Thanx to Barrie Maskell himself of lending me his story from his webpage. It's an interesting story witch includes racing with mini's.

So enjoy this part and take a look at Barrie Maskell's page.

After the Kart racing I naturally decided to become a famous racing driver! So I decided that to race a Mini would help me achieve my desired fame.Why a Mini? I supposed it seemed glamorous enough and I remember watching Tony Lanfranchi on the telly and thinking that's for me. If only I had thought about it. A little knowledge is dangerous!I was working for my father in Headingley.We sold three wheelers cars and had just been appointed Austin agents. The Mini seemed to complement the three wheelers. In fact it proved the demise of them. When the 1075cc Cooper S was announced it was the obvious choice,so I ordered one and actually went to Longbridge myself to collect it.Then came the problem of preparing it for racing. Someone told me about a firm in Leeds called Ken Lee Motors who did that sort of thing, so off I went. They were very nice and if course promised me the earth. A chap called Peter Kaye did the work and he was very efficient and I was excited by the way the car was done. The first race was at Mallory and I finished midfield. It was so different from karting! I did a few more races, didn`t achieve much so it was decided that the car went to Barwell Motors who were famous for extracting more power from the engine. I decided that a big race was in order so I entered the British Grand Prix support race at Aintree. The car was so slow I remember a friend of mine waving to me from the crowd and recognising him! Don't suppose Doug de Relwyskow is still with us anymore!.There was a huge shunt at the famous Melling Crossing. Think I ended up next to last.The 1275cc engine had been introduced sometime previously so there was no point in carrying on with the 1075. Why hadn`t I waited? The Cooper S was sold. Does anyone remember buying it? I had the brilliant idea of buying a mini from a scrap yard and supercharging it. Just shows you how foolish you can be. I think from my expression you can tell that we are already bemused.The guy with the welding goggles was called Les. The guy with his back to us was George Woodhouse and they both worked at Lookers in Leeds.The third guy who helped with this project was Alan Griffin and he later came to work for me. More on that later. The first race was at Cadwell Park and disaster struck. After practice the Police arrived and informed us that George`s wife had been killed when she aquaplaned off the road near Pontefract and one of his three children had also died. But they didn't know which one! Alan rushed back to Leeds with George who spent the whole journey not knowing which child. Stop for a moment and imagine that. I know George got married again some years later but I lost touch with him in the late 60`s. I raced the supercharged mini a couple of times,once we trailed all the way to Crystal Palace!. The success rate was non existent. Must have been because I have no records of any results. So that car was either sold or scrapped .I had one more attempt at Mini`s when a friend, [ Keith Wright ? ] who had a company called Panelcraft built a racer and asked me to drive it at Mallory.We didn't do enough laps in practice so we were not allowed to start the race! I can remember it was a long day and I fell asleep in the paddock. I retired from Motor Racing, financially a lot worse off. Ten Pin Bowling turned out to be a lot cheaper .