Six spins on the road to victory Pt 1

"...it takes a lot more than deciding to be the last to hit the brakes going into a corner..."

Sage words from a young racing driver in the spring of his career in the late 1960's to be heeded by anyone with aspirations of becoming a competitive driver in any of motor sports competitive disciplines.

In the late 1960's, most likely 1969, on a miserably unforgiving January day a young driver arrived at the race track near Rouen in France. He was there to test drive his first single seater car. Not a Lotus or a Ferrari but a Crossle 16F designed and manufactured by the Crossle Company based in Northern Ireland. The car's competitive objective was to compete in the 1600cc Formula Ford Series; regarded as a platform from which drivers could launch their careers in Grand Prix racing.

The young driver was Gerry Birrell. Bearing in mind he was from Glasgow in Scotland he may well have described the conditions he encountered on that day as "dreich". That is cold, wet, overcast and truly miserable.

A plan was drawn up between the driver, mechanics and the Crossle company. That was to test the car in a series of six lap sessions. The first two laps would be for the driver to get a feel for the car, how it responded to his driving and the track conditions. A sort of warm up and, in today's parlance, get into the "zone". During laps three and four the driver would push the car to its limits. Then laps five and six would be wind down laps for both car and driver before returning to the pits for a performance review that could result in adjustments being made.

During the first practice session Gerry reached the moment where he could push the car towards its performance capabilities. Approaching a bend at 100mph he changed down from 4th gear to 3rd. It was then that the car, in his words, "...seemed to be going in all four different directions at once". Fortunately this unpredictable behaviour only happened horizontally and not vertically. The Crossle 16F only had a roll bar to protect the driver's head unlike the modern "halo" configuration on today's F1 which undoubtedly saved the life of the young driver Zhou Guanyu in the British Grand Prix on 3rd July 2022.

Health and safety for racing drivers in the 1960's at most was a crash helmet and a pair of gloves.

Back in the pits at Rouen there would have been a team discussion as they tried to find the cause of the problem. Conclusions would be reached, adjustments made to the car and the hope that it would behave instead of going in "...all four directions at once...".

"Six spins on the road to victory" is the title of an article Gerry Birrell wrote for the first volume of "Motor Racing The International Way - Number 1" published in 1970.

It has to be assumed that the Crossle 16F spun five more times that January day before the team had worked through countless variations of adjustments to make it behave with "predictability".

Note the choice of words that Gerry made using "with predictability" rather than "safely". Nothing can instill confidence in a driver more than having a car that behaves "with predictability".

The Crossle 16F embodied a triptych of qualities. They were predictability, driver confidence and performance which drove Gerry Birrell to winning the European Crown in the 1600cc Formula Ford series in 1969. A series during which he raced against James Hunt and Emmerson Fittipaldi. Both of them were destined to become Grand Prix stars by winning the championship once and twice respectively.

Sadly, a stardom that eluded Gerry Birrell.

Pt 2 of "Six spins on the road to victory" to follow and include the 1972 Le Mans endurance race, the Capri comes back to the UK and how is daughter was able to drive it.