The outright tin-top wins achieved by a forgotten tin-top great

The Ford Capri is widely regarded as one of the finest saloon cars of the 1970s. Indeed, Autosport placed it second in our greatest British Touring Car list last year. After the hitherto dominant American V8s had been banished at the end of 1975, the Capri became the car to have, taking 61 overall victories before the Rover SD1 took control from 1982.

But the popular coupe wasn’t unbeatable. As well as its drivers repeatedly and famously losing the overall crown to battlers in the smaller classes (who could score the same number of points within their own categories), the Capri found the going tough against one smaller-engined car in 1977.

Broadspeed-run and developed Triumph Dolomite Sprints had already scored plenty of successes, including the overall title for Andy Rouse in 1975, but their outright race victories had been restricted to the days when the smaller-capacity cars were split from the bigger machines. In 1977, however, the combination of the Dolomite and Tony Dron stepped things up a notch.

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“The 1977 Dolomite Sprint felt vastly better than the model I had raced for the team back in 1974 and it was obviously very much quicker,” recalls Dron, who got the drive in the one-car team by winning a shootout at Goodwood.

“Over the previous three years, it had benefited from a great deal of development and homologated parts, all of which made it faster and stronger. There was a lot more power, about 200bhp in early 1977, and it had ventilated front disc brakes and a close-ratio four-speed gearbox. The handling had been developed by Andy Rouse, Broadspeed’s in-house ace driver and engineer, and the car he had produced was excellent. The fact that our driving styles were quite different did not matter a bit.”

Broadspeed boss Ralph Broad and Dron agreed that overall wins should be the target, even though the Dolomite ‘only’ had to top the 1601-2300cc Class B for maximum points. Dron would achieve six outright wins over the next year, becoming the only Dolomite driver to win BTCC races against the Group 1 Capri. Here’s how he achieved those wins.

Oulton Park - 8 April 1977

 

Photo by: Jeff Bloxham

Dron had finished on the overall podium at both the Silverstone opening round and the subsequent Brands Hatch encounter. Oulton Park, venue for round three, suited the fine-handling Dolomite, and Dron took pole from Gerry Marshall’s Class B Vauxhall Magnum.

“Chris Craft’s Capri was third on the grid, the only Class A car on the front row, and he hounded me for six laps before getting by and opening a small gap,” recalls Dron. Craft edged away, but halfway through the 20-lapper he fell back into Dron’s clutches. “I learned later that he had ignition switch trouble and was having to drive with one hand so I got by,” says Dron.

"Tony was a very good driver, fair and a good chap. I was always very surprised that a journalist could be as good as he was!" Gordon Spice

The Dolomite moved back ahead into a lead it would not lose, but Dron still had to work hard. Gordon Spice, up from sixth on the grid, harried him to the flag, finishing just 0.2 seconds behind. It was the Capri Mk2 horde’s first defeat of the campaign.

“The Dolomite was more agile,” recalls Spice. “Sometimes it was bloody quick. Tony was a very good driver, fair and a good chap. I was always very surprised that a journalist could be as good as he was!”

Silverstone - 16 July 1977

 

Dron was in contention for victory in a multi-car fight at Thruxton for round four, and was on leader Vince Woodman’s bootlid going on to the final lap. The only problem was that Dron thought that was the end and backed off, eventually crossing the line seventh (in the pitlane): “Over 40 years on it’s still a ghastly, blood-chilling memory. Never, in the next 34 years of racing, did I ever make that stupid mistake again.”

A bad tyre choice forced upon him cost Dron the chance of victory at Silverstone’s June race, while he was second and third at Thruxton and Donington respectively. Capris had won all four of those races, but the British Grand Prix support round at Silverstone would mark the start of a fine run for the British Leyland machine.

“I put both my race car and my T-car on pole in the Friday session, thanks to two sets of qualifying tyres,” says Dron. “The times show just how good the Broadspeed team was: my best lap time in one car was 1m46.13s followed by 1m46.16s in my spare. I couldn’t tell the two cars apart.”

