MEMBER OBITUARY NOTICE
17.10.24
Member: GERALD COOKSON
Inducted: 2018
British Drag Racing pioneer Gerald Cookson died in the early hours of Monday 14th October 2024. He passed away peacefully in his sleep and without pain, for which we are thankful. He was 94 years of age.
After visiting the International Drag Festivals at Blackbushe in 1964, Gerald started his drag racing career at the third meeting of the newly opened Santa Pod Raceway driving a self-built and designed, BMC-powered slingshot dragster called Minor Leaguer.
While working as a factory planner and engineer for Birmingham-based Lucas Electrical, he designed his next dragster with a more traditional American slingshot look about it called Trouble Shooter, still using the dependable BMC engine from a 998cc Mini Cooper.
Gerald never wanted anything bigger in cubic capacity or more expensive to race. He wanted good old dependable British ingenuity that he could pull off the shelf, modify and develop from race to race.
From this point on, race wins started to come in the lower ranks of the dragster classes, but an untimely incident in the Santa Pod fire-up lane ended Trouble Shooter’s days when the push bar broke. A year later his most successful dragster appeared, called The Joker. Again, it was BMC-powered but now had a blower attached, and carried him to numerous wins at Santa Pod as well as at National Drag Racing Club meets at Blackbushe and Long Marston, his home quarter-mile.
After the success of the dragster, Gerald turned his attention to the Modified class where, after acquiring a 1958 Berkeley Sports Car, he began constructing his own chassis to take the Berkeley’s framework and a blown Lotus Twin-Cam engine.
By the 1990s he had purchased a part-built circuit racing MG Midget, first powered by his trusty blown BMC motor, then by an Imp OHC and finally by a factory experimental K-Series engine, all blown and nitrous-injected.
A few years later the Midget was put into storage and the Berkeley came into its own with a new set up, consisting of a turbocharged 850cc BMC armed with enough nitrous to launch the car before the turbo kicked in midway down the track. The theory was great but whether it would have worked or not he’ll never know.
Above all, among Gerald’s racing endeavours he was a devoted husband for 68 years to his wife Joan and father to his son, Jeremy (Jerry). Joan never missed a meeting, providing all the food, fetching and carrying, serving as back-up lady – you name it, she did it.
Gerald’s biggest accolade was to have the family name etched into the sport’s annals as inducted members of the British Drag Racing Hall of Fame in 2018. He was also presented with two Lifetime Achievement awards, one by the Wild Bunch and the other received from Jeremy himself at the 2017 APIRA Championship Awards. He was also presented with the Don Garlits Spirit of Drag Racing Shield in 2000.
Another of British Drag Racing’s early pioneers has departed. The directors of the Hall of Fame offer the Cookson family their condolences.