Marcos2

Marcos - return to racing

Charging along the Wye Valley and on up the A49 through Shropshire to Cheshire's Oulton Park
circuit in a borrowed Marcos LM 500, was a fine prelude to a day's racing with the Marcos works
team. With road-holding capabilities the limits of which are well beyond where loonies fear to tread and accelerative powers which substantially exceeded my wildest dreams, the adrenalin was flowing into my blood-stream faster than the super-unleaded was pouring into the eight pots under the LM's curvaceous bonnet. Just beyond Leominster, going slowly in heavy traffic, I watched as a suntanned, blonde-haired figure in short shorts, detached herself from a group of three hitch-hikers and gesticulated with her thumb in my direction. Reflecting wistfully on the LM's pulling-powers, I thought of my wife whom I had left at home - and merely waved, smiled and passed quickly on, before temptation got the better of me. If only I had had one of these in my single days!

Team Marcos' hospitality at Oulton Park (capably organised by Nicky Marsh, wife of managing
director and race-car driver, Chris, son of company founder, Jem - this is still very much a family
business) was very welcome when I climbed, dripping, from the LM's tight-fitting cockpit - midday
sun combined with heat transfer from the engine-room had left me hot but happy and probably a few pounds lighter.

The LM soon attracted the attention of other racegoers and several potential customers tried it out during the afternoon They were obviously impressed. One was so taken with it that he was away for almost an hour and I thought that I would be walking home. His lissome companion was not amused.

"Don't you ever leave me alone like that again", she said angrily upon his return. "You can't treat me the same way you do your wife".

The 300 b.h.p. Rover-powered LM500 which I had driven to Oulton Park is a road-going version of last year's track car. This year's race-cars are powered by a 6.1 litre Chevrolet V8, churning out
something in the region of 550 b.h.p., enough to push them to over 200 m.p.h. - awesome!

Pre-race activity in the Team Marcos pits was reminiscent of a vultures' feast: hordes of blue and
white clad mechanics picked over the carcasses, stripped of the majority of their bodywork, their
innermost parts exposed to the public gaze. Then it was time for "the off". Suddenly the kits of parts which seemed to have been strewn everywhere, miraculously came together: two stunningly beautiful, yet brutally aggressive racing machines swiftly materialised and were wheeled out into the boilingsun. In climbed two drivers dressed like spacemen and, with an ear-splitting roar, the engines came to life and the cars moved out onto the track.

After a rolling start (a lap at restrained speeds behind a pace-car) the power of 1,100 horses was
unleashed and the Marcoi settled into the first and third places - separated by an orange Pantera which they were to maintain until almost the end of the race. Lap after lap, young Brazilian, Tommy Erdos (who plays football even better than he drives cars), stormed along the straights and around the curves of the Oulton Park circuit, the deep throb of his Marcos' V8 announcing his arrival each time well before the car itself came into view, comfortably demonstrating his superiority over the opposition. The real battle, however, was for second place, where Chris Hodgetts spent a frustrating race snapping at the heels of the Pantera, trying hard to squeeze through, but never quite succeeding.

The Pantera, I should add, was to all intents and purposes in a different race, running to GT Class 1 rules, whereas Marcos chose to build their cars to the more restrictive Class 2 regulations, which should have made them slower.

As they flew past the pits for the penultimate time, the result seemed certain: Marcos - Pantera -
Marcos. But motor racing is full of surprises and, to everyone's amazement, it was the orange car
which led round the final bend and went on to take the chequered flag - Erdos, pushing his car hard right up to the end, had lost it on the last lap. So, on this occasion, the all-conquering Team Marcos had to be content with 2nd. and 3rd. overall - but they had come 1st. and 2nd. in class, so there were smiles all round (and a slightly sheepish grin from Erdos).

The meeting at Oulton Park in August was the 5th. in a series of 8 races which were to see Marcos win the prestigious British Racing Drivers' Club National Sports GT Championship and return to Le Mans after a break of 28 years to take part in - and finish - the most gruelling test of man and machine yet devised: 24 hours of non-stop, flat-out motoring at speeds of up to over 200 m.p.h.

The season began auspiciously at Silverstone in March, when Chris Hodgetts took the LM600 to pole position on its first outing. Fouled plugs, however scuppered his chances of winning the race, but he still finished 5th., firing on only six cylinders.

At Donington in April, he again managed pole and second in the race, with a new championship lap record. Back at Silverstone in May, Hodgetts emerged form a two-part race in third place, but the winner of his class. To prove that the boss is no slouch either, Managing Director, Chris Marsh, took a car out, too and finished in a creditable 7th. place.

June saw the team at Le Mans for the greatest event in the motor-racing calendar, when the best that the world can offer are pitted against each other in a 24 hour test of stamina and endurance. Chris Marsh's father, Jem, had been the last to drive a Marcos at Le Mans, in 1967. In 1966, his had been the only British car to finish. For 1995, two cars were entered, the 'A' team of Hodgetts, Euser and Erdos and one for the veterans - Chris Marsh, Francois Migault and David Leslie.

Both cars ran strongly for most of the race, but the 'A' car, after climbing to 11th. place and showing itself to be the 4th. fastest car in the rain, succumbed to transmission failure in the 21st. hour. The 'oldies' were having trouble, too. Chris Marsh takes up the story: "Francois was driving our car when the spark box - a little black pack of electronic gadgetry - gave up out on the circuit and the car ground to a halt. Strictly-speaking, you aren't allowed to fit new parts to the car except in the pits, so it looked as though we were out (the other car had already retired). Francois made out that his radio (for communication with the pits - race-cars don't have hi-fi!) was on the blink. You are allowed to replace those, and so we taped an aerial to a spare spark box, to make it look like a replacement radio.

It was good enough to fool the watching French marshals and Francois fitted it, with the aid of hand signals from a mechanic standing by the side of the track". Honour was saved by ingenuity!

Back in the U.K., there were class wins at Thruxton, Oulton and at Brands Hatch, where the result
was a one-two win and a lap record to boot. A class win for Hodgetts at Snetterton in September was enough to clinch the championship for Wiltshire's Own and make the final outing, back at Silverstone again in October, an academic exercise.

The highlight of the year? Chris Marsh again: "Finishing Le Mans, definitely. When we crossed the line, the crowd, packed out with 50,000 British supporters, gave us a standing ovation. We were cheered even more loudly than the winners (also British). It was a fantastic feeling, knowing that we had done it - we had come to Le Mans, as the underdogs, and we had finished, against the odds"