Colin Chapman about a potential chassis and that Geoff would have words with one or more of the tyre companies.
The rest is history; that night we had invented Formula Ford! John subsequently convinced Walter
that, not only would it be good for our business, but that it was the basis for a new cheap formula for people to get started
in. I saw Chapman and got him to agree to build a low spec. type Lotus 31 and Geoffrey got Firestone to provide tyres.
The whole exercise transformed our business, created the first in-house private race meetings and
established the world's most popular form of racing that there has ever been to this day. I am very proud to have been part
of the team that made it all happen.
The list of Formula One drivers who launched their car racing careers
with Formula Ford reads like a who's who in Motorsport. Over the past 43 years it has launched the careers of
many World Champions; people such as James Hunt, Emerson Fittipaldi, Jody Scheckter, Ayrton Senna, all who came from this
formula and went on to achieve their ultimate goal of becoming the F1 World Champion.
No other formula has ever been so successful or paved the way for young drivers to make their mark in the sport both here
in the UK, as well as in the rest of the world, for the past
43 years. Annual events such as the Formula Ford Festival at Brands Hatch, The Golden Helmet (last year in Ireland) and The
Walter Hayes Trophy at Silverstone are all a tribute to the popularity and success of what we three created all that time
ago.
