1959 Alexis HF1 FJ

This car took part in the Historic Formula Junior Front Engine car race at the Gold Cup meeting at Oulton Park in August 2018, and I took these photographs during the qualifying sessions on the Saturday of the 3-day Bank Holiday Weekend meeting.

It's Duncan Rabagliati's 1959 Alexis Mk1, chassis HF1, with a 4-cylinder 1,098cc BMC A series engine. This was the first car built by Bill Harris and Alex Francis who went on to produce rear engined Formula Junior cars and a series of Formula 2, Formula 3 and Formula Ford cars.

Here's Duncan Rabagliati on the exit of Lodge Corner during his qualifying session.

1950 Comet MkI F3

This was one of the competitors in the F3 500s race at the Vintage Sports Car Club's Formula Vintage meeting at Oulton Park in May 2019.

It's Duncan Rabagliati in his 1950 Comet MkI at Britten's chicane during the morning practice session. The Comet MkI was built by Brian Heyward and his father to replace an aged Cooper MkIV and it originally had a JAP engine, later replaced with a Norton unit. There's a 500 Owners Association site that has lots of details about the 500cc Formula 3 years, including details of the many different marques that were created for the Formula.

Here's the Comet at Druids Corner during the race.

Trimax Monoposto

When I started watching motor racing in the 1950s one of the support races at each meeting was usually for 500cc Formula 3 cars. These were mostly Cooper or Kieft machines, but there was always a sprinkling of cars from other low production manufacturers, and one-off specials. The SeeRed meeting at Donington Park in May 2011 included a race for these 500cc cars with a sizeable entry list, amongst which was the car shown here.

It's the 1949 Trimax Monoposto, built by Spike Rhiandro and driven in this race by Duncan Rabagliati, and you can read the history of this car here. The car was designed to allow for engines of 500, 750, and 1,000cc to be fitted (hence the 'Trimax' name) and for the Donington Park race it used the JAP 497cc engine shown below.

Appropriately, it mirrored its debut performance in 1950 at Goodwood by coming to a standstill on the run-off area just past McLeans Corner on the first lap of the Donington Park race.