Race report: 77MM – Graham Hill Trophy
Jon Minshaw and Phil Keen claimed honours in the 45-minute Graham Hill Trophy thrash for closed-cockpit GT cars that raced up to 1966. Victory, however, was far from assured.
Mike Whittaker and BTCC old boy Mike Jordan had dominated the race in their TVR Griffith until they were obliged to pit late in the day to fix the car’s exhaust which was dragging along the asphalt.
At the start of the race, Minshaw blasted into an early lead, but Whittaker nipped past with a superb move around the outside of Magwick on the fourth lap. The veteran soon extended his lead, with Minshaw being first to blink once the pits opened for driver changes 15 minutes in. Brilliant all-rounder Keen, more commonly found racing a modern Lamborghini alongside Minshsaw in the British GT series, emerged on track in eighth place and soon began making up places. Whittaker, however, waited until there were only 18 minutes left to run, by which time he was 15 seconds ahead of Nic Minassian’s AC Cobra which briefly led prior to the Frenchman pitting to swap seats with Anthony Reid.
Inside three laps, Keen and Jordan were vying for the top sport, the latter blasting by on the nineteen lap before extending his lead to 1.7 seconds by lap 20. However, his late pitstop dropped the Griffith down the order. Keen was untroubled thereafter, with the TVR of Tiff Needell and John Spieres finishing a distant second at the flag, with the Ferrari 250GTO/64 of Nick Pastorelli and James Cottingham placing third.
77MM
Graham Hill Trophy
Members Meeting
Race Report