The top eight runners were covered by 0.79s, and Dron knew that he would not be able to maintain his pole pace on race rubber. He immediately had a pack of Class A cars chasing him.

“Spice eased alongside and overtook me late on the second lap and I decided to stay very close, looking for chances all the time, but not slowing us both by making any moves to get back in front,” explains Dron. “I expected Gordy to remain at ten tenths for some time without making a single error, which is exactly what he did for the next three laps.

“Then I sensed a slight change, not in his driving but in his car’s attitude, and it dawned on me that his tyres were past their best. The difference amounted to no more than two or three tenths of a second per lap, but that was enough to change everything. I drew alongside him coming out of Stowe Corner and was back in front after some very late braking into Club.

 

“For the remaining 16 laps, I had to drive on the absolute limit nearly all the way. Every now and then I would see a Capri emerge from the pack and appear to close on me just a little. For lap after lap, I was sure that one of them would be able to close the gap but it never happened.

“Each Capri in turn, after three unhindered laps on my tail, would sink back into the mob of cars a few yards behind, and I was hugely relieved to be leading by nearly 12s when the chequered flag fell. My tyres had held up well for the entire distance.

"Having pole position, thanks to qualifying tyres that took 0.55s off my best time on race tyres that day, made all the difference" Tony Dron

“It’s hard to convey the pressure of racing like that in front of a horde of well-driven, powerful cars in very close pursuit all the way. They were from the class above mine and all were potentially faster than I was.

“Had any one of them been free to hunt me down without interference from rivals, I reckoned I would have lost that race. And had I made one tiny mistake I would have been swallowed up by the lot of them.

“Having pole position, thanks to qualifying tyres that took 0.55s off my best time on race tyres that day, made all the difference.”

“One of the most exciting Group 1 races so far this season,” reckoned Autosport.

Donington Park - 7 August 1977

 

The revived Donington hadn’t initially been too kind to Dron in 1977. He’d had brake issues in the July round, before suffering an enormous testing crash when the brakes failed completely approaching the Old Hairpin.

“It was a very heavy impact,” says Dron of the 90mph contretemps with a concrete wall. “It was unbelievably painful. The main bone in my lower right leg had a couple of hairline fractures from the impact with my heel, and it was six weeks before I could walk again.”

Amazingly, that didn’t stop him taking pole and leading that weekend’s 15-lap race throughout, making Autosport’s cover in the process.

“Luck was with me because the man next to me, Stuart Graham, had some sort of clutch trouble at the start,” remembers Dron. “That delayed him and several others behind, leaving me with a free run. I was able to maintain a lead of two to four seconds. One thing about that race is that my ankle stopped hurting, if only for the duration of the race. The normal adrenalin build-up saw to that before the start.”

Dron came home 2.6s clear of Craft, with Tom Walkinshaw’s BMW 530i making it two non-Capris on the podium. The experience also provided an interesting lesson for Dron: “As it was my right ankle that was damaged, normal driving was not possible. The pain had gone but the joint felt like warm jelly when I put my foot on the brake pedal. There was very little strength in it and I had to adapt to braking very much earlier than usual.

“In the first Donington race that year, I had done 1m25.4s. This time, instead of being slower with a defective right ankle, I went a fraction faster, 1m25.2s. It wasn’t a big difference but it was significant and it made me think. I was well aware of the need to avoid late braking to achieve quick lap times, but it was astonishing that it could be taken that far.”

Brands Hatch - 29 August 1977

Dron had now taken two outright wins on the trot and, thanks to his class domination, was well-placed to take the BSCC title against up-to-1300cc class leader Bernard Unett (Chrysler Avenger). The Dolomite took pole by 0.8s at the Brands Hatch GP circuit round “thanks to our qualifying tyres” and dominated the event.

“Even with a couple of three-litre Capris beside the two-litre Dolomite on the front row of the grid, Dron still got to Paddock Hill Bend first – and that’s where he stayed,” reported Autosport. “One of his easiest wins of the season.”

