Jenny Dell

Jenny Dell raced sportscars and saloons in the 1960s and ‘70s. She drove in the fore-runner to the British Touring Car Championship in 1972.

Her first car was an Elva Courier which she first raced in 1967, when she was 22. 

She was most associated with the Nathan GT, which she used between 1969 and 1970. This was a Hillman Imp-engined special built by Frank Costin and Roger Nathan. Her car was formerly used by the factory Nathan team and had a BMW engine. She won at least one race outright in it, a GT event at Brands Hatch in April 1970.

The Nathan replaced a similar GT car, a 1100cc Diva. This was not the most reliable of cars, although she did manage a sixth place in it in the Brands Hatch STP round in 1969. She later sold it to Wendy Hamblin, another British driver.

Her car for the British Saloon championship was a Ford Escort, which she also tried to qualify for the 1971 Spa 24 Hours. She also drove a Mini Clubman in Special Saloons.

She did at least some rounds of the 1972 BSCC in a Vauxhall Firenza, as a team-mate to Gerry Marshall and Denis Thorne. Her best result seems to have been a class win in the final round at Oulton.

A fellow saloon car racer, Wendy Markey, had Jenny as her co-driver in the 1973 Avon Tour of Britain. Their car was a BMW 2002 and they won the ladies’ award, finishing 19th overall.

She carried on racing until at least 1975, when she is recorded as entering one of the BWRDC’s Shellsport Ladies’ Escort races. She had won a round of the first Shellsport Escort championship in 1974. Jenny was an enthusiastic member of the BWRDC from early on, winning the club’s Goodwin Trophy in 1969 as its highest-performing member. In 1972, she entered the one-make “Fast Girls” Ford Consul Challenge, mostly contested by club members, and finished eleventh.

Jenny’s sister was dating motorcycle racer Bill Ivy when he died in 1969. Jenny herself died young of cancer at some time in the 1980s, having been ill for some time.

(Image copyright Phillip Jackson/Shutterstock)