Tom Pryce

[moffspeed]

Smollet said:

Very interesting. Thanks for the heads up. I completely forgot about the Token. I wonder if it still exists?

The Token was sold on to Safir engineering who predictably renamed it the Safir. It was driven in a couple of non-championship F1 races by Tony Trimmer but then disappeared. Tony is a good friend of mine so I'll find out the fate of this car when I next meet up with him.

Incidentally Tony was a good friend of Tom's and shared a flat with him for quite a while. All the stories about Pryce being a lovely humble guy are happily accurate, Tony went up to Ruthin for the unveiling of the T.P. memorial. If you wish to pay your respects, Tom is laid to rest in St Bartholomews Church, Otford - not too far from Brands.

One of the advantages of being old(ish) is that I can recall standing on the bank at Paddock Hill in 1975 watching Tom win the Race of Champions. I might also be the only PH'er who stood on a Welsh mountainside watching Tom rally (and eventually crash) the Chequered Flag Lancia Stratos. His co-driver that day was a youthful Dave Richards - he still has a scar on his knee as a reminder of that adventure....

[Smollet]

moffspeed said:

Smollet said:

Very interesting. Thanks for the heads up. I completely forgot about the Token. I wonder if it still exists?

The Token was sold on to Safir engineering who predictably renamed it the Safir. It was driven in a couple of non-championship F1 races by Tony Trimmer but then disappeared. Tony is a good friend of mine so I'll find out the fate of this car when I next meet up with him.

Incidentally Tony was a good friend of Tom's and shared a flat with him for quite a while. All the stories about Pryce being a lovely humble guy are happily accurate, Tony went up to Ruthin for the unveiling of the T.P. memorial. If you wish to pay your respects, Tom is laid to rest in St Bartholomews Church, Otford - not too far from Brands.

One of the advantages of being old(ish) is that I can recall standing on the bank at Paddock Hill in 1975 watching Tom win the Race of Champions. I might also be the only PH'er who stood on a Welsh mountainside watching Tom rally (and eventually crash) the Chequered Flag Lancia Stratos. His co-driver that day was a youthful Dave Richards - he still has a scar on his knee as a reminder of that adventure....

Thanks for that. I met Tony Trimmer when I was at BH testing an M3 I used to race. Charming bloke. He was doing Fast Rides in iirc a Sports 2000 and I treated my sister to a trip. Her first words on getting out of the car were fk Me!!
Eta I visited Tom's grave some twenty years ago when I was visiting a friend in Ockham. Its tucked away and very modest not unlike Tom himself.

Edited by Smollet on Tuesday 29th October 10:25

[anonymous-user]

davidd said:

Thanks for posting that, it's fascinating, how on earth did you get into this?

Basically turned my hobby into my job. I've been building race and rally cars since my teens as a serious hobby, then decided to give it a go as a job aged 39. From then just worked hard to gain a more professional knowledge and experience to the point i can be competent on any historic race car.

I've worked on many different types of this era of racing car, i initially worked mainly on CanAm and World Sports Cars, done a fair bit on GT and saloons, but most of my time the last 10 years has been F1.

[entropy]

Great documentary. It felt way too short and seemed worthy of a 60min time slot. Massively under rated - by that I mean everyone remembers Scheckter, Peterson, Villenueve but Tom Pryce was in the same bracket in terms of being spectacular to watch.

Mark-C said:

sgtBerbatov said:

Going to watch this later.

I saw the Manic Street Preachers not so long ago and their drummer had a skin on his drumkit in Pryce's helmet style in tribute to him.

I've watched it now and will watch it again - it's very good. Tom Pryce was the first fatality I was aware of after getting into F1 during the 1976 season.

Sean Moore (MSP Drummer) has contributed to a couple of radio shows about Tom - the one from 2017 is on YouTube.

Cheers! I used to be into the Manics I thought I recognised Pryce's helmet design from somewhere! Who'd have thought a principled Lefty into F1!

[sgtBerbatov]

entropy said:

Great documentary. It felt way too short and seemed worthy of a 60min time slot. Massively under rated - by that I mean everyone remembers Scheckter, Peterson, Villenueve but Tom Pryce was in the same bracket in terms of being spectacular to watch.

Mark-C said:

sgtBerbatov said:

Going to watch this later.

I saw the Manic Street Preachers not so long ago and their drummer had a skin on his drumkit in Pryce's helmet style in tribute to him.

I've watched it now and will watch it again - it's very good. Tom Pryce was the first fatality I was aware of after getting into F1 during the 1976 season.

Sean Moore (MSP Drummer) has contributed to a couple of radio shows about Tom - the one from 2017 is on YouTube.

Cheers! I used to be into the Manics I thought I recognised Pryce's helmet design from somewhere! Who'd have thought a principled Lefty into F1!

Sean Moore's heavily in to motorsports. I mean to be fair to the guy he needs a break from socialism for some rest doesn't he!

[Turn7]

The Surveyor said:

There is a really good mini-Biography for Tom Pryce in the book called 'The Lost Generation', a really good read about him, Tony Brise and Roger Williamson.

Excellent book, but very hard reading....times were very different back then.

I first learnt about Purley and Pryce etc in the now banned video, that really, really, opened my eyes as to how dangerous Racing used to be.