There must be a lot of information out there about the raceway in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park. Enough to fill Golden Gate Remembered, a book by Art Evans and Gary Horstkorta.
1952 Golden Gate Road Racing Program cover
I have to admit, however, there seems to be precious little about the circuit online. Maybe that’s because it was short lived; the track only hosted events from 1952-1954 when, like other road racing circuits of the era, the spectre of safety required that events move to the closed, purpose-built tracks that have thrived since.
Also like other road racing tracks of the era, the Road Racing Course at Golden Gate Park still exists as public roads, and thanks to Google Maps’s Street View, we can take a spin around the track from our desk chairs. Google maps also helps us with the travel time of the track, at the speed limit of course. The 3.1 mile course should take your average commuter over 9 minutes. Roger Bartlow did somewhat better when he won the 1.5 liter class in the 1952 SCCA Nationals in his 1952 Simca Special, averaging 6 minutes 22 seconds. Even at the speed limit, the park roads look like a lovely drive in your classic. As is always the case with the Lost Tracks we feature, please send along photos of your car on the track if you visit these forgotten race courses.
Masten Gregory leads Jack Armstrong at Golden Gate Park
What I’m lacking in solid track information though, I can help make up in informative reading elsewhere. Tam’s Old Race Cars has a photo gallery of early NorCal racing, which includes the image above of Masten Gregory in his Jaguar C-Type. He would go on to win the race.
Here are some images pulled from the 1952 Racing Program. Apparently the cover photo was shot off-track, as it seems there’s no clear view of the Golden Gate Bridge from the track, but a lovely composition nonetheless.
Now this is exactly the position you probably don’t want to be in. Then again, by nearly any measure, sitting on the track watching your BRM tumble through the air, throwing wheels, exhaust, and everything else, is probably a damn fortunate position to end up in. Considering.
This is Hans Herrmann, watching his BRM barrel roll through the air at the South end of the 1959 German Grand Prix. This race was run on the steeply banked AVUS track in West Berlin. The track might have been more economical to run in place of the Nurburgring, but is it ever boring. Looking much more like a modern Speedway than a proper Formula 1 track, it’s simply two very long straights with two banked hairpins at either end. It was at the south end that it all went wrong for our friend Hans here; dropping from 4th to 3rd to slow for the turn. Looks like he got a bit too close to the hay bales, and it was all over. This might be one of only a few examples of being safer without the driver’s safety belts. Whew.
I’ve heard it said that Formula 1 is what Europe has instead of a space program. That’s only partially true of course, but it does pretty accurately communicate the level of engineering prowess on the world’s Grand Prix circuits. On today’s 40th anniversary of NASA’s Apollo program, I can think of no better visual tribute on The Chicane than this Lotus trying to achieve escape velocity at (probably) the Nurburgring.
The sleuths on the Autosport Nostalgia Forum have bitten into another mystery. Some early 60’s color photos from a handful of race meetings at Goodwood have surfaced from the collection of a former mechanic. Any other group of appreciators might be happy to just enjoy these excellent shots of an excellent track. But the Nostalgia Forum contributors are no mere appreciators, they are scholars and archivists of the highest order.
From this smattering of photos found by the granddaughter of Brit Pierce, the mechanic in question, the forum has sussed out that there are at least two and possibly three race meetings photographed here. Now they want to determine which race weekends they were. Every detail, from the obvious car makes and racing numbers, to the subtle magnified nameplates on transporters, offers a clue. They have already identified many of the cars and drivers, and even recognized bystanders in the pits, and another piece snaps into place. And just what does that transporter peeking out from behind the Ecurie Ecosse team transporter say along the top? It’s a wonderful puzzle. One that I’m happy to watch unfold.
Know your Goodwood? Check out all the photos and lend a hand. But hurry if you want to be involved. If I know The Nostalgia Forum, it won’t be long before the race weekends are known, the winning drivers identified, and an amusing story about post-race pints at the bar will be shared.
Here’s what the Washington Post had to say in advance of this July 1925 race at the Laurel Speedway in Laurel, Maryland.
Washington Post, Jul 11, 1925 14 Auto Entrants Qualify for Race Today at Laurel De Paolo Leads With and Average of 131.5 Miles for One Lap
A wide board track, wrapping 80 acres of ground as a ribbon might encircle an ostrich egg, with a huge grandstand overlooking it all, is ready today to vibrate under the great motor gruel, the inaugural race at the Washington-Baltimore automobile speedway.
Never level and in places almost up and down, it is to the arena of sixteen speed-crazed drivers, out on a Roman holiday to entertain the populace and in so doing to lower the world’s speed records.
Peter de Paolo, plucky aspirant for this year’s motor racing fame, made himself and machine a fitting apparition on it yesterday and establishing a strategic place in today’s get-away. De Paolo drove his racing Dusenberg around the course at a speed of 131.5 miles an hour, the greatest speed attained in the qualifying rounds. As a result he will have the preferred position at the start with Earl Cooper, who qualified Thursday with a speed of 129.8 miles an hour. …
An inspection of the approach to the track yesterday emphasized the traffic problem. While there is plenty of space to park machines both outside and inside the oval there is only a narrow road leading to it from the highway, a distance of about half a mile. Every effort, however, is to be made to keep traffic moving briskly. Those planning to go to the track in machines, should bear this in mind in arranging their running time.
