The Last Racing Vitesse, UDF 772H, AKA SofS

[JohnD]

 

This is SofS.    I'm  trying to find out more of its history.

I first met the car in the late '90s, when  I raced Old Blue Vitesse against John "Trioomph" Sadler:

After Old Blue went to the Great Garage in the Sky, I built Silverback, but then that was downed on the Nurburgring by someone who  thought he was Manfred von Richthofen in a Gp2 Porsche. 

 Two weeks after that, this car was on eBay after twelve years in a barn and I had to have it!   Needed a lot of work to get it back on  track and inherited aa lot of parts from Silverback, so it's the son of Silverback, or "SofS"

It's now the only Vitesse racing in the UK, and one of only five that I know of in the world (the Candy Box in the US, in Malta, France and New Zealand).    Before John Sadler, I think it was owned and raced by one "Barney Rubble" Barnes, who I remember racing a Spitfire and beating me.    He must have been a TSSC member, but I've not heard of him in years.    I'd love to be able to ask him how he became the owner of this car and what he did with it, to add to its history.  If anyone knows or knows of Barney, please ask him to contact me?   If you do, contact me by PM, please, and I'll send my email for Barney to use.

Thanks!

John

Edited April 12 by JohnD

[Mark B]

Hi John

I remember Dave Barnes raced a red oxide coloured Vitesse in 1991 TSSC championship. He span in front of me at Brands, I ended up in the gravel trap, Dave was able to continue. Few videos on YouTube, can't make out the reg number.

https://youtu.be/4bG2U5TyH04?si=MIPsD30KXhhdsVse

Edited April 13 by Mark B

[JohnD]

Thank you, Mark!   That led me to all three videos of the 1991 series, and to Dave Barnes clearly racing in No.8, red oxided Vitesse.  I even watched your incident with him at Brands!  A splendid trip down Memory Lane, although it was before my racing time

Later that year, John Sadler comes out in a black or very dark blue Vitesse with white bonnet and boot lid, No.28.  In the next race after a respray (?), he appears in dark green, British Racing, and in the same pattern livery as mine, but with a yellow front.   But that isn't the car that I now race, which has a light green front.     John and Mark Plausin were sometimes a team in the two cars, with the yellow and green, and it was Mark who I bought this car from, but  clearly  Mark wasn't racing in 1991.  Later,John must have borrowed Mark's Vitesse in the pic above from Pembrey.  John  has kindly given me some pics from his time with the green fronted car:

Externally, it has a saloon roof back since then, but I'm still none the wiser about this car's origins>    If anyone else can help, I'll be most grateful!

John