the 1978 season at Brands Hatch and Silverstone was the coming of the USAC Champ Car. John Webb had gone to America to witness the organisation of Indy Racing at first hand and as a result of that visit two rounds of the USAC National Championship were in England. The Silverstone race was wet and the Brands one dry. The costs were £500,000 but, unfortunately the race did not capture the imagination of the British enthusiasts, despite the appearance of such legendary names as A. J. Foyt, Rick Mears, Tom Sneva and Danny Ongais. The Brands race was run on the Club Circuit which was then renamed the Indy Circuit in honour of the guests. The race was won by Mears (Gould Penske), from Sneva with the fastest lap going to Ongais at (41.4 secs.) – a new outright record. 1979 saw the return of the Race of Champions on 15 April, however the contained only seven regular cars that completed in the World Championship, while the rest of field was made up of entrants from the British Formula One Championship. The spoils of victory went to way of Ferrari, with Gilles Villeneuve winning in a modified 312T3. Second was Nelson Piquet in a Brabham-Alfa Romeo BT48, from Mario Andretti's Lotus-Cosworth 79 in third. Also, this year the World Championship of Makes arrived for again the Brands Hatch Six-Hours with victory going to Reinhold Joest and Volkert Merl in their Joest Racing Porsche 908/3 Turbo. The Jolly Club pairing of Carlo Facetti and Martino Finotto, were out of luck again, when the ETCC landed in Kent for the Brands Hatch 500 km. They lost the lead of the race they had comfortably headed for 100 of a scheduled 120 laps, when the gear lever broke. Once again the rival Luigi team were on hand to take a well deserved win, this time being driven the Belgian team of Raymond van Hove, Jean Xhenceval and Pierre Dieudonné with the familiar BMW CSL. 1980s The circuit did not see a Race of Champions in 1980 – the Formula One calendar was now so full that the teams could not afford a week to run in a non-championship race and henceforward, British fans would have only one opportunity to see current F1 cars in action per year. A little piece of motor racing history was written when Desiré Wilson became the first woman