Doug Nye: The birth of the motor racing circuit

The early races he covers were dominated by the great point-to-point, city-to-city format. No competitor passed the same point more than once during those events – in stark contrast (of course) to the multi-lap concept of what became the modern form of closed-circuit racing.

One of the difficulties which those early race organisers had to confront – and which such subsequent circuit-race promoters as Goodwood Motorsport and the British Automobile Racing Club have never had to bother their heads about – was the public danger aspect of how to negotiate built-up areas, towns and villages, along the racing route from starting city, to finishing city.

Pioneer racing motorists received few favours in the city-to-city events they contested. They were subject to the same laws, in the same way, as any other automobile user, and were liable to the same penalties. “But I was in a race, officer” was about as thin an excuse then as one can possibly imagine it still being today. But the early race organisers left it entirely to the competitors to choose their own speed at which to pass through intervening towns and villages.

While race organisers might request during pre-start briefings that due care and attention should be given during such transits, every competing driver worth his salt would simply eve as much time as he possibly could. Each one would have been driven on by the hope that his rivals would be backing off and slowing down rather more than he was managing to do.

After a time, as technical development made competing cars markedly faster than the everyday traffic norm, the racing through these built-up agglomerations “became too pronounced to be ignored”. Consequently, the first control points were instituted, manned by official timekeepers who clocked each car in at the entry to the town or village to be protected - and then clocked each one out again at the exit from the settlement. The intervening period was then deducted from the overall elapsed race time from event start to event finish. Each of these transit periods was regarded as time being spent “in control” and as a version in miniature of an overnight parc fermee – ‘closed park’ – as used in several of the most important road races, in which the competing cars would be kept in isolation, and work upon them was forbidden, no repairs were permitted during the time each car spent in transit control.

Initially, the times of town entry and exit were recorded in register books which were kept at the inward and outward controls - and every competitor had to sign his name on arrival and departure. Since officials might be expected to hang around for up to 12 hours awaiting a tardy or delayed competitor, the controls were usually set up outside a handy cafe or restaurant. The longer the wait, the less sober the officials might have become…

The permitted transit speed through each ‘neutralised’ settlement en route was usually 8-10mph. And they were not allowed to dawdle. In the pioneering Tour de France Automobile event, a different procedure was adopted.

As each driver arrived at a control his time would be written upon a card, together with a number showing the order in which the driver had arrived at the inward control. The card was then given to a pilot cyclist, who would lead the competing car through the neutralised area, and then hand the card to the timekeeper at the outward control. He would then note the time at which the newcomer was to be despatched on the next race leg – and (if two or three cars had arrived together) the order in which each was to be released after the proper interval had elapsed.

As Gerald Rose wrote: “Passing or molesting the pilot cyclist was a proceeding nominally attended with immediate disqualification, but, like most of the other regulations affecting racing, it was not seldom disregarded…”

It was quite usual for a driver to press his pilot cyclist to press on absolutely as fast as possible to reach the outward control several minutes before he was really due, or to give himself a time cushion to pause en route. There he would either busy himself with repairs or adjustments – in breach of the rules – or, taking advantage of the inevitable inexperience of the timekeeping officials, he would simply drive off before his appointed time, trusting that in the excitement his number would not have been recorded. During the 1901 Paris-Berlin international-borders race, there were no fewer than 53 transit controls at which such errors, and such advantage could accumulate.

In the 1902 Paris-Vienna race, it was noted that transit section abuse was particularly widespread. While protests, appeals and official reports of ‘misbehaviour’ within the neutralised areas poured in to the governing body – the patrician Automobile Club de France (ACF) – it’s not as if there was any CCTV record to consult to produce an accurate ruling. The ACF’s finest tried hard to reach proper rulings after each great race, but accuracy in the finally ratified results must be regarded as a luxury which these pioneer events (and organisers) seldom really achieved.

Consequently, when it was announced that a long-distance race was to be run without a single intermediate control, it was hailed on all sides as a tremendous advance in accuracy. This was, in fact, achieved by the pioneering new Circuit des Ardennes race of 1902, conceived and promoted by the Automobile Club de Belgique and by its most enthusiast race-driving member, the Baron Pierre de Crawhez.

This event was to be run on a 53-mile loop of public roads – still drivable today (but for a modernised section of dual-carriageway) – based upon Bastogne in Belgium. The race for cars was to run over six laps of this circuit, with a concurrent race for motorcycles covering two laps. Baron de Crawhez conceived and promoted the event very much as a major-league road race aimed totally at the amateur and private owner (rather than the great manufacturers of the time) and in all entries were received for 26 heavy cars, 38 light cars, and 11 teeny-weeny voiturettes.

This novel motor race – free of neutralisation controls and all the controversy that they had entailed – was run on July 31st, 1902. While the Baron de Crawhez set fastest lap – pounding his thunderous 70hp Panhard round at an average of 57.1mph – the winner was his rival Charles Jarrott in a sister Panhard ’70’ – a Brit, no less – who led home two 60hp Mors cars, driven by the coming French star Fernand Gabriel and mega-wealthy American zillionaire William K. Vanderbilt – ‘Willy K’ himself.

From this taproot, modern multi-lap circuit racing – free of intermediate neutralisation control – has grown into today’s child’s-playmat, paint-on-tarmac brand of industrialised circuit racing – with our Goodwood Motorsport events preserving and protecting many of the basic tenets observed in such spirited manner by the Baron Pierre de Crawhez, back in 1902. For me, he ranks high indeed in the pantheon of famous Belgians…

And to conclude, may I wish all our Goodwood website readers a very Happy, Fulfilling – and Safe – New Year.

Photographs courtesy of The GP Library