CLUBMANS RACING
“ Dick was so good at spotting things that customers had missed – like seeing a bolt that was too long and would be touching the bodywork or chassis on roll, for example. People often do not realise what cars do in a corner. They cannot imagine them changing angles, lifting the axle and getting wheelspin. They just think,‘ oh, the clutch is slipping’ but he sees it all.
“ Lots of customers wanted to talk through their races with us, the Hill Climbers as well as the Circuit racers, so we were always busy on a Monday after an event. People would also quite often bring their car in for Richard to set up – with their help – because he was the best person to get the corner weights and the geometry and everything right.
Things did not always go to plan, however. One of the most dramatic incidents occurred when Mallock owner Peter Richings – now the co-ordinator of the Clubmans Championship – got into a spot of bother at Oulton Park, and Sue recalls:“ He came into the pit lane upside down, backwards, ricocheting off the Armco.
“ He had tangled with another car coming over the crest of Deer Leap and it flipped him over. He stopped just short of where we were standing on the pit wall and as it was the first race of the season, a lot of the marshals were trainees. You could smell fuel, you could hear the pump ticking, so we all rushed down and Dick got under the inverted car.
“ It was okay when it was hard to access equipment, but once everybody could get a set of set up scales, they could do it themselves. We shot ourselves in the foot a bit, giving out so much information, but it was always disappointing to see somebody have problems, and all we really wanted was to see them enjoying their racing and making the most of their car.”
Although the majority of people in the Clubmans paddock ran their own cars and just sought out Richard for advice when needed, Mallock Sports did also run a customer service for drivers who wanted it all done for them. That included two Americans who regularly travelled to the UK, just to get their fix of driving one of their machines.
One of those, Bob Crozier, from New York, often required Sue to get the status of the race meetings changed, because it had to be an international event just for his benefit, while Rob Manson, from California, spent three years travelling to the UK and back before his wife came over and demanded he returned!
“ Pete was quite compos mentis, just saying‘ get me out of here,’ so Dick turned off the master switch, took the steering wheel off, helped him undo his belt and got him away.
“ The car withstood it very well, the rollover bar was a bit worn away, but it got repaired and it is still out there now! And that was the thing. Mallocks are so robust, things do not often fail unless there is an incident, or somebody has done a repair themselves that is not up to scratch, such as a nose frame collapsing and the nose buckling under.”
Mallock Sports had a 50th Anniversary celebration race at Silverstone in 2008, where one of Richard’ s proudest moments was commentating on all the history. The company continued to develop new cars right up until Richard and Sue retired, at which point racing car manufacturer Jedi took over the manufacturing side of the business – but opted not to do the stock, however, as was it too complicated without knowing all about the cars.
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Joy Richings
Richard chatting with works Mallock driver Alan Cook, and Peter Richings after a race at Brands Hatch in 2018
Revolution- April 2025
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