Dron opened a useful gap on the opening tour and led throughout the 20 laps, finishing 10.6s clear of Colin Vandervell’s Capri. It wasn’t a good day for the V6 Fords as the Vauxhalls of Marshall and Jeff Allam – Dron’s class ‘rivals’ – finished fourth and fifth overall. Unett, however, won his class again too, leaving him two points ahead of Dron with two rounds to go.

Thruxton - 11 September 1977

 

Dron continued his fine run at Thruxton, though this was a tougher contest. Despite the Dolomite taking yet another pole, the race appeared to be going the way of Spice – soon to establish himself as the king of the Capri runners – until the closing moments.

“This really was the saloon car race to end all saloon car races,” enthused Autosport. Dron fell to third at the start, with Spice fifth. But both soon made progress, reaching second and third as they chased after early leader Graham’s Capri.

As the battle raged behind, Graham looked set to win before a clash with Unett during lappery caused him to spin. Spice, who had already overcome Dron, now hit the front, but he could not escape. And drama on the final lap helped the Dolomite to its fifth win of the year.

"The drill was to get the car perfectly set up on race tyres and clock the best possible time on them first. Then, in the closing minutes, we’d get the qualifiers on and crack in one on-the-limit killer lap" Tony Dron

“I only managed that because Gordy slowed strangely in the middle of the chicane, the last corner on the last lap, which allowed me to slip past him by darting over the kerb,” explains Dron. “It seemed odd because he did slow down quite a lot and it was only when I swerved to avoid him that I saw, and seized, my unexpected chance. He was pretty annoyed about that and he put in a protest against my driving, which the stewards rejected.”

Spice can’t now recall why he slowed at the chicane but suggests “it was obviously a cock-up”. The result set up a title showdown at Brands Hatch, something familiar to BTCC fans in the 21st century. Dron again beat the Capris to overall pole, but there was to be no happy ending.

“Thanks to our qualifying tyres, I took overall pole by the even bigger margin of 1.1s,” says Dron. “At last, about 10 weeks after the accident, the pain in my ankle had almost gone completely and things were looking good. Those Dunlop qualifying tyres were absolute magic and they worked every single time we used them. The drill was to get the car perfectly set up on race tyres and clock the best possible time on them first. Then, in the closing minutes, we’d get the qualifiers on and crack in one on-the-limit killer lap.”

 

Dron was engulfed by Capris at the start, and working through the pack this time proved a real challenge.

“The Capris seemed to be on better form and I found myself stuck in a big bunch of them for the first few laps. As Spice and Craft pulled comfortably away from the group, I soon realised that an outright win was clearly impossible. However, I soon had a huge lead in class, and by the middle of the race I was happily hammering round all on my own. It seemed that all I had to do was to keep going to score maximum points in that race, which would almost certainly make me the British Saloon Car champion of 1977.”

But just after half distance, Dron detected a strange feeling with the steering and realised there was something amiss with the left-rear tyre.

“I nursed it as best I could on the right-handers but the damage was done,” he adds. “As that tyre steadily fell apart, I found myself going ever more sideways, at much reduced speed. With about three laps to go, I spotted the nose of a Vauxhall Magnum in the distance behind me, gaining rapidly.”

It was Allam, who forced Dron to spend the final miles trying to hold the Vauxhall off. He managed until Clearways, the last corner of the final race of the season.

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“My left rear was completely shot by then and so, with great chunks of tread flying off it, I went through that corner on nearly full opposite lock at a painfully slow speed while still trying my best to make myself into an obstacle,” he says. “It was hopeless, and Allam slipped past very easily and beat me to the finish line by less than a second.

“In the pits, I looked at the rear left tyre: all the tread had gone completely from the centre, leaving visible fabric and mere strands of tread mix all round the edges. I was surprised that it hadn’t blown but, incredibly, it hadn’t deflated at all.

“As I stood there, I couldn’t understand why it had failed. Then [mechanic] Vic Drake confessed: while I was away having a cup of tea between qualifying and the race, Ralph Broad had instructed him to go one grade softer with the slicks on each corner of the car, without telling me.

