November 19, 1972: the Player’s No 6 International was the first of six race meetings to attract drivers from outside the region in Bushy Park’s early days. With airline support key to the plan, BOAC (the British Overseas Airways Corporation) Team Speedbird comprised three drivers from Britain, the late Gabriel Konig (Chevrolet Camaro), Gordon Spice, back for his second visit following the previous year’s Turners Hall hillclimb, driving a famous Austin A40 known as the ‘Old Grey Mare’, and Dave Brodie in this Chevron B8, in which he set a class lap record. Having won his first-ever race in an Austin A35 at Silverstone only four years before, ‘The Brode’ was already a regular race-winner in saloons and sports cars in the UK and Europe by the time he reached Bushy Park. His career was briefly interrupted in 1973, after an horrific accident during the British GP weekend at Silverstone; in a works Ford Escort hunting down Ford Capri racer David Matthews, the two came up to lap Mini racer Gavin Booth with disastrous results, which left Brodie with 23 broken bones and a long-term recovery. Thereafter he enjoyed a successful career, winning and claiming lap records at every UK circuit, with fourth overall in 1985 his best finish in the British Touring Car Championship. Heading for his 77th birthday next month, he has also been a director of the British Racing Drivers Club (BRDC) and founder of the BRDC Rising Stars programme (into which Zane Maloney was inducted last year).
