WRDA Archive

Phil Kempe

Formula Ford Star of Tomorrow winner + F3 1982 & 1985

Phil Kempe from Rhiwderin was a farmers son who became an instructor at the Brands Hatch racing school. As a Junior Rugby Star at Millfield School,  Phil was ideal as a security guard for the Miss World contest. Semingly well connected, amongst his circle of friends were an Arab Prince, a high flying Property Lawyer & future motorsport entrepreneurs, the Robinsons. Driving a Royale RP26 with an Auriga engine prepared by family and motorsport friends, Phil won the 1981 Dunlop Formula Ford Star of Tomorrow championship (with the rumored help of his Lawyer friends to resolve a dispute in Phil's favour at Aintree) by 1 point from Mark Peters, with Lampeters Karl Jones 3rd.  Phil received the bronze trophy of Hermes, (the legendary Greek winged heeled messenger of the gods) from (left) Dereck Freathy of Dunlop & Marcus Pye (right)  of Autosport at the BRSCC Annual Dinner at Royal Lancester Hotel in London. The first action of the chairman John Cooper' was to declare the loyal toast to the Queen, so everybody who wished to, could smoke, which indicates the era. (BTW Phil was neither a smoker or drinker) Among the stories from that year was having his car towed to the races on the back of a farm trailer & achieving valve bounce in the farms Land Rover on the motorway!

1981 Formula Ford Star of Tomorrow

1st Phil Kempe Royale-Auriga RP26-63pts
2nd Mark Peters Lola-Auriga T540C-62pts
3rd Karl Jones Royale-Scholar RP26-60pts
4th Kenny Andrews van Diemen-Minster RF81-57
5th Dougie Spencer VD-Scholar RF81-53

http://www.eddsport.co.uk/champ_detail.cfm/Category_ID/13/Championship_ID/1.edd

  Some Welsh drivers looked to follow Phil in the Star_of_Tommorow in 1982 & 83

(N.B Later the Robertsons joined with Kimi Raikkonen and they ran various drivers in Formula 3 in the 2000s as Raikkonen Robertson Racing (or TripleR and they had a base at Pembrey)