Race Report: Silverstone, 9 September 1973

A top class British-based entry arrived at Silverstone for the latest Forward Trust round and it was Mike Wilds who took pole position in his Dempster Developments March, while on row two Brian Henton was having his first outing in the works Ensign.

Wilds led away at the start and into Copse chased by Henton, Richard Robarts and Tony Brise but at Woodcote Robarts dived through on the inside to take the lead. Robarts led for the next eight laps with Henton always right on his gearbox and on lap 9 as they entered Copse Henton took the lead with the next eight cars running nose to tail behind him. Robarts was determined to regain the lead and on lap 13 he passed Henton again as Tony Brise moved up to third ahead of Mike Wilds, these leading four then began to pull away from the rest of the field.

As the first four entered Woodcote on the final lap they came across a couple of backmarkers, Angelo Piccione (March 733) and Spencer Elton (Ensign F372). As Henton slipped past Robarts again Elton didn’t get out of the way quickly enough and was struck by Wilds putting both cars out fortunately without injury to either driver. So Henton took the flag 0.2 seconds ahead of Robarts with Brise a further 0.8 seconds down in third, Kuwashima took fourth nearly five seconds away from the leaders. Back in eighth place was Andy Sutcliffe who was filling in for the still ailing Ian Taylor in the Baty March.
There was an unfortunate incident during the race when Norman Moffett pitted his GRD following a spin, he came in far too quickly hitting two of Henton’s mechanics injuring one of them quite badly. Moffett will have to attend a RAC tribunal to explain his driving.

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