Sunday 5 January 2014

The Centre of My Hometown As a Race Course 50 Years Ago

Every gearhead loves the thought of living close to a racetrack. Not quite as close to be bothered about the noise, just a comfortable distance away to enjoy a weekend joyride from time to time. And there are street courses.

Street courses are of course just links of public roads serving as a temporary racetrack. There are some very famous ones, like in Monaco, Macau, Long Beach, Singapore, Surfer's Paradise, etc., there are pretty awful ones, and there are plenty lesser known or totally forgotten ones.

I live in a small town, featuring a large ex-military airbase nearby that is used for drag racing, drifting and gymkhana events once a year. I had believed this was the single closest racing facility near or far until I stumbled upon a Facebook account posting images of my hometown from the past among which there were ome showing motorcycles starting off, racing through the town centre in the mid-60's: