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+--- Thread: How Bert Hadley became a racing driver (/showthread.php?tid=4883)
How Bert Hadley became a racing driver - Nick Salmon - 30-08-2020
Just been reading the VSCC Bulletin for Summer 1994 and I came across a multi-page article, 'Racing the Austin Seven before the War' by Rivers Fletcher, detailing his first hand knowledge of the drivers and cars of the period. There are lots of fascinating anecdotes such as this -
Whilst their rivals, MGs, used Brooklands for nearly all the racing testing, Austins had their own cinder track at Cofton Hackett, very close to the Works at Longbridge and later on they used Donington when it became available for testing. I was spending the best part of a day at Donington with Raymond Mays and Ken Richardson, testing brakes and tyres with one of the Works ERAs. At the same time Murray Jamieson and some of the Austin Works drivers and mechanics were testing the racing Austins.
When we had completed our tests, Ray and I went over and joined the Austin team. I had already got to know Bert Hadley, a chubby fellow who usually looked after Pat Driscoll's car. It was he who usually warmed it up and drove it out onto the circuit from the Paddock. Bert Hadley was obviously a great enthusiast hoping to have a real go one day to see if he was good enough to race for the team of drivers, but on that sunny day at Donington Murray Jamieson told Bert that he could have a trial run, but not to overdo it!
They had two of the little racing Austins already warmed up outside the Pits. Bert was wearing his white mechanics overalls and Murray lent him a pair of goggles. I watched them pushing him off and Murray shouted that he would call him in after four or five laps. As soon as he disappeared from view Murray put Pat Driscoll, their number one driver, into the other racer and pushed him off, telling him to catch Bert up, not to pass him, but to see how he was driving.
In due course Bert came by at speed and sometime later Driscoll came past. This continued for three or four laps with the considerable distance between Bert and Pat Driscoll. Then Driscoll came slowly in, shouting "Where is Bert, has he gone off somewhere?"
Driscoll told us he had been driving as fast as he could, so on the next lap Murray called Bert in. When he stopped he said that he loved it, and was he any good? Murray told him that he was quite good enough, and that he would put him in the team straight away.
That was how Bert Hadley became a racing driver, and jolly good he was too - straight away the fastest in the team and in demand for other teams as well.
RE: How Bert Hadley became a racing driver - Tony Griffiths - 30-08-2020
Thanks for that - a great story. He must have had the same sort of innate talent as Tony Brooks who, never having driven a GP car before, won the Syracuse Grand Prix in a Connaught beating the previously all-conquering works Maserati 250Fs of Musso, Schell and Villoresi.
RE: How Bert Hadley became a racing driver - Bob Culver - 31-08-2020
Antone who has extensively driven any Seven to its limits is half way to qualifying as a racing driver of old style cars limited by other than adhesion.
RE: How Bert Hadley became a racing driver - Tony Press - 31-08-2020
The single seaters must have bee squeezy for the 'chubby' Bert Hadley
