Your first motorsports experience - Dad content!!

[RichardGee]

I thought this might be an interesting first post. Forgive me if it;s not in the right vein. I've been gradually getting some material for a New Zealand motorsposrts and motoring web site (www.petrolheads.co.nz) (Still looking for budding authors!) and I was thinking of an interesting forum topic for the site. I had been back to the UK a little while back (I live in NZ now) and had been chatting with my Dad about his first motor racing experience. I casually asked him if he wouldn't mind writing something for me, that I could put on the web site and get people thinking about their first motor racing experience. I was a little taken aback when he sent the essay below for me to use. It struck so many chords with me and my first experience and I was fascinated to know whether we all share this intiial golden moment. My dad's 'first time' was at a circuit in the UK called Charterhall. Just thought it owuld be nice to share it with you all without sending you to the site - though you can of course have a look there if you have a passing interest in New Zealand drivers and motorsports. I'd be interested in any pics or info on Charterhall.

Thanks, great forum by the way.

Richard


One small boy in the company of Gods

By David Gee

At the time, I was a little lad of around 12 summers. Motor racing was my idea of Heaven, and motor racing drivers my own special gods – dwelling atop their high-powered, ear shattering Mount Olympus. I thought about little else, and much to his great delight, spent my free time cutting out motor racing pictures and motor racing articles from my father’s large collection of motor car magazines. This was before pasting them into a scrap book of truly gross proportions.

I lived on Tyneside in those days, and still do for that matter. Even then it was an area much more at home with Saturday afternoon football than the rich man’s sport of motor racing. Real enthusiasts for the sport were relatively few and far between. Motor racing circuits were as rare as those proverbial hen’s teeth we are always hearing about, and yet, for all that, our local Thompson Newspaper Group decided to sponsor a full international meeting at a remote circuit on the English/Scottish border called Charterhall. Everyone who was anyone would be there. The old man, God forever bless him, agreed that I should be there also.

My life was now complete for all I was still a wet behind the ears sprog with the smoothest face you could ever imagine. During the weeks leading up to the most important day of my life so far, I walked on air in daylight and at night dreamed of wondrous things mechanical.

The Newcastle Journal International Trophy meeting at Chartehall was on a Saturday, as were all such sporting events in those days, with Sundays set aside for more Godly pursuits. That particular Saturday the sun seemed to shine as it never had before and the sky was a perfect faultless blue. Never had there been such a Saturday. We drove from Newcastle to Charterhall in a Ford V-Eight Pilot at something like ten miles to the gallon. For all that, there had never been such a perfect Ford V-Eight Pilot. It positively flew, heading north, over the hills and far away to the land of the Border Rievers.

Grrrr - It wont let me finish as there are too many characters so the rest is here:

http://www.petrolheads.co.nz/content/view/302/1/

Sorry, I'd have preferred to put it all on here....

[Bryan Degerlund]

In the summer of 1957 we were staying with my mother's sister in Blackpool. My father and I (14 at the time) travelled to Aintree by train for the British Grand Prix. Luckily I was rather a tall child, so managed to glimpse a sight of the Vanwalls, etc through the crowd. After the race it was easy to pop over the fence and join the crowds in the pitlane.

I was also a Junior member of the BARC (my father was a marshal), and at Goodwood, together with four other lads, was treated to three laps of the circuit with Tony Brooks in a Ford Zephyr Six. No belts, no helmets, just five boys having the ride of our lives as Tony Brooks demonstrated the "racing line."

A couple of years later I became a marshal and have been ever since. My latest meeting was the HSCC Superprix at Brands Hatch last weekend.

[Thundersports]

Still on the startline Bryan?

[wheadon]

i'm 21. My first time would be around 3-4 months old at rowrah watching my uncles race. Mid 80's! but my first real memory is being at the bottom of the hangar straight at the 95 british gp for the warm up and hearing the engines being started and warmed up before running and then all of a sudden alesi appeared at the top if the straight and flew down flat out and when he lifted off I just remember this v12 engine growling at me. Oh it sent real shivers down my spine. And then he hit the throttle and it screamed. Oh what a sound. Never ever ever forget that as long as i live. i was 10

[Robin_D]

One of my first memories is standing on the bank on the inside of Copse Corner at about 18 months old. Watching Trucks! That was about 1986.

[d-b]

my first memory of motorsport is watching banger racing (possibly Brayfield)
i can remember it was a concrete track and they played Glen Miller while the cars went round(1970's,dad had a Reliant Regal Supervan at the time)

db

[Oldtony]

My Dad had a long connection with racing before WW2 as a mechanic looking after MG's, but my first meeting was the first post war meet at Goodwood.
Like most boys who were used to sitting on airfield boundaries (Ford) during the war cars were not very exciting compared to aircraft. Goodwood changed that for me. Bob Gerard and Prince Bira and the most motley assembly of machinery you are likely to see, but wonderfull to a 10 year old. Went to every Goodwood meeting until leaving for Oz in 1949.
Didn't take me long after arriving in Sydney to discover Parramatta Park, Mt Druit, and Foley's Hill.

