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    Superprix: The Story of Birmingham’s Motor Race
    Superprix: The Story of Birmingham’s Motor Race
    Superprix: The Story of Birmingham’s Motor Race
    Ebook174 pages1 hour

    Superprix: The Story of Birmingham’s Motor Race

    By Sam Collins

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    About this ebook

    The Superprix was a motor racing meeting held over August Bank Holiday on a street circuit in the centre of Birmingham, from 1986 to 1990. The principal event was the Formula 3000 Championship race, but support races included touring cars and sports cars. The idea of a motor race in the heart of England's nlotor city (to emulate the Monaco circuit) had been mooted as early as 1966. In the end, the city's arterial roads round the Bull Ring and the city centre provided one of the most exciting racing events ever staged in the UK.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherVeloce
    Release dateJan 2, 2019
    ISBN9781787114494
    Superprix: The Story of Birmingham’s Motor Race

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      Book preview

      Superprix - Sam Collins

      Acknowledgements

      Contributing drivers:

      Mario Hytten; Phil Andrews; Mark Bryan; David Hunt; Jari Nurminen; Emmanuele Naspetti; Allan McNish; Andy Wallace; Marco Apicella; Roger Orgee; Rod Birley; Gerry Taylor; Tony Trimmer.

      General information and websites:

      The Nostalgia forum at www.autosport.com; www.ten-tenths.com forums; www.tbk-lite.com forums; the old tbk.fameflame.dk forums; www.grandprixgames.com forums

      Other contributors:

      Stuart Knibbs – a big thank you to you for whetting my appetite about the Birmingham Superprix; Simon Lewis at www.simonlewis.com for his superb photographs; Ian Wagstaff for his pictures; Nick Bailey; David Lucas, Head of the Birmingham Road Race Department; The Birmingham Central Library (the Local Archives section); Many fans and marshals from the Nostalgia forum and Ten-Tenths forum; Stuart Dent – for his help and advice for contacting the right people; Kevin Wood from LAT Archives; Dominic Ostrowski from the BRSCC; Ben Laidlow, producer of the Inside Out programme by BBC West Midlands; Simon Edwards for various memorabilia; John Wisson for his marshal documents; Alastair Nash and Melanie Roberts for selling their collection of 1986-1990 Motoring News newspapers to me; The Communications Department of the Birmingham City Council; Simon Arron from Motoring News; Gregor Marshall for information about his father’s involvement at the 1980 Lucas ‘On The Streets’ event; Rick Ashton from Ashton Plant Hire (Dudley) Ltd. for allowing me to look at the old Superprix Armco in its compound; Birmingham Post & Mail for its collection of old newspaper cuttings.

      And finally, a huge thank you to my girlfriend, Sandra Burton, for supporting and putting up with me throughout this project. I am so grateful for your patience, and for giving me the motivation to complete the book.

      David Page

      Introduction

      The place is magic; better than Monaco – not a description you would expect to hear of England’s much derided second city, but Stefano Modena meant it. He was stepping from the cockpit of his Formula 3000 racer at the time: Birmingham is something else; it is fantastic for the people of the city as well as for the people taking part. The circuit is not dangerous, as can be the case with street tracks – the drivers say it is bumpy, but then it’s a street circuit so it would be bumpy, Birmingham is not an exception. I had no great problems with it, and in my opinion, Birmingham is a wonderful race.

      That ‘wonderful race’ took place for five years, a half decade where the excitement and glamour of international motor racing came to the streets of the West Midlands. But those five years have now faded into obscurity. This is the story of how the races came about, and how they came to such a premature end. This is the story of the Superprix.

      A road race for Birmingham?

      The road to the Superprix was a long and winding one and began way back in the 1960s, just south of a town in France. If one was to say, when was the seed sown? It was me standing at Le Mans in June 1961, claimed Birmingham City Councillor Peter Barwell.

      A few years later, local man and sometime racing driver Martin Hone was having similar thoughts. In 1966, he opened the Opposite Lock Club; a heady mix of international jazz and motor racing. Hone’s enthusiasm was infectious and it was noticed locally. A member of the City Council invited Hone to a meeting with various Councillors and others who were planning to move Birmingham forward: from its reputation as a drab, dark and run-down city, into a resurgent and exciting place to be – a seemingly impossible task. Hone’s enthusiasm encouraged the Councillor to propose something quite revolutionary, something that would frighten other Council members; a city internationally famous for the manufacture of cars, but with not many ‘firsts’ to our name, how about I organise the first ever street race in Britain?

