The remarkable 90-year-old who’s still racing

Most people would understandably be thinking of slowing down as they approach their 90th birthday. But not veteran club racer Tony Skelton, instead he is going faster than ever. The remarkable Kentishman turns 90 today (18 July) and, alongside still cycling an incredible 35 miles per week on average and enjoying skiing trips, he is the second oldest of the near-10,000 race licence holders in the UK (only beaten to top spot by 91-year-old Allard pilot Jim Tiller).

Skelton has always been interested in cars and recalls listening to the Le Mans 24 Hours on the radio for “hours and hours” during his school days. “My mother used to visit her sisters at their farm and the farm was about a mile and a half up a track near Canterbury,” he continues. “When we got there, my mother deliberately left the keys in the ignition of our Hillman Minx because I’d always been interested and she knew exactly what I was up to! I used to drive up and down this very long farm track and it was a rough gravel track and that was where I learnt to steer and correct and all sorts.”

Those skills have served Skelton well for the best part of 75 years. Having visited Brands Hatch when it was a grass track that went in the opposite direction to today in those post-war years, it was somewhat inevitable he would turn to competition in 1957. “The cheapest form of motorsport to get into in those days was the Austin Seven or the 750 Motor Club,” Skelton explains. “I knew all the old garages and dealers around and I bought two Austin Swallows, which would be worth a fortune today, for £5 each and I started to build my Austin Seven Special. I took part in some 750 races and that was just before a guy called Colin Chapman arrived on the scene.”

Skelton contested a few races in ‘Thou Swell’ (named after a modern jazz song of the time) but admits he was not particularly successful, perhaps unsurprising given he was still using the Austin as his daily runaround. But it was not long before he progressed to greater things. After being denied a promotion at Rootes Group having won a national competition for selling a two-tone Minx, Skelton instead joined a local Austin dealer and one of the customers just happened to have a 500cc Martin Formula 3 machine.

“He said he was going to sell it,” he relates. “My guv’nor called Mr Blundell said, ‘You’re interested, if I bought this would you like to race it?’ And I couldn’t believe my eyes! They bought it and I subsequently bought it from them. I went to Brands with this car and I won quite a few races. I started in 1957 but my best race was the Boxing Day meeting at Brands in ’57 when I won the race against quite reasonable competition, although at that stage F3 motorbike-engined cars was waning and all the top 500 guys were buying F2 cars, which were either Coopers or Lotuses.”

The Martin may have featured a rather rudimentary design, and was originally equipped with rubber suspension, but Skelton’s example was notable for being one of the first cars to have a roll hoop. With F2 growing in popularity, Skelton sold the Martin and went down that route – but things came to a shuddering halt when he crashed heavily at Snetterton. Out of a drive, he then applied to join the new Cooper Racing Drivers Training Division for 1958. This was overseen by future Lotus competitions manager Andrew Ferguson and resulted in Skelton getting some works Formula Junior drives. There were some notable names among his peers, including three-time non-championship grand prix winner Trevor Taylor and Major Arthur Mallock. “I was quicker than Trevor Taylor at Brands and I’m still quite proud about that because he did well,” he smiles with a glint in his eye.

This was a period when some of the sport’s stars were almost as famous for their off-track antics as their on-track achievements, but Skelton can understand why the parties were so prevalent. “After the war, if you went racing in formula cars, it was like being a Spitfire pilot in the war,” he says of the dangerous era and post-race celebrations. “You didn’t know if you were going to come back.”

Skelton certainly got to encounter some characters during his early forays. “I’ve been at Brands when a guy called Jack Brabham turned up,” he enthuses of the Australian who was then in the early days of his F1 career. “It was at the Boxing Day meeting when I was in my 500. He walked down the paddock with a black overcoat with a velvet collar and a bowler hat and an umbrella and everybody was talking about him. He said, ‘Well, I’ve come to this country and thought I should look like a city gentleman.’ And he actually turned up at Brands on Boxing Day dressed like he was a financier in London. It was quite incredible.

“I was also practicing the day a guy called Bruce McLaren came to Brands. He had just built a Formula 2 and he turned up in a very old Ford Zephyr with a flat bonnet you could land a helicopter on, and the trailer was literally strung together – it would be taken off the road now! Bruce McLaren got in his car and he was wagging the tail all the time and there were a few comments from different people saying, ‘That guy could be a world champion.’”

