The UK series where F1's pioneers made their mark

Less than two months after the inaugural Formula 1 world championship race was held at Silverstone, the former Second World War airfield played host to another, rather more low-key, motorsport event.

There were no Alfa Romeos or Ferraris on the grid at this one, no drivers of the same calibre as Juan Manuel Fangio or Giuseppe Farina or even the presence of royalty. Nevertheless, the maiden race for the 750 Formula on 3 June 1950, featuring 16 cars and won by Charles Bulmer, was a significant moment and few could have imagined that 70 years later it would be the longest continuously running national racing championship not only in the UK, but quite possibly the world, depending on how you regard the different eras of Indycar competition.

Some seven decades since it started, even a global pandemic in the form of COVID-19 failed to halt the 750 Motor Club's flagship series this season and six races across three rounds were held through the second half of the year with Peter Bove claiming his fifth title at the Snetterton finale to add to his outright successes in 2001 and 2006-08.

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It was a fitting venue to claim his most recent crown, having made his 750 Formula - and indeed racing - debut at the Norfolk circuit in 1986 aboard a Hague.

"In those days you didn't need an ARDS test so I found myself sitting in the collection area at Snetterton, it was chucking it down with rain and I suddenly realised I hadn't actually driven the car other than to the assembly area," recalls the 64-year-old (below, in 2007).

"Fortunately I was young enough and stupid enough to not worry about it. I was on cut slicks so I had three spins, but finished the race and I wasn't last so it was kind of exciting and gradually over the first couple of seasons the results started to come."

Having only taken part in the occasional karting race beforehand Bove found, like countless people before him, that being able to run and develop his own car "without breaking the bank and that I could be competitive in" convinced him to stick with the series for the next three decades, with only the occasional hiatus.

Since its inception the championship's ethos has remained the same; a place where the club racing enthusiast can build and develop their own bespoke machines while keeping costs low and affordable - and the action on track competitive.

The car of choice from the outset was the Austin Seven, due to its mass production by the British manufacturer and ease at which competitors were able to modify and tune them. The engine had to be side-valved and unsupercharged and, while the chassis, gearbox and rear axle had to remain the same, freedom around other aspects of the car allowed for innovation and out-of-the-box thinking. And that attracted budding designers.

Some years before his involvement in F1, Lotus founder Colin Chapman finished second overall in 1951 having entered and raced his own Lotus Mk3 with considerable success - but only after he de-siamesed the inlet ports to significantly improve engine performance. Not for the last time, Chapman had found an edge that would be banned for the following year.

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"It becomes part of you because you built it, it's an extension of your character in a way. It's that creative thing, that you're doing something you created - an artist has the same thing" Mick Harris

Chapman wasn't the only F1 designer and innovator to cut his teeth in the formula, as Patrick Head, Gordon Murray and Tony Southgate all spent time learning their trade before eventually moving to the top echelon of the sport, while the likes of Jem Marsh, co-founder of Marcos cars and 750 Formula champion in 1959, and Arthur Mallock (renowned for his U2 machines) left their mark in the category.

By the mid-1960s the decision was made to move away from the ageing Austin and across to the closely related Reliant side-valve engine and eventually the overhead-valve 600cc Reliant engine. Then, at the start of the 1970s, Dick Harvey and his brother Jon began to change the 750 Formula landscape with the creation of their Darvis.

Alongside the Harvey brothers in 1972 was a young apprentice motor mechanic by the name of Mick Harris, who after making his first start at Lydden Hill in 1975 aboard a Darvi Mk2 would go on to become the benchmark in the championship.

"I had no aspirations of becoming a racing driver or thinking about any other formula to be honest - it was just what Dick was doing at the time, what we got involved in and that's where we stayed," says Harris (below left), who remains the most successful driver in the championship's history with 10 titles (scored from 1982 to 2005).

"For us it was hands-on building it and racing something you've created rather than buying a BMW or something, bolting a rollcage in and off you go.