Special trains will be operated over the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. They run directly to the track. …
Arrangements have been completed for handling the vast crowd expected to attend the race. Two hundred District national guardsmen, under the command of Capt. P.G. Nevitt, are to cooperate with the Maryland guardsmen, State police and regular soldiers in regulating traffic both inside and outside the bowl. Capt. Nevitt’s men are to assemble at the armory. He stated last night that any motorist who will come by, fill his car with as many guardsmen as he can take will be given free parking space at the track.
Half the fun of this early newspaper account is the colorful language of a sporting press that hasn’t quite decided on it’s racing jargon.
This race was a full 5 years after the famous crash at the Los Angeles Speedway that killed Gaston Chevrolet (the brother of Chevrolet founder Louis Chevrolet) along with “Mechanician” Lyall Jolls. The danger of board track racing was intense. Just look at that Laurel photograph; the barrier between the track and the stands is hardly what I would call sturdy, and there seems to be no barrier of any substance between the track and infield, not to mention the prospect of skinny tires on wooden planks. Just hope no oil gets on the boards. And even the slightest sprinkle of rain would prove disastrous. The Los Angeles race, of course, inspired a favorite painting of mine by Robert Williams, Death on the Boards: The Mystery of Indy Winner Gaston Chevrolet and His Death Premonition Which Came True with the Deaths of Two Others at the Plush Beverly Hills Board Track in View of 60,000 Witness of Who No Two Gave the Same Account on Thanksgiving Day, Nov 25,1920. Which, though a mouthful, might also be the best title of a painting ever.
Thanks Shorpy for the photo. This was from a series of three photos Shorpy featured of the July 11, 1925 Laurel Speedway race.
You can buy yourself a print of the Robert Williams painting here, which is also featured in the excellent book of American car culture, Kustom Kulture. You deserve it. CarsAndRacingStuff.com has more on the Gaston Chevrolet crash, including the New York Times article that covered the event.
An event organizer finally figured out what makes the Goodwood Revival so special. It isn’t the history of the track itself, which is rich and storied. It isn’t the drivers, though Goodwood attracts many of history’s best. It isn’t even the race vehicles themselves, which are undoubtedly among the best in the world.
The Goodwood Revival is spectacular because of the attendees. The crowds almost entirely arrive in period attire. It’s a giant renaissance festival for cars. It’s the best possible cosplay. This extends to the grounds of course, which are staged and prepped in period attire as well, from traditional garages featuring period accoutrements, to classic pubs and barber shops; the entire scene is like a film set and the attendees its extras.
For Laguna Seca’s historic Festival of Legends motorcycle race, the 2010 event organizers have decided to showcase the halcyon days of motorcycle racing, the 1970s. The organizers promise to offer all the “spectacle and glamour of the era and a magical step back in time. The atmosphere, dress, food and music will celebrate life on racetracks in 1970s in a unique weekend celebration”.
Hopefully this isn’t all wishful thinking and the attendees will don their best short-shorts for the series. I’ve long been hoping that this enthusiasm among attendees at vintage events would spread from Goodwood to our shores. Even if the 70s isn’t your personal favorite period for fashion, I hope you’ll get into the spirit if you’re making your way to next year’s event. If it succeeds, we may see more of the classic racing spirit at Stateside events. I hope so.
Hell for Leather has more details, and will no doubt be following the story.
(Photo from Paul’s Place EUPEN’s vintage motorcycle racing Flickr Stream)
How could I have missed this? Road America is only a few hours drive away and somehow I completely missed the chance to see some marvelous vintage Ferraris at a racing pace in the Shell Ferrari Historic Challenge. The series is open to pre-1980 machines, and divided into disc and drum brake classes.
The drum brake class featured two—two!—Maserati 250Fs on the starting row. Ultimately the pole-sitter, Peter Giddings, won the drum brake race by more than 30 seconds. No surprise there, Giddings has won most of the events since the series started in 2000. So chalk another one up for Giddings. No matter though; whatever the official site lists in standings for the event, the folks hanging out at the Turn 5 fence and the Hurry Downs benches were the real winners. It’s a bit of a rarity to see vintage machines from Maranello racing hard here in the Midwest and I’m really kicking myself for missing the opportunity.
If you’re in Quebec, don’t make the same mistake I did. The next Shell Ferrari Historics will be hitting Le Circuit at Mont-Tremblant from July 24 to 26.
State Senator T. Newell Wood was a politician for 30 years. But for us, his greatest contribution was the race he hosted in the mid 50s around his estate in Pennsylvania: Brynfan Tyddyn. We’ve written about this amazing lost track before, but here’s something we haven’t seen. Senator Wood’s personal racing car.
This little 500cc single seater was one of a handful made by the Hakanson Brothers in Sweden under the Effyh nameplate. Effyh made a bit of a name for themselves on both sides of the Atlantic. Effyh team driver Ake Jonsson piloted the factory example to three Formula 3 World Championships. In the States, John Fitch took an example to class victories at the Bridgehampton Road Race and at the Giant’s Despair hillclimb — which is probably where Senator Wood first laid eyes on one.
This example, like the Fitch and Jonsson machines, was originally powered by a JAP engine; this one legendarily found in Wood’s barn and restored. The example set by the dominant Cooper Formula 3’s Norton power compelled Woods to upgrade to Norton power and Cooper suspension for this Effyh. The new powerplant made this little F3 really move around up the track at Brynfan Tyddyn’s sister event, the Giant’s Despair hillclimb.
