Five fabulous onboards from the Revival’s Shelby Cup | GRR
There have been just two Shelby Cups at the Goodwood Revival, the first in 2012 and the second in 2014, and as the name suggests both races were a celebration of mighty V8 monsters, some of which are best associated with the legend Carroll Shelby.
A talented racer he won the 1959 Le Mans 24 Hours with Roy Salvadori in an Aston Martin DBR1. He was also key to Ford’s Le Mans success in 1966, as any of us who have seen the film Le Mans ’66 (or Ford v Ferrari in the USA) will know. For many, however, he’s best associated with the AC Cobra and the Ford Mustang.
Sadly Carroll Shelby died in May 2012, but that gave organisers of the Revival an opportunity to celebrate his cars and his name with a race: the Shelby Cup.
The 2012 Shelby Cup was a race exclusively for Cobras, the 2014 Shelby Cup for big V8 brutes like the Mustang and Falcon Sprint, with the odd Plymouth Barracuda, Mercury Comet and Dodge Dart thrown in for good measure . Both were completely brilliant, and although there aren’t many onboards to choose from we’ve managed to find five we think you’ll enjoy…
Kevin Kivlochan – AC Cobra, 2012
For the first clip we jump onboard with Kevin Kivlochan, the owner of a gorgeous 1964 AC Cobra. One of just three right-hand-drive Independent Competition Cobras (as defined by the Shelby American Automobile Club), it was bought by Bruce Ropner in 1964 and immediately modified, given wider wheels, Weber carburettors, bigger brakes, two lines of bonnet louvres and some near-slick tyres. These tyres didn’t do Ropner much good on the road, as he span in front of a police car on his way home, but on track ‘TWU 2’ (later ‘131 YHN’) was fast – one of its first races was with Jack Sears at the helm, and Ropner even won some of the very first UK drag races in it. Kivlochan bought the car in 2003, and after that it was driven by Gerry Marshall, Jackie Oliver, Dan Gurney, Derek Bell, Sir John Whitmore, Stefan Johansson and Richard Attwood. Even without a roof and plenty of wind noise, that V8 can make its presence known. Kivlochan, with co-driver Tony Jardine, managed eight place overall in the 2012 Shelby Cup.
Enrico Spaggiari – Ford Mustang, 2014
Here we join the 1965 Ford Mustang of Enrico Spaggiari and James Wood for the opening lap of the 2014 Shelby Cup, and as you might imagine there’s enough smoke off the line for you to think you’re in a light aircraft passing through cloud coming in to land at Goodwood Aerodrome. The entire grid seems to be running nose to tail for the opening lap, no mean feat given how long the bonnets are and how much oversteer everyone appears to be dealing with. By the end of the race the duo had gone from 17th to ninth, a fine achievement for a race packed with some seriously fast touring and sportscar drivers, including Andrew Jordan, Emanuele Pirro, Jochen Mass and Matt Neal. There was even a then-current F1 driver in there, too…
Max Chilton – Ford Mustang, 2014
Which F1 driver lined up on the grid of the 2014 Shelby Cup? It was then Marrussia F1 driver, now IndyCar pilot Max Chilton. This clip was taken during testing a few weeks before the Revival got underway, Max driving a 1965 Ford Mustang with Fortec Motorsport’s owner Richard Dutton. Speaking to GRR at the time, Max said: “You could easily get into trouble with the braking. It feels its age!
“It has great balance, it’s always moving about in the corners but you don’t get a spike in heart-rate like you do when a single-seater oversteers!”
Nigel Greensall – Ford Mustang, 2014
From one Mustang to another, this time that of Nigel Greensall and Karsten Le Blanc (if you haven’t seen the onboard of Le Blanc in his AC Cobra, check out nine raucous onboards from the RAC TT Celebration). The pair qualified an impressive seventh, just one tenth ahead of Olly Bryant and Andrew Jordan, and we pick up the action halfway through the first lap. Sadly this clip is from a VBOX, and VBOX video quality isn’t always very good, but we do at least get a G-meter, a readout for lap times, a speedometer and a track map. As expected, there’s tyre-shredding oversteer at every corner, and even over bumps in a straight line – that’s probably the Mustang’s legendarily sophisticated rear axle working its magic there… But just listen to the noise. Noises like this should be treasured and celebrated, because they might not be around forever.
Henri Pescarolo/Charles Firmenich – AC Cobra, 2012
Our final entry is that of the AC Cobra of Charles Firmenich and four-time Le Mans winner Henri Pescarolo. We start off with Firmenich for the opening laps of the race and another very smoky start, and then after a few minutes the video cuts to a driver change. It’s Firmenich out and Pescarolo in, and as he leaves the pits we get a serious V8 bellow. And even though this is a GoPro from 2012, when GoPros were made primarily for surfing and a wobbly, image-stabilised world didn’t matter so much, the noise is delicious. You can have the pops and bangs from the exhaust on the overrun, too.