THE OWL / THE MAGAZINE OF HUGHES HALL
Stuart Turner left a lasting legacy on UK motorsport
Biblical weather on the Scottish Land Rover Owners Club Cambusbarron RTV Trial, but the team were prepared for everything their brand-new race control centre which is a massive upgrade and will serve them well for years to come. Many good news stories from north of the border.
Recently it was a privilege to speak at the memorial of Stuart Turner, whom we lost at the end of last year. My family knew Stuart for over six decades – professionally at first, but more importantly as a close friend.
His route into motorsport was characteristically unplanned. After National Service he began training as an accountant, though without any real enthusiasm, before a chance ride in a road rally ignited a lifelong passion. At the North Staffordshire Motor Club Stuart quickly made his mark – founding The Potter’ s Wheel, a club magazine of national repute, and establishing himself as a highly soughtafter co-driver in an era when navigation meant reading maps at speed, usually in the dark. Success followed. With Ron Gouldbourn he secured a BTRDA Gold Star and three consecutive Autosport Navigators’ Trophies, and together they won the inaugural RAC Rally Championship in 1958. Stuart repeated that success in 1959 with John Sprinzel, alongside competing in the gruelling Liège – Rome – Liège Marathon – an event that tested endurance as much as skill over 3,000 miles and taking 96 hours non-stop!
By 1960 he was Sports Editor of Motoring News, Stuart reshaped rally coverage, founded the Motoring News Rally Championship and introduced the influential‘ Verglas’ column. His road tests, too, were memorable – not least his wry verdict on the Austin-Healey Sprite as“ not a good courting car.”
Stuart had been with Motoring News for barely 12 months, while also winning the RAC Rally with Erik Carlsson, when he was offered the role of Competitions Manager at the British Motor Corporation on the recommendation of my father,
Marcus Chambers, who was the incumbent but was heading for pastures new after establishing one of the most highly regarded international manufacturers’ competition departments.
My father wrote a book shortly thereafter, Seven Year Twitch,( the name of which was a suggestion from Stuart as a word play on the Marilyn Monroe film), in which he gave a potted view of all the drivers he had worked with at BMC. These were his pace notes on Stuart:
‘ As a navigator Stuart came to the top very quickly. I always thought that as Gamesmanship was to Stephen Potter, so Rallymanship was to Stuart’.
Revolution Magazine 03