Race Report: Oulton Park, 26 August 1972

A good field of 26 cars arrived at Oulton Park for this Lombard North Central round despite there being a Forward Trust race at Thruxton the following day. Jochen Mass took pole position in his works STP-March on his first visit to the circuit, Roger Williamson should have been next after equalling the German’s time but a crash at Druids after six laps of practice wrote off the tub of his GRD. Fortunately the works team had a fully plumbed spare in their transporter and in only 3 hours a new car was built up for Williamson who was forced to start from the back of the grid. The works GRD of Andy Sutcliffe made the best start but Mass was in front by Knickerbrook but then had a hairy old moment that dropped him to fourth, luckily the other closely following cars managed to avoid the errant March. A group of eight cars soon pulled away at the front of the field with Walker who had taken over from Sutcliffe on lap 2 in front followed by the GRD then came Mass back up to third, von Opel, Bob Evans, Damien Magee, Masami Kuwashima and Tony Brise. Mass had another grassy moment on lap 6 at Lodge which allowed Evans and von Opel past but Evans was out a lap later when contact with Magee split a front wheel on the March. Sutcliffe was out on lap 9 when he span at Esso and hit the barrier bending a front wishbone,

he tried to continue at the back but was forced to retire with the wheel about to part company from the car. Walker lost the lead to von Opel on lap 10 and then had to watch his teammate disappear into the distance as he had to drop back with increasing understeer. Mass was out on lap 10 with overheating from a damaged radiator caused by one of his incidents, Magee joined him on lap 15 with a spin at Esso, the Irishman finding a stone had punctured his radiator.
So it was that von Opel took the chequered flag from his teammate although Walker was fortunate to hold second after he had been caught by Kuwashima and Brise, the GRD then ran over the Brabham’s rear wheel slightly delaying them both. Walker then took advantage of of the slow Royale of Lee Kaye to ensure his runner-up spot, Kuwashima managing to get ahead of Brise for third. Neil Ginn crossed the line in fifth, the GRD driver having taken the spot from Russell Wood’s March on the last lap. Notable retirements included Williamson who had made it up to ninth before a waterpipe came off the hastily assembled GRD, Peter Hull who bent a corner on his Brabham at Druids on lap 14 when in sixth and Mike Wilds (Ensign) and John Bisignano (Martini) who took each other off early on in the race at Esso.

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