Race Report: Brands Hatch, 15 October 1972

There were two practice sessions for this Lombard North Central round and the grid lined up as below. Notable non-starters were Mike Wilds and Damien Magee who both suffered from terminal engine problems during qualifying.

Brise made the best start as the flag fell with Roger Williamson desperately looking for a gap to close up on the other GRD driver. The field made it to Bottom Bend with Brise ahead of von Opel, Williamson, Jones, Wood and Evans but next man up Walker was tapped from behind and his Ensign spun in the middle of the pack. Andy Sutcliffe spun in taking avoiding action and Tony Trimmer in his first outing in an Ensign was unable to avoid hitting the GRD, Trimmer’s car then hit the bank hard and the driver was fortunate to escape injury.

Brise led the next eight laps, the yellow flags at Bottom Bend making overtaking difficult but on lap 9 von Opel calmly dived inside Brise at Paddock and immediately began to pull away. Williamson also managed to get past Brise on the following lap but for some reason all the leading GRD drivers were afflicted with understeer on most corners and Williamson was forced to overdrive the car in an attempt to stay with von Opel. Finally on lap 15 Williamson’s efforts came to naught with a spin at Kidney which lost him several places.

Out in front Rikki von Opel cruised home to an easy victory from Tony Brise with Alan Jones third after a moment at Clearways delayed him. Roger Williamson recovered to fourth from Russell Wood and Bob Evans who nearly lost sixth at the finish from a fast closing Stan Matthews and Peter Hull. Most notable retirement was Barrie Maskell who only managed two laps until fuel feed problems afflicted his Vegantune.

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