Here is another picture from Kevin Barnes, grandson of JD
Barnes and taken in the pits at Brooklands, JD is seen here in the
driving seat with his brother FS Barnes. The 'photo is of great
interest as I for one have certainly not seen it before. The car is
an early scoop-scuttle Chummy, of about 1924. As can be seen it has a
curved, high top to the scuttle but with a high mounted windscreen,
somewhat reminiscent of the later T.T.cars, as is the racing-type
fuel filler cap. Note the cut away doors, chopped off rear end and
abbreviated mudguards. Note also the Brooklands steering wheel, 7
inch brakes and the beautiful scripted numbers on the side. It
transpires that it's the 1929 6 hour race and the car was works
sponsored. The car lead for 5 hours but was caught near the end, it
finished 1st in class and 7th overall.
On talking to Stuart Ulph about this he showed me a
picture from a 1950 "Motor Sport", that was later used in their book
of the Austin Seven. This says that a single-seater works Austin
appeared in the April 1929 Easter Monday meeting at Brooklands, the
47th, 75mph Short Handicap of 2 1/2 laps. Driven by J.D.Barnes and
fitted with a prototype unsupercharged (T.T) Ulster engine, the car
came 4th, covering the flying mile at 85 mph with a best lap of
71.35. The Barnes brothers removed this body and substituted the
above Chummy one together with substantial mods. The car then was
entered for the Double Twelve; this was to be very exciting, for the
clever handicapping had produced an extremely close race. On the
second day the winning Alfa only had a minute .003 formulae advantage
over the second placed Bentley. The Barnes Austin finished in 22nd
place, covering 1,141.99 miles, at an average speed of 47.58 mph
tying with a 4 1/2 litre Invicta - certainly no disgrace! Later on
the car ran in the 6 hour race as described above.
Below is the Award made to F. S. Barnes:-
The car was subsequently sold to Messers Metchim and
Masters, who ran it in the 1933 Le-Man 24 hours race, where it was
doing very well until the clutch failed to disengage. Coming upon a
serious accident, the driver, Charles Metchim, took to the trees as
he could not stop. Without realising it, a broken steering arm had
been sustained but the driver brought the car into the pits, thinking
he was tired and shocked by the accidents, however no spare part was
available. The team failed to convince the stewards that the car was
safe with one wheel steering and it was withdrawn! The 1933 Le-Mans
was a classic of all time; the lead swapping constantly twixt
Nuvolari in the Nuvolari-Sommer Alfa Romeo and Chinetti in the
similar Chinetti-Varent car, the other Alfa of Chiron and Cortese
having crashed out earlier. Finally Nuvolari won, with the valient
Varent only nine seconds behind. Once again though, the little Austin
had not been disgraced, for it averaged 58 mph for six hours of the
race.
The cars nickname was the "Earthquake", due to the
prodigious noise it produced!
For the 1934 race the car was once again re-bodied, this
time with a Standard Ulster type shell, but still with the rear
petrol tank as well as the front one used, however the front 9 gallon
one was used at the rear and a 4 gallon one at the front this time.
This time after 95 gallant laps of the 8.37 mile circuit, the car,
having suffered ("detestable") coil and condensor trouble, lost it's
outwardly-wired, incorrectly sized replacement condensor and was out
for good.
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