“We had a range of slick tyres, from very soft to quite hard, and one of Vic’s jobs was to monitor tyre temperatures in qualifying and pick the right one for each corner of the car for the race. Vic always got it right, which in the end meant only one thing: had Ralph stayed at home that day we would have won the championship.”

As it was, Dron finished second in the overall table as class champion, losing out by one point. He had won more races – five – than anyone else.

Silverstone - 19 March 1978

 

Dron was decidedly unhappy with suspension modifications made for 1978, but in the wet opening round at Silverstone he dominated from pole.

“The circuit was dry in qualifying, and on my one super-quick lap on the trick qualifying tyres I picked up an ideal slipstreaming tow from Craft’s Capri, all along the Hangar Straight, through Stowe and Club Corners and through the fast left sweep at Abbey,” says Dron. “That tow made me faster on those straights than I had ever gone before, giving me pole over Spice in the quickest of the new Capris.”

Nevertheless, Dron knew that the Capris, some of which were now Mk3 models, had made a step forward for 1978. The tow, combined with rain on race day, gave him a chance that would not come again.

“There were huge puddles and I have never seen Silverstone quite that wet before or since,” reckons Dron. “Because of the atrocious conditions, the race was shortened to 15 laps [from 20] and they gave us an unprecedented three warm-up laps before forming us up on the grid.

"On the warm-up laps I had worked out what was needed: turn in late, head dead straight at the lake as fast as possible and then aquaplane through it in an absolutely straight line at undiminished speed for 200 yards" Tony Dron

“Approaching Becketts on the first of those warm-up laps, and studying the other leading cars in those dangerous conditions, my Dolomite felt quicker than any of them. It felt like a winner, but it would have been so easy to go off and crash heavily, which many did in that race.

“At the start, Spice and I took off as one but I slipped into the lead as I had the inside line at Copse, and from then on my car was so good that it simply disappeared into the distance to win the race by the incredible margin of 22.68s.

“Those conditions demanded some unusual driving tricks, especially at the super-fast Abbey Curve, where there was one enormous lake. On the warm-up laps I had worked out what was needed: turn in late, head dead straight at the lake as fast as possible and then aquaplane through it in an absolutely straight line at undiminished speed for 200 yards. It was important to line it up precisely straight for that and then ease back on the throttle enough to avoid overrevving with wheelspin.

 

“With all four wheels riding on top of the deep water, any use of the steering did absolutely nothing until the aquaplaning stopped, at which point the car made contact with the road again and just carried straight on as if nothing had happened. It was a pretty weird feeling and the only time in 43 years of racing that I had to do anything quite like that, but on the first lap alone that one trick at Abbey opened up an even vaster gap over the rest of the field. Soon I couldn’t see anybody behind me.”

Autosport’s reporter Ian Phillips was impressed: “It’s difficult to eulogise about the performance as it was as unspectacular as it was efficient – complete mastery of the conditions. He must have been the only man in the race not to spin.”

Under the circumstances it’s perhaps easy to see why others didn’t take Dron’s warnings of the improved Capri pace seriously.

“Ralph was delighted at our result and did not believe me when I told him privately, immediately after the race, that we’d been incredibly lucky,” says Dron. “The new Capris were so quick, I told him, that we’d be unlikely to get another outright win against them that season. He huffed and puffed and changed the subject, but that was indeed our last outright win with a Dolomite Sprint.”

The Capris went on to dominate, with only Walkinshaw’s BMW ending the run in the season finale at Oulton Park.

“We switched to Goodyear for 1978,” remembers Spice. “They were on a pace with Dunlops but didn’t degrade. Ford also realised they didn’t have anything else that was going to win races so started to take the Capri a bit more seriously and homologate parts we needed.”

Dron nevertheless dominated his class again and was in overall title contention until Spice, Dron and Class C ace Richard Lloyd lost their Donington wins and Class D Mini driver Richard Longman became champion. Dron still secured the class title, but his time in the Dolomite – and the Triumph’s chance of taking overall victories – was finished by the end of 1978. The Capri would now have things all its own way until the arrival of the 3.5-litre Rover V8.