The Historic Sports Car Club’s Historic Formula 3 races at the Thruxton Historic (June 22-23) will be for the Chris Moore Memorial Trophy, remembering a leading driver from the one-litre Formula 3 era.
The fabulous one-litre F3 cars will be back at Thruxton for a rare double-header at the Hampshire track and, with the help of the British Automobile Racing Club, the Chris Moore Memorial Trophy will be brought back into the spotlight and presented to the aggregate race winner.
Moore was one of Britain’s rising young stars of the mid-1960s and raced competitively in Formula 3 before sadly losing his life to a brain tumour at the age of just 25. In his memory, his mother and brother presented the Chris Moore Memorial Trophy to the BARC, which was then awarded to the winner of a Formula 3 race for a number of years. Alan Rollinson (1969) and Mike Beuttler (1970) were early winners and in 1971 it was presented for a race at Crystal Palace and was won by James Hunt in his 1600cc March 713M. A year later Rikki von Opel beat Jochen Mass to the trophy.
The HSCC Historic Formula 3 Championship is enjoying a fine season as it celebrates the 60th anniversary of the start of the one-litre Formula 3 category. Fittingly, Formula 3 was on the bill at the first race meeting held at the re-opened Thruxton circuit in March 1968, when Philip Tose won in a Brabham.
With the help of Robs Lamplough, who was a period competitor with Moore, the trophy has been re-dedicated with the full support of the Moore family and Chris Moore’s nephew William plans to be there along with other family members to present the trophy to the aggregate winner of the Historic F3 races.
Simon Etherington from Historic F3 said: “I hope this will help to make our Thruxton meeting a real success. It is very appropriate to remember a promising young driver who made his name in the type of cars that we race now. Chris had a particular association with Thruxton, so it will be a wonderful element of our 60th anniversary season and we hope that it can become an annual award for the Historic F3 cars.”