More sad news …. Tom Brown passed away this week. Once upon
a time he owned a plumbing business in Cambuslang but he will be better known
to legions of Scottish motor sports fans as a motor race and Formula Ford fan, race
winner and multiple champion, car builder and fixer, thinker and innovator, teacher
and mentor, publicist and promoter, and more than occasionally, pest and
troublemaker, but at the heart of it all he was a racer, an out and out racer.
Pest and troublemaker may sound a bit harsh but he was
always full of good intentions. Often when the phone rang the unsuspecting listener
would pick it up only to hear a cheery voice announce ‘Tom Brown here’ and would
find themselves being inveigled into yet another scheme or grand plan.
As his own racing days started to wind down he became more
involved in his own Tom Brown Racing Drivers School and Skid Centre but also
managed Ingliston race circuit in its latter days. Sadly, uncertainty over the
future ownership of the site beside Edinburgh airport plus the astronomical cost
of bringing the circuit up to required safety standards thwarted any hopes of a
revival and it closed as a motor racing venue in 1994.
Condolences to family and friends.