[Aysedasi]

I have no really tangible memories of my first involvement which I know was being taken to Goodwood as a babe in arms (I'm 50 years young now). But I can still remember the smell of Castrol R......

[davyboy]

Don't your first events seem better ?

For me its Formula Atlantic in the Phoenix Park in the mid 1970s. As a child travelling across South Dublin on a wet Saturday morning to see practice... as we approached the Phoenix Park you could hear the screaming BDAs from Ballyfermot and Chapelizod [a suburban area a several miles away] and it literally gave me goose-bumps. On race day, up to 100,000 Dubliners would pack the place for Sunday's race and the sounds of the Atlantics echoing through the trees is an experience I'll take to the grave with me. I've been to thousands of motorsport events since - nothing even comes close.

[Aysedasi]

Perhaps a bit like my very first experience of leaning over the fences at Hunaudieres at Le Mans in the middle of the night watching (and listening) to Porsches, Jaguars and screaming Mazdas wail past at 220+ mph...... Unreal. Like you, I will never forget it and have been a complete addict of the Le Mans experience ever since......

[John Elwin]

Can't actually remember my first race as it was a very long time ago! I was born in Thetford where my late father was involved with the St John Ambulance Brigade. When racing began at Snetterton he was tasked with the responsibility of organising the First Aid.

I'm told I first went to Snetterton at the age of two in 1954 & have been at least once every season since - a dubious claim to fame? My father conveniently carried on until I was old enough to drive myself so attended many race meetings there up until the mid seventies by which time I started travelling to other circuits, usually to follow the exploits of old school friend John Village. Having subsequently become a freelance journo I don't get back to Snet as often as I would like but I have many happy memories & still consider it to be my 'home' circuit. Now, living in northern France I am almost exactly midway between Snetterton & Le Mans, & only 10 minutes from Croix-en-Ternois. Perfect!

[Alan Raine]

I got my Dad to take me to Crystal Palace in the late 60's. He didn't drive and it was the only place we could get to by train easily. There was an exit from the station directly into the circuit. My Dad hated it - too noisy and smelly, but the Beer Tent was open all day which pleased him!

One of the first cars I saw on track was driven by a certain Mr G Marshall. I didn't know how anybody could drive a car like that and not crash at every corner From that point I went to nearly every Palace meeting (although my Dad stopped going, despite the lure of the beer tent!) The 1 litre F3's and Formula Fords were just fantastic around there.

Happy days.

[DAVID PATERSON]

In 1985 I was 15 and I convinced my Dad to take me to Lakeside Raceway for the Australian Touring Car Championships. It was the first Group A Touring Car race held at our local circuit and i just had the best day. after the main event, Dad took me into the pits to see the cars and get my programme signed by the drivers. I still have that programme!

I've been hooked ever since and have attanded many, many meetings, from club level track days to F1GP and everything in between. Sadly, my Dad is no longer with us and i still miss his company at every meeting.

[Chatters]

My first actual motorsport experience, besides constantly getting lost in the paddock at Bathurst, would be the 1996 AGP. I was 6 then, and I remember my mum telling me to block my ears because the F1s were coming on to practice.

I didn't.

Won't forget that sound as long as I live.

[tlracing]

1965 at Shelsley Walsh. I was six months old and I believe it was when Tony Marsh took the course record under 30sec...not that I actually remember though

First 'memory' would be Mallory Park in the 1970's - I can recall Formula Ford and - especially - special saloons. I even took my newly-acquired cassette recorder there and made a tape of 'Minis at Mallory'

[Davhut]

My father first took me to the Indy 500 in 1959, a hot and kind of weird experience for a 9 y.o.
He next took me back in 1962 when I was far more savvy (if that can be said of a 12 y.o.) and made me a lifelong Rodger Ward fan.
I think the guy, even after his death, can still walk on water.
I took my son to his first 500 this year and now he's one of us.
Thanks, dad, for the opening events in a long history of a continued successful motorsport life. I miss you.

[Gerry Taylor]

My very first race was at Brands Hatch in a road going mini. My first experience of seeing cars race live as it were, was at Mallory Park, in the early sixties. The driver that got me hooked? Laurie Hickman in his Ford Anglia. it was sponsored by Castle Service Station of Dudley in the Black Country I believe. He was a very fast driver. Anyone remember Laurie?

[Splendid Cat]

1977 Tourist Trophy. Howling XJ12Cs and that beautiful Alpina CSL.