.......Meantime we had been having some difficulty with "Motor Sport". Braidwood was finding it hard to get first hand information from drivers and entrants. In this he was not helped by the snide remarks from a motoring pundit, pointing out that the paper was run by "amateur ex-undergraduate journalists, who had never sat behind the wheel of a racing car". Obviously one way to overcome this was to take part in competitions ourselves. Braidwood had had some experience of GN and Frazer Nash cars in hillclimbs and trials, and ......reckoned that a supercharged car would suit our purposes best. Aldington (who) was then considering a team for the 1931 Double Twelve race, .......proved agreeable to our joining the team, the car was ordered...and on 13th March (1931)...the specification ...was as follows -
"BOULOGNE" Model Frazer Nash, supercharged side valve engine. No.8 "Cozette" supercharger (and carburettor), mounted vertically at front of engine.
3 Speeds : 1st 7.1; 2nd 4.4 and 3rd 3.5
Special 2 seater body, short chassis (8'3") no door, detachable sports hood.
Flat folding windscreen with safety glass.
Double Hartfords front and rear, with double "U" bolts to front axle.
Wide front axle with 10" front wheel brakes
Rear petrol tank "Petrol-Lift".
Large racing radiator
Heavy springs. 5 eared hub caps etc.
The bodies on all three (team) cars were light ash shells made by Compton, and covered with green fabric. The seat cushions were the usual airbags, and the seat backs decidedly unyielding. The headlamps were 6" in diameter, the smallest size allowed under Sports Car
regulations.
Car 24 - MV158
The Double Twelve Race was to take place on the 8th and 9th May, and as neither Braidwood nor I had previously driven in car races, we had to put in some qualifying laps on the Brooklands Mountain circuit. None of the team cars had been completed by the 27th April, so the Works lent us an Anzani-engined Boulogne Vitesse, which flooded it's carburettor on the way to the Track. However Braidwood contrived to win his heat. I had to concede 10 seconds to Mrs Wisdom on her blown roller bearing job, which I rather resented, but anyhow I satisfied the examiners. The Works meantime were toiling on until midnight most nights to complete the team cars, and I received mine at 4.30pm on Sunday 3rd May, and we set to work running it in.
The race started at the depressing hour of 8am, on a wet track. The course was a dull one for a Frazer Nash, being clockwise round the outer circuit, which meant we were encountering the sharp side of the many bumps, a dive off the banking on to the flat at the bottom of the circuit, and then over what was almost a step, on to the Finishing Straight.
The pits were already busy with mechanics repairing wing stays and other parts broken and shaken loose by the rough track. Our car was the only one in the team which had escaped so far, but we had constant trouble with breaking chains , partly due to heat from the exhaust pipe, which ran back inside the undertray, and also fuel feed stoppages.
Braidwood took the first spell next morning, but after two laps came in with two big ends gone, due to a fractured oil pipe. Undaunted by this he and James removed the crankcase while a car dashed off to Isleworth to get spare rods, which were brought back and refitted. The job was completed by 1 o'clock and Braidwood then put in a lap at 84mph, "just to show that we were still in the race" as he put it. The other two cars came in for chains and we did later, and then the car caught fire when being re-fuelled. At 4.30 the oil pressure went low again, but we managed to stagger on until 5.30, when two more big-ends packed up and we retired. The car driven by D.A Aldington and Mrs Wisdom retired about the same time with engine trouble, leaving only H.J (Aldington, Car no.24/ MV 158) to continue to the end of the race. During this last few laps he ran in company with Bertelli on the leading Aston-Martin, but 558 miles behind him in the race.