“Bernie used to start playing cards with Harry Fuller and others. But they didn’t play for money…” Tony Skelton

History dictated McLaren would never get that opportunity, but another famous figure Skelton encountered was a certain Bernard Ecclestone – before he was known as Bernie. “After I stopped F2, there was a guy called Harry Fuller who had a garage in Canterbury,” he regales. “I didn’t work for Harry Fuller – if I had part-exchanges I could trade, I used to sell them to Harry Fuller or the local boys because I was working for a main dealer. Harry Fuller used to call me down to his pitch and say, ‘Can you just cast your eye over those? I’ve got Ecclestone coming down with a few blokes and he wants to drive a few motors back. Can you help me value them?’ We’d spent two hours looking at 15 or 20 cars and pricing them because everything was sold on description. On a couple or three occasions, I was there when they turned up and Bernie would go out and look in this compound. They all used to go off and Bernie used to start playing cards with Harry Fuller and others. But they didn’t play for money…”

The rest of that story had ought to remain housed away from public view, but it was not to be Skelton’s last encounter with Ecclestone. “Bernie ended up with three Connaughts – there were three B-Types and one became known as the ‘Toothpaste Tube’ [B3], which guys like Stuart Lewis-Evans drove,” he continues. “I drove that and also there was a Cooper-Jaguar.”

An advert for this car for sale appeared in Autosport with enquiries being directed to B.C. Ecclestone – and Skelton was never sure whether it was Bernie or Fuller who actually owned it when he was behind the wheel.

Despite a serious crash at Brands Hatch, it didn’t hold back Skelton

But he does know that a roll out of Paddock Hill Bend in the Cooper-Jag “was one of my nine lives”. “I was under the car and I couldn’t find the switch to turn the petrol off,” Skelton remembers. “It had one of those SU pumps and I could hear it, ‘Tick, tick, tick, tick’, and I couldn’t find it because it was all upside down. And somehow, where it landed, there was a dip and I managed to push with my feet against the tunnel to the propshaft and somehow I shot out between the ground and the little door and I got a bent finger.”

Having just about emerged unscathed, Skelton’s attentions soon turned to rallying in a Mini. But this was not especially successful, instead it was in autograss where he really found his forte, winning well over 100 events. He could have achieved more had he ventured further afield than his native Kent on more occasions. Instead, it was on some familiar ground that Skelton faced a new challenge when he tackled the UK’s inaugural rallycross event at Lydden Hill in February 1967 as part of a strong line-up.

“Vic Elford [a Le Mans class winner that year] came with a brand-new 911 Porsche,” he says. “It was red, from Ronnie Hoare and it was straight out the showroom. But it went back looking like it had been pinged by shots because there were so many stones! I was amongst some good company there.”

Skelton ultimately finished sixth, behind the likes of Roger Clark, but thought he was going to get fired from his day job. “The car that I drove was my demonstrator,” he explains. “My guv’nor saw his car on the television and, when I got to work on Monday, he said, ‘I saw you on television.’ And I thought, ‘hello’, and thought I was going to get the sack. But I didn’t.”

Instead, rallycross became a successful avenue for Skelton as he continued to punch above his weight, lightening the Mini as much as he could to take the fight to the might of the works British Leyland machines. But, when European stars began rocking up and spending enormous sums, he decided he could no longer keep up with them.

From 1974 to 2000 Skelton was therefore away from competition as he successfully built his business and focused on his family, but it was a humble Mini that eventually persuaded him to make a comeback. He had been intending to treat himself to a new Jaguar X-type, but plans soon changed. “Then I saw an about Michael Cooper reintroducing Mini Cooper racing and it was going to be an all-in deal and support for £22,000,” says Skelton. “And I thought, ‘That’s better than a Jaguar!’”

Skelton was reunited with his Martin F3 machine which has deepened his love for racing well into retirement age

Photo by: Jeff Bloxham

Sure enough, Skelton became a frontrunner and a notable moment was a Britcar Production S1 race at Snetterton in 2005 when Skelton and Arthur Forster produced a giant-killing performance to beat a bunch of works/semi-works crews after opting for wet tyres. The bug had well and truly bitten once more and the story would soon come full circle when Skelton had the opportunity to buy back his old Martin F3 machine. “It’s like brand-spanking new now but we had to do so much to it and spend a lot of money on it,” says Skelton of the lengthy restoration. “I’m very happy because it’s a car that’s a post-war racer and will go on to be looked at.”

But Skelton’s regular steed in more recent years has been a modified Renault Clio – a car that he selects as his favourite from all those he has competed in. “The one I’ve had consistent results and consistent pleasure in driving is probably the Clio,” he admits. “I’m going quicker around Brands than in formula cars. In the late 1950s and early ’60s, if you got round Brands Indy circuit in under a minute, you were on it. Now I’m doing 52s, 53s and 51s are possible.”

Skelton was back pounding around Brands in the Clio a few weeks ago ahead of a special outing at Lydden this weekend when he intends to compete in both the Renault and the Martin. He may now be entering his 10th decade, but it is clear the enthusiasm remains as strong as ever. “I have a very young spirit,” he concludes. “There’s nothing I can’t do that I did 50 or 60 years ago. It might be a bit slower but actually I’m going quicker around Brands now than I’ve ever been going around Brands in anything.” And that is certainly not to be sniffed at for this very sprightly nonagenarian.

Skelton is faster than ever around Brands Hatch – proving age is just a number

Photo by: JEP