When I made the decision to build and race historic F.1 cars, the first choice to be made was how many cars to build, and which ones. The nice thing is that F.1 in the fifties and sixties was much less regulated and controlled than it is today. This meant that teams or individuals would pick and choose the events they ran in. For example, Ferrari would rarely send cars to the pre-season British events; or if they did, it would usually be a token one car. Similarly, only the teams who recieved high starting money would venture far afield before the World Championship series got going. Sometimes Argentina started the season in January, but more normally it would be Monaco, the first weekend in May.

The Rob Walker Team - #42 Moss-Lotus  #44 Trintignant/Cooper

By then 3 or 4 British races would probably have been held, as well as a few in mainland Europe. The British season usually began on Easter Monday at Goodwood, followed by a race at Aintree and then Silverstone. In Europe Syracuse in Sicily usually got the ball rolling, followed by Pau in France. This was great news for me, as it gives me so many options for my races. I made up a list of races which would constitute my World Championship series, as well as a large number of other events. As I am running cars which cover 1959 and 1960, it means that I have a free choice of as many races as I like from that period, although using 'artistic licence' I have allowed myself to chamge some races from non-Championship events into Grand Epreuves; e.g. my Syracuse Grand Prix became the Sicilian Grand Prix, and as such, counts towards my World Championship.

This page is being constructed in late September 1999, and up to this point I have run one Championship race, in Sicily, and five others at Modena, Italy; Pau, France; Goodwood & Oulton Park, Britain and an odd one at Mar del Plata in Argentina. I had planned to run my Argentine Grand Prix at Buenos Airies two weekends ago, but my Yeoman Credit Coopers are in the middle of a repaint. Having seen an original one at the Coy's Historic Festival at Silverstone recently, I realised that the green on my cars was far too dark.

I normally use acrylic car spray, but have been totally unsuccessful in my quest to obtain a very pale green. Then my friend and fellow slot-car builder Keith Robinson found a source for unusual colours, and this very day, a can of a perfect pale green arrived. So, as the Yeoman Credit cars were not ready, rather than run the Grand Prix without them I looked in a very old book I have to find a circuit in Argentina that I could race at. Mar del Plata was stretching it more than somewhat, because as far as I know it was only used in the mid-fifties and only for local formula libre races. Still, I thought "what the hell..." and went ahead and raced anyway.

As I said earlier, teams would pick and choose where they raced, and a look at any Argentine Grand Prix entry from those days would show a very small entry. Usually only factory cars went, along with Rob Walker's cars. Even works teams like Scarab and

did not bother. Including the Yeoman Credit cars I have 18 entered in Argentina. This includes Rob Walker's Lotus for Moss and Cooper for Trintignant, and I contrived a situation wherein Italian team Scuderia Centro Sud would grab a place on the plane that took the Ferraris to South America and will run local hero Carlos Menditeguy in their Cooper Maserati in his home grand prix.

(By the way, don't get the wrong idea about all this - I'm not completely bonkers, and I don't actually BELIEVE that all this is real - I just enjoy creating situations and trying to imagine how events might have developed 40 years ago.)

Added 30.3.05 - I should mention to anyone who has made it through to the bottom of this page (boy! are you brave!) that this series of cars no longer exists.

All the races that I could run with these cars have now been completed and the cars have been broken up to be re-formed as the HALFTON series. To see where that one has reached, please return to the home page (link below) and follow the link to the Halfton pages.

Go to this page for a look at my season's results so far,

or or return to my home page from here.