Founded in the Year Nineteen Twenty-Four January 1980
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January 1980 MOTOR SPORT Founded in the year nineteen twenty-four a good thing, which is why they now play cricket with MATTERS OF MOMENT black pads and a white ball under floodlights, tennis is no longer confined to summer afternoons on grass ■ THE FUTURE OF THE SPORT courts, and kick-ball happens almost every evening to amuse crowds, some of whose other interests are “God is generally for the big battalions violence, hooliganism, and the smashing up of trains ... against the little ones” So let’s be watchful of our own Sport, with the thought that there may even now be too much racing going on, — Bussy Rabutin, 1677. little of it, away from Fl, of the status of great contests from the past, such as Le Mans in its heyday, the TT IT SEEMS prudent, at the beginning of the New Year, when it was a great sports-car road-race, and those to pontificate, as Willie Green thinks we motoring Silverstone saloon-car races when Jaguar, Daimler writers do, about the state of the Sport. D.S.J, had (yes!) Mini-Minor and the rest competed and the made it clear to anyone in any doubt that Fl racing is spectators, watched cars battling it out which were not in a highly interesting stage, and his arguments are as too dissimilar to those they had arrived in, and which convincing as his enthusiasm is infectious. So the 1980 many of them could afford to purchase . Grand Prix season that starts in nine days’ time should On the sordid subject of greed, did you know that, be a magnificent one, with the excitement of seeing according to a Rally Promotional Executive, the Forestry whether the Saudis will see their support of the Williams Commission received a minimum of £42,000 from the team fulfilled, the computerised-might of Ferrari again RAC in respect of last year’s RAC Rally? Yet when prevail, Lotus, linked to Ford and now to Rolls-Royce, we drove into to the Radnor Forest Castrol Enthusiast retrieve lost status, Renault achieve a Turbo charged Rally Stage in the Editorial Rover, with a huge Official Championship, or whatever. Press sticker on its windscreen, we were told to pay £1 National racing, reviewed in MOTOR SPORT last admission fee for the privilege of reporting the event month, more or less thrives, in many different categories, (“You can claim it back from your paper”) or else go and there is absolutely no denying the popular appeal back, which was clearly impossible with a great queue of of, and interest in, International Rallying. On a rather spectators’ cars behind us. We did not grudge the quid, more amateur footing, the racing of vintage and historic but we were disappointed to find that there was no car- cars is on the increase. Nevertheless, we must guard park, no indications of where to watch, and nothing to against anything that might be detrimental to these and stop visitors from driving on along what should have any other facets of the Sport. For the time being there been a one-way traffic system, only to come to a dead-end. seems absolutely no foundation for rumours to the effect The spectators’ cars were packed bumber-to-bumper on that the Sport may have-to be curtailed on account of both sides of the forest roads and they stretched literally the need to conserve fuel. Petrol, at a price, is now freely for miles. How they all got out again is a modern miracle. available again (at least when Shell’s tanker-drivers do Such enthusiasm for rallying is highly satisfactory. not go on strike) and while package-tourists fly about the But, remembering that the Forestry Commission took World in Jumbo Jets and horse-race and kick-ball crowds £1 for each spectator’s car at the many Stages, as well travel in a multitude of cars and motor-coaches, there can as receiving the aforementioned fee for the use of the be no call to reduce motoring sport under a fuel-saving course, it might have laid on a better service for those heading. So, at lop level, all seems set-fair for another who came to watch and who may have thought Castrol magnificent motor-racing season, with flourishing events to blame. Accidents under such conditions, with adults in the other sections of the Sport. However, greed and and children not used to the speed of rally cars let loose other factors have intruded into non-motorised sports, so in the dark forests, could easily happen and could be very let us be watchful and jealously guard ours. detrimental to this now healthy branch of the Sport. Yet The smaller Clubs will be hit, for instance, by with marshals having to rely only on ropes and whistles new financial and organisational penalties imposed on to keep the course clear, it can only be the good discipline them by the RAC Motor Sports Council, unless enough of British crowds that has prevented a disaster from resistance is brought to bear for Belgrave Square to occurring. God may be on the side of the Big Battalions, retract. In fact, this month’s VSCC Measham Rally be these wealthy Fl contenders or happy crowds wanting is the first casualty. A friend of ours who lives in the to see International rally drivers at work. But let us not motoring past, but who claims to be closely in touch push our luck too far . with the younger members of many of the smaller motoring Clubs, considers that the time has come for ■ OH. AUNTIE! the RAC to operate two-tier control of the Sport. He thinks that at present Clubs running amateur events, There will be many who are absolutely delighted amateur drivers, and newcomers to the Sport, are all that The Times newspaper has been able, at the cost carrying a disproportionate load, not only financially, of £30-million, to weather an industrial storm and but in respect of rules and regulations. With this view recommence publication. For “Auntie” is essentially we agree, and while realising that in Inflationary times a very British institution. And has been for nearly 200 the RAC is no more immune than other organisations to years. But we hope that the long break in its daily doses increased running-costs, it is surely to the big battalions will not be responsible for reduced standards of accuracy, that it should look for a bigger income. Greed has in a paper whose once-proud boast was that you could affected other sports, if only by demanding too much of trust its every word. The reason we say this is because in a long obituary Bentley employee Walter Hawgood was unknown to the about Signor Amedee Gordini that appeared in The BDC, whereas he appears as “believed deceased” in the Times last year it was stated that this engineer who was Club’s list. responsible for the Gordini-Simca and other racing cars, But with standards falling everywhere, it will and who worked for Renault (not mentioned), designed be a great pity if we can no longer rely on The Times a chassis round an old Hispano Suiza engine in 1921, and newspaper for almost l00% accuracy. It is possible that that after Tazio Nuvolari had tested this car at Monza he their Amedee Gordini obituary was not written by a “took it over to Brooklands, where it was timed at nearly staff-man and that they used a commercial hand-out. 150 m.p.h.”. It has been our belief that Nuvolari, one of the which they singularly failed to check? — W.B. greatest of racing drivers, only drove once at Brooklands, in Earl Howe’s Bugatti, and that in 1933 in practice for THE THINGS THEY SAY . the BARC Mountain Championship, in which he failed STUART TURNER, Ford’s Director of Public Relations, to start. If Nuvolari came to the Weybridge Track 12 in a hilarious, but pertinent speech at the BRDC dinner years earlier and drove so quickly there, this would be dance in the London Hilton las month: “I don’t hold with of the greatest interest, to a great many people. But we all this British Mafia nonsense in Formula One. The way think we can safely say this never happened. the Fl constructors trade makes the bloody Mafia look In the first place, although The Times says Gordini effeminate!” met “the great Nuvolari” in 1921, at that time Tazio was only just commencing his motorcycle racing, and had scarcely earned such acclaim. Secondly, in STARS 1921 the Track lap-record stood at under 122 m.p.h , IN THE article elsewhere in this issue the design of the the Land Speed Record at 124.1 m.p.h., and there was 1914 TT Star is attributed to Cecil Cathie. In fact these meat excitement when K. Lee Guinness’ big Sunbeam cars were designed by Tom Mathie, who had previously was unofficially timed at 135 m . p . h . o v e r the been with Sunbeam’s. We expect to have a long Star Brooklands half-mile that year. It was another 14 years postscript in a future MOTOR SPORT. before Cobb’s big Napier-Railton was timed at over 150 m.p.h. at Brooklands. When America claimed a record A CHEAP LIFT of more than 156 m.p.h. from Milton’s twin-engined LOADS of up to a quarter of a ton can be lifted by a very Duesenberg in 1920, no-one in Europe would accept it.