"It becomes part of you because you built it, it's an extension of your character in a way. It's that creative thing, that you're doing something you created - an artist has the same thing. It's something I've built myself and raced on a circuit, and there aren't many people in this world can say they've done that."

Dick Harvey and Harris became a formidable and successful duo - the former creating his own business in 1982 to prepare chassis and engines for fellow competitors while also claiming outright title success for himself in 1987, as well as being instrumental in moving the championship across to the more reliable 1108cc Fiat FIRE engine, which is still in use today, in 2003.

Even after suffering a serious stroke that same year and eventually passing away in 2015, Harvey's machines are a 750 mainstay and include Bove's Darvi 88P. Although created in 1988 and acquired in 1992 the car has proved to be just as competitive two decades later after taking the title in October.

"You can keep plugging away at it because the regulations are so stable, you can gradually increase the car's competitiveness over the years," says Bove. One competitor who has been plugging away more than most is Bob Simpson, who has continuously raced in the 750 Formula for the past 52 years during which time he has claimed the title on four occasions (in 1978, 1980, 1989 and 2003).

"It is a family thing, there's a lot of families in the formula," says Simpson (below). "One in particular, the Cowley family, I've raced against three generations of them since I started. Bill Cowley was sort of top of the formula and I was at the bottom when I began, and now I've raced against his grandson [also named Bill Cowley, champion in 2017]."

Harris knows about family in the category more than most, having met his wife Sue in the championship after she started competing in 1997, even using her Darvi 5/97 as recently as last season with plans to return with it in 2021.

Despite the high points of the category, living on past glories is a trap many championships and series have fallen foul of over the years and as a consequence have faded into obscurity. Those involved in the series - including the 750MC - are aware it cannot stand still and that for it to survive, even thrive, over the next few years it's about "not so much reinventing ourselves, but tweaking the regulations to make sure that we remain current otherwise we will just wither and die", according to Bove.

Altering the regulations is nothing new; slicks and wings were allowed as they spread through the rest of motorsport and transverse-engined cars in the mid-2000s are just some examples. Fuel injection is being looked at as an alternative to carburettors, and even hybrid and electric power has been considered but Bove is keen to stress that remains some years away.

There's also a push to find built cars that are sitting dormant in garages and give them a new home and ultimately get them back out on track, while competitor Martin Kemp has started to supply race kits to make it easier for people to start racing.

"If you're running your own car you need to understand not just the engine, or the transmission or the suspension, you need to understand how it all works together" Peter Bove

"You've got to keep looking at new things and you've got to remain as current as you can and as attractive as you can, because there are so many options for motor racing these days," argues Bove. "If you don't do that people will go off and do things that are more interesting."

One way to ensure the future of the championship - and indeed the vibrant UK national motorsport scene as a whole - is to entice young blood into the sport. The championship is currently looking at working in collaboration with colleges and universities to offer a hands-on approach to do just that.

"Patrick Head, and I think Frank Dernie [former F1 designer] has also said it: these days people aspiring to have a career in Formula 1 go to university, study whatever it might be, aerodynamics or mechanical engineering, and end up in a Formula 1 team," says Bove.

"But what they don't have is that practical experience of working in a race environment, of building race cars or preparing race cars and it takes them a long time to understand that. If you're running your own car you need to understand not just the engine, or the transmission or the suspension, you need to understand how it all works together."

The F1 world championship and 750 Formula began in the same year and while they are polar opposites they actually have much more in common than can be seen from the outside, their histories and alumni intertwined throughout the decades. Like F1 (and, indeed, Autosport), the 750 Formula has also reinvented itself as the world has changed around it.

And despite the uncertainties a global health pandemic and subsequent financial recession can bring, there's every reason to believe the 750 Formula will adapt and survive as it always has.

"It does mean a lot to be involved and be part of the history," admits Harris. "I think the older you get the more you think about the history and the more it means to you. In my younger days it didn't mean that much but now it means more, the fact you're involved in the oldest club formula in the world that's still going. I think that's incredible."