Tom Wheatcroft

Frederick Bernard "Tom" Wheatcroft (8 May 1922 – 31 October 2009) was an English businessman and car collector.

He made his fortune through building and construction, and was known for resurrecting the Donington Park motor racing circuit and founding the Donington Grand Prix Collection museum.

Frederick Bernard Wheatcroft was born in Castle Donington, Leicestershire, in 1922.

Early in life he was nicknamed 'Tom-Tom' by an uncle, owing to his habit of repeatedly patting his stomach, and the name stuck with him for the rest of his life.

Wheatcroft had only 20 months of formal schooling, and following the end of this he became an apprentice plasterer.

However, he preferred to bicycle from his parents home in Leicester to Donington Park to watch pre-war motor racing.

He was in attendance at the circuit during the 1937 and 1938 Donington Grand Prix races:

You had to be there to know what it was like.

The W125 Mercs and the V16 Auto Union racing cars were doing 170mph by halfway down the straight.

The noise and the smell and the speed – we hadn't seen anything like it before.

During World War II Wheatcroft served as a tank driver.

He saw action in many theatres, including Madagascar, India and the Middle East, and was a part of the Allied invasion of Italy.

Toward the end of the conflict he was invalided home after he was temporarily blinded by a nearby mortar explosion.

Following the end of the war Wheatcroft returned to the construction industry as a labourer.

When a storm caused significant damage to parts of Leicester he organised repairs.

Using the money made from this he funded the construction of two houses, and from there he rapidly built a thriving construction business, Bernard Wheatcroft Ltd. In 1946 he married Helena Morgenstern, known to her family as "Lenchen".

Wheatcroft had always lived within a 30-mile radius of Castle Donington, had by his death had amassed an estimate fortune of £120 million, and was father to seven children.

Following on from his childhood passion for motor racing, after Wheatcroft's construction business started to provide a stable source of income he returned to visiting race events as a spectator.

In 1964 he bought an elderly Ferrari 125 Formula One car, formerly owned and driven by Peter Whitehead.

Despite having had its Ferrari V12 engine replaced by a Chevrolet Corvette V8 by the previous owner in Australia, Wheatcroft enjoyed driving the car at test sessions.

The car sparked a buying spree and formed the first of what was to become a major collection of Grand Prix machinery.

Over the following years Wheatcroft and his distinctive laugh – described by historian Doug Nye as "like a rusty truck failing to start" – became a familiar feature at race circuits around the world.

Having made his fortune, and having started to build his car collection, Wheatcroft further indulged his racing passion by running his own racing car team.

In 1970 he purchased an ex-works Brabham BT26, Jacky Ickx's 1969 German Grand Prix-winning car, and entered Derek Bell for the Tasman Series' 1970 New Zealand Grand Prix.

Bell finished second.

Following that initial success, later that year he invested in a new a Brabham BT30 to run for Bell in the European Formula Two Championship.

Bell again finished second.

During the season he also entered the BT26, in full three-litre form, at the Race of Champions, where Bell suffered an accident in practice, and the Belgian Grand Prix, where the car retired.

At the 1971 Monaco Formula Three race Wheatcroft became acquainted with Roger Williamson, also from Leicester, and began to support his driving career.

Driving for Wheatcroft Racing, in 1972 Williamson won two of the three British Formula Three Championships, and took part in numerous European Formula Three and Formula Two races.

In 1973 Wheatcroft sponsored a seat for Williamson in the Formula One March Engineering works team, run by Max Mosley.

Williamson's short career lasted two races.

He crashed on the first lap of his debut, at the ill-fated 1973 British Grand Prix, then again on the eighth lap of the Dutch Grand Prix.

Although he was unhurt in the accident the car had flipped over, preventing his escape, and Williamson died in the subsequent fire.

Wheatcroft reflected later that "I lost friends in the war but it was nothing like losing The Lad. Wasn't until afterwards you realised how much he meant."

After this Wheatcroft continued to back occasional drivers in Formula Atlantic and Formula Two.

He funded the construction of a bespoke Wheatcroft chassis, designed by former BRM designer Mike Pilbeam, and ran 1974 British champion Brian Henton (born in Castle Donington) in selected Formula Two and Atlantic races using it.

Henton's best result with the Wheatcroft 002 was third place in the Silverstone Circuit round of the European Formula Two Championship.

The two maintained their relationship in 1976, but Wheatcroft's heart wasn't in it and he slowly wound down the team's activities over the year.

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