\u201cI SAY, OLD CHAP, FANCY A SPIN IN THE E-TYPE?\u201d<\/p>\n
Northamptonshire\u2019s Oliver Gavin has been a GM Corvette driver for the past nine seasons and rarely has an opportunity, or time, to drive cars produced by other manufacturers.\u00a0 The one glorious exception in his, and many other professional drivers\u2019 schedules, is Goodwood.\u00a0 The championship-winning sports car driver last year made his debut at the Goodwood Revival meeting with outstanding results, winning the St Mary\u2019s Trophy in a pre-1966 Mini Cooper S with the car\u2019s entrant, Nick Swift.<\/p>\n
This weekend he will once again be demonstrating his considerable talents in two different cars.\u00a0 In the RAC TT Celebration race, the main event on Sunday afternoon, he will be driving a 1961 Jaguar E-Type Roadster (chassis 20), prepared by historic racing specialist, Martin Stretton, which has previously participated in five Goodwood meetings.\u00a0 Oliver will be partnering the car\u2019s owner, Mark Clubb, in the one-hour, two-driver challenge for closed-cockpit GT cars (1960-1964), alongside some of the most famous names in motor sport in around \u00a3100million of exotic cars.\u00a0 Models such as AC Cobra, Ferrari 250 GTO, Lightweight E-Types and Aston Martin DB4 GT Zagatos will be lining up for a visual and audible feast of racing.<\/p>\n
While last year\u2019s St Mary\u2019s Trophy was a single-make event in celebration of the Mini, this year the best-loved saloon cars of the 1950s return to Goodwood to provide some thrilling action.\u00a0 The St Mary\u2019s Trophy is a two-part race, with celebrity drivers taking the wheel on Saturday, followed by the owner-drivers on Sunday, and the result declared on aggregate.\u00a0 Former Le Mans winner, Gavin, will be partnering Des Smail in a 1959 Austin A40 on behalf of the car\u2019s owner, Andrew Higginson.\u00a0 The formidable entry list includes Martin Brundle, Derek Bell, Dickie Attwood, Tom Kristensen, and Nic Minassian.<\/p>\n
Oliver can\u2019t wait for the action to begin, having just had a brief test in the car.\u00a0 \u201cI\u2019ve been up to Mallory Park to give the E-Type a try and it was great fun.\u00a0 I got a lot more tuned in and feel pretty at home in it now.\u00a0 It\u2019s amazing how much the car moves around and how much oversteer you can get.\u00a0 In fact, I discovered that you need the oversteer to get a time out of the car and it requires a very different driving style to anything I\u2019ve driven lately.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou have to do all your braking in a straight line then turn the car into the corner which is very different to the modern way of driving where you have to take slick tyres and stiff chassis into account.\u00a0 I\u2019m now beginning to understand how it all moves together; it\u2019s a very different beast and fascinating.\u00a0 It\u2019s great to work with Martin Stretton, who\u2019s very knowledgeable on all aspects of historic racing and who was able to give me some very valuable guidance.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019ll have a car to race at the front of the TT race, as we\u2019ve got a considerable weight disadvantage compared to the Lightweight E-Type models, for example, but we\u2019ll be in the mix and part of the fun and that\u2019s what the Goodwood Revival is all about.\u00a0 I\u2019ll also be driving the Austin A40 with Des Smail and looking forward to competing again in the St Mary\u2019s Trophy which I was lucky enough to win last year in the Mini.\u00a0 I hope to be able to repeat the same result with Des in the A40.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u00a9 RIF | Miller Media-Fiona Miller<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cI SAY, OLD CHAP, FANCY A SPIN IN THE E-TYPE?\u201d Northamptonshire\u2019s Oliver Gavin has been a GM Corvette driver for the past nine seasons and rarely has an opportunity, or time, to drive cars produced by other manufacturers.\u00a0 The one glorious exception in his, and many other professional drivers\u2019 schedules, is Goodwood.\u00a0 The championship-winning sports …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0},"categories":[20],"tags":[2202,2199,2200,2201,5297],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8412"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8412"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8412\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8414,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8412\/revisions\/8414"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8412"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8412"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.racinginfocus.com\/rif\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8412"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}