Urgent trips!

[Ray Bell]

Back in the days when racing was great, when meeting the drivers was possible and seeing the cars close up in the pits an everyweekend occurence, there were times when cars had to be got to the circuit in a hurry, and maybe there was no better way than to drive them.

Jack Brabham drove his car from Launceston to Longford along the public roads, in the raceday traffic, about 1964... what a sight that must have been...

Who can remember other ad-hoc (or even planned) drives between workshop and circuit?

[marcus]

a friend of mine used to race sprintcars ..but after spending all day working on the thing he decided he would take it out onto the local roads (small country town with mainly dirt roads) ..must have been a sight seeing an 800hp sprintcar coming completely sideways around the corner .

funny thing though as he put it away and packed things up the local policeman showed up....


sprintcar ...what sprintcar ?????

didnt work though

[Morris 1100]

Ray I took my HQ Holden down to Tasmania from the Blue Mountains for the HQ nationals at Baskerville and another meeting the next weekend at Symmonds Plains the best part of the trip was picking up the car at Finemores transport at Laverton and driving it to Port Melbourne across the Westgate bridge in lunchtime traffic.

[WANHER]

Jacques Swaters driving in convoy his Ferrari 500
Trough Italy, Swiss,France, and Belgium without
insurance, lights, plates and at the belgian border
he got under the barrier all this to be ready
for the start of the GP des Frontières in Chimay.
R Laurent, the driver gets the car out off the road
almost on the first corner.
This was in 1952
Those things I think were usual but I think it's the
longest trip I know

[Ray Bell]

That certainly is a good one, WAHNER, and I'd be interested to know where there is some record of that journey taking place that way..

Puts in the shade my efforts running in my Hustler Clubman round the back streets of Orchard Hills before an AARC race meeting in 1975!

[WANHER]

You will get on monday

[Ray Bell]

Thank you WAHNER, I would like to see the story in print!

[WANHER]

How good is your french ....
And extra two others also about french teams.

[Ray Bell]

I can say "Silver Plates" and a couple of other simple things, but I don't know what they mean!

But somebody will... sounds like you have a few good stories!

[WANHER]

I ve got a problem with sending it there will be
delay I m sorry

Robert

[Morris 1100]

Ray, Dennis Cooke told me about the time at Catalina when after the meeting he didn't feel like loading the car onto the trailer (it was cold and raining and foggy)so why not drive the race car up to the Carrington Hotel and load it up in the undercover carpark after a few drinks. Well the local police had different ideas and stoped Dennis outside the Carrington,where our hero promptly laid the cop out in the gutter.

[Ray Bell]

Hmmm... I think that belongs on a different thread, Morris... but it doesn't surprise me. Gary, of course, would surprise me less...

[Mike Argetsinger]

"This was to be the French Grand Prix. They finished the car late in the afternoon and we had no lorry to get it to Rouen; I said 'Fair enough, I'll drive it there.' So we started up the engine, it was getting on quite late by that time. I leapt into this single-seater racing car and drove off through Paris all the way to Rouen. It was a wonderful drive. Tony Hume, Archie (Bryde) and his wife drove in Archie's Bentley and I followed in the Cooper. Wherever we went the police held up the traffic immediately and waved us through and the people in the villages cheered us on. A wonderful sight. We eventually arrived in the dark, it was absolutely pitch black. We had no lights on the car, open exhausts, no mudguards, no lights, no insurance, no anything. Nobody seemed to give a damn over there."

This is Mike Hawthorn (Challenge Me The Race)describing getting the Cooper-Bristol from Paris to the French GP at Rouen in 1952. A different world - a better time.

Is this the sort of thing you had in mind Ray?

[Ray Bell]

Absolutely, Mike... just the kind of thing!

Give us more... anything from Watkins Glen?

[Crash Test]

I'd hate to think how many people on friday nights tear around the street, bedding in brakes...

I've heard some corkers over the years, like people who own car yards, stick their trade plates on their race car, and drive to the track. Also there are many guys who get those red slips (i think that's what they are called) which are meant for unregistered vehicles to go to be certified...of course they always get misused, and you find all sorts of cars hooning around.

Also there is the story of the guy who tests his Sports Sedan up the alley way next to his work. He takes off the spoiler so that it doesn't get wiped out on a speed bump...

[DAVID PATERSON]

Crash, don't forget WW testing the Super Tourer around Margate and Woody Point.

[Crash Test]

Of course...and don't forget a certain Datsun 1600

[Mekola]

I also remember the long trip Juan Manuel Fangio made after raced the Ulster Trophy in June 7th 1952 to Monza, when he will race the next day. Transports by air were cancelled to weather conditions, but Fangio was expected to be presented at the another event. Someone (the prince Bira?) promised him to travel with him in his particular aircraft, but failed his promise. After taking two travels first to Londres and later to Paris, Louis Rosier transported him to Lyon and borrowed his car to made the rest of the trip to Monza. Fangio came to the circuit half an hour before the race, and started on the last place because he didn't make the qualifying. After his trip of madness he take the drive of his Maserati at Monza GP on June 8th, 1952, but after two laps he had a heavy shunt in what he miracleously saved his life, but an accident what forced him to stay out of racing for the rest of the season.

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