Phoenix Park road races

[graeme]

Stolen from the Marshals and Club Single Seaters forums (fora?):
Phoenix Park road races are back on this year - 12/13th August. This is racing on public road on the outskirts of Dublin - did it last time it ran a couple of years ago, and it was one of the best meetings I've ever done. More racers from the UK should get over there (it's only a ferry ride past Anglesey...). Classes for 2006 are Fiat Uno/Punto 1400, Fiat Punto Abarth, Porsches, Historics, Formula Sheane, Formula Vee, Formula 5, Strykers/Globals, Formula Libre.

[davyboy]

The Phoenix Park is an awesome event, something that Motorsport Ireland really should do more to develop and promote. Memories of the 1970s races there make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. I don't think I've ever experienced anything like the sound of 20 Formula Atlantics howling through the trees on the sprint down to Mountjoy Corner. You're totally right, a lot more UK racers should do it, particularly the historic and libre guys. There's nothing at all like it in the British Isles.

[Rob29]

Has anyone read the book advertised at the end of this thread? Sounds rather expensive for just 96pages?

[graeme]

Good book - there's a softback copy I picked up (at Phoenix) for a tenner-ish? If you bought it, at least you wouldn't turn up for the event, thinking you were going to race on a layout that hadn't been used for 20 years...

Historics will be full, so get an entry in early, It would be good to take a UK series across, but championship races are discouraged (banned?) because of the nature of the circuit.

Maybe I'll try to get an entry amongst the Stykers again...

[davyboy]

It must be a very low print run or something, I'm sure someone on 10-10ths has bought and read it and can tell us whether its worth the money. Its written by sometime Opel saloon racer of the 1970s and 1980s, Bob Montgomery.

[MagnetON]

Originally Posted by graeme

Historics will be full, so get an entry in early, It would be good to take a UK series across, but championship races are discouraged (banned?) because of the nature of the circuit.

The general consensus of opinion is that The Park is a dangerous place.... trees in close proximity to a road circuit, and thus it would be unfair to make it a championship round as people would be forced to race it for points when they may not personally consider the circuit safe.

[graeme]

Originally Posted by MagnetON

The general consensus of opinion is that The Park is a dangerous place.... trees in close proximity to a road circuit, and thus it would be unfair to make it a championship round as people would be forced to race it for points when they may not personally consider the circuit safe.

Completely agree, although it's not like they take it easy - I went from 20th to 6th on the first lap due to all the offs in front of me

[ghinzani]

Do they still protect lamposts with skips? Maddest thing I ever saw in terms of circuit safety!

[Rob29]

My impression was that the skips were to protect the marshals.Straw bales protetected the lamp posts, park benches and the skips? Though I was last there in 1995.Don't think there have been any serious accidents since the 70s ,none ever to spectators?

[davyboy]

There has been so much debate over safety at The Park going back years. IIRC in the 1980s or so there was a lot of talk about modifying The Park to cater properly for the racing but it never happened. Much of the reason was down to the antique lamp-posts which couldn't [legally] be moved, the location of a monument and having to fell a certain number of trees. The IMRC used to bicker about the fact that it wasn't possible to charge entry for spectators, but I'm sure that wasn't a major issue. [I stand corrected on all the above, so if someone has better information, weigh in] It was such a great pity as with some careful surgery The Park would have made a fabulous setting for top level racing.

In terms of incidents, to my knowledge there was only one fatality there, that of Peter O'Reilly from Glasnevin in the FF1600 repechage in 1978.

[graeme]

IMHO the trees, lamp posts, benches, etc are what makes it special, compared to santitised circuits with arces of tarmac run-off - it certainly focuses the mind.

[ghinzani]

Actually my memory of the skips is falling in one during the night as I recall. Whether it was in the Park I cant recall, for some reason the organisers laid on a tour of the Guinness brewery the night before the race... It could have been practice actually, the whole things a blur, apart from the projectile vomiting. That was with the Porsches, must have been 1990. I expected the FVL at Mondello (my 2nd visit to Eire)in 91 to be a lot more genteel as 1) these were supposedly professional teams and b) there wasnt a brewery near. How naive one is when one is young!

[davyboy]

There were definitely lots of skips in The Park and back in the 70s and 80s they used scaffolding, pile driven into the earth and connected at waist level, as a spectator barrier. It was quite a bit from the track, but if single seater made it that far the consequences for the driver's neck and head don't bear thinking about.
Most people seemed to have a great time when they came over... Scotty... beam me back there now, and don't spill my pint on the way !

[MagnetON]

Skips are still used for the marshals posts at most points in the circuit. I have a load of photos from either 2000 or 2001 when our very own EvilPumpkin helped build the circuit, she had a great time bolting the Armco together.....