Brands Hatch F3000 1987

Second installment of the McCabism photographic archive. The place once again is Brands Hatch, this time for a round of the European F3000 championship. By 1987 the Grand Prix had moved to the numbing wind-swept expanses of Silverstone, so this was very much Brands' biggest single-seater race of the year.

F3000 cars of the era tended to be sans engine cover. This is the Madgwick Motorsport Lola of Andy Wallace.

The absent engine cover facilitated tall intake trumpets, which maximise torque at lower revs, F3000 engines being restricted to 9,000rpm. (When the intake valve opens, it creates a rarefaction wave, which propagates to the top of the open-ended trumpet, and reflects as a compression wave. The lower the revs, the longer the necessary trumpet length so that the compression wave returns just as the intake valve is closing, pushing more mass into the combustion chamber). This is the Pavesi Racing Ralt of Pierluigi Martini.

This is a motor racing circuit. It possesses gradient and contour, exists in a natural setting, and is distinguishable from a go-kart track.

First corner of the race, and Julian Bailey has immediately overtaken the front-row sitters, Gugelmin and Moreno in their Ralts.

Andy Wallace moves past Moreno into 3rd, but Bailey looks comfortable in the lead.

Stefano Modena ahead of Yannick Dalmas, the latter displaying a black tyre-mark on his nose-cone as evidence of prior contact with Modena. Dalmas had tapped Modena into a spin at Druids, but courteously waited for Modena to resume ahead of him.

Michel Trolle has a territorial dispute at Druids with A Yorkshireman. This inevitably results in a large accident, Trolle's car flipping upside down onto the top of the tyre-wall.

A slightly shocked Trolle stumbles to his feet after being hauled from the upturned car.

The race is red-flagged and Bailey awarded victory.