      This was a task that faced many obstacles, one of which stood out above all, and Hone knew it; a British law that banned cars from exceeding the speed limit on public roads, even if they were closed. To get around this he would need a bill passed, and that would mean convincing Birmingham City Council, West Midlands County Council and Parliament itself. It would be an obstacle that stood in his way for twenty years to come. The law in question was only established in 1960, but it meant that motor racing or speed trials were prohibited on any public highway.

      Over the years that followed, there were many meetings behind the scenes, and it was becoming clear that talk of a road race was not a popular issue amongst the city’s aldermen and it lacked all party political support. Things looked bleak, but Hone refused to give in. He continued to lobby in the motorsport community and gained prominent supporters, such as Sir Stirling Moss, Graham Hill and Jackie Stewart.

      Hone also garnered support from some political pockets in the Birmingham City Council. There came a much needed boost when the Chairman of the so-called Entertainment Sub-Committee of the Council’s General Purpose Committee, Councillor John Silk, thought up a theme for a festival that would occur in the autumn of 1970. Martin Hone had an idea to boost his campaign for a road race by proposing a motoring pageant. The Committee then approached Hone, asking him to advise and assist in the running of the first ever Birmingham Motoring Festival, as Festival Liaison Officer. It was a perfect opportunity for Hone to see how much attention it would attract.

      The Festival ran for fourteen days, opening on 24th August with a Vintage and Veteran Car Run. This was followed by a cavalcade of various cars, on a 2.1 mile circuit around the city centre streets, using a different theme each day. The roads would be closed from 11am to 3pm ever day, with tens of thousands of spectators gathering. Hone also linked the Festival with some midnight film matinees, black-tie dinners and balls, as well as some charity events.

      A parade of Grand Prix racing brought the festival to a close, led by one of Martin Hone’s supporters for a road race, Stirling Moss, in a Lotus 18. A ball attended by Victor Turton, Lord Mayor Neville Bosworth and some of the famous drivers of the day concluded the evening. The Festival was hailed as a great success and attracted many visitors. The dream shared by so many people, especially Peter Barwell and Martin Hone, of the first ever road race on mainland Britain, was surely on the way to becoming a reality.

      Following the success of the event, the possibility of an actual race was discussed between Martin Hone and Peter Barwell at some length. There was, perhaps, something of a private vendetta over who first had the idea of a Birmingham road race, and it is hard to tell, but, on the face of it, this hardly mattered one jot; the important thing was that everyone seemed very much in favour, particularly Councillor John Silk.

      In January 1971, Barwell wrote to Silk, who was then Chairman of the Entertainment Sub-Committee, to put the proposal of a road race on a formal basis. As a result, it was raised at the General Purposes Committee on 12th March 1971. That was the first mention of a road race in the Council minutes. It was a fairly routine discussion, along the lines of ‘let’s consider a road race in Birmingham.’ In April, Barwell received a letter from the Town Clerk stating that the proposal had been considered, and that further consideration was to be given to the possibilities of securing powers to hold an annual motor race. It was suggested that it would be on one of the carriageways of the Inner Ring Road.

      Meanwhile, Hone, with all of his usual enthusiastic manner, threw himself at the project. He sounded out the feelings of the local aldermen, consulted with the police and the RAC, and then went specially to the Spanish Grand Prix, at Montjuich Park in Barcelona, to see just how things were done there. He compiled a dossier of photographs and, on his return, presented a white paper, titled ‘Proposed Major Tourist Attraction for Birmingham City Centre devised by Martin Hone,’ as advised by Birmingham City Council. Like any good proposal it delved deeply into the logistics and benefits, citing the value as a tourist attraction, publicity draw and business expander, and laid out his proposed route.

      However, when the white paper was presented to the General Purposes Committee it caused uproar as, although many Council members were in favour of the proposal to promote the city, there were some people who thought the proposal was crazy and impossible and were decidedly against it. The main opposition of the Councillors was on the grounds that colossal expense would be incurred in staging such an event. Presenting a bill to Parliament in itself is very costly and many argued that the money would be better spent elsewhere. In particular, the then chief constable of Birmingham, Sir Derek Capper, bitterly opposed the proposed road race from a safety point of view. In fact, he was so against it that he was quoted as saying: Over my dead body will it happen. Sir Derek died before the road race finally went ahead.

      In May 1971, Councillor Victor Turton helped the road race campaign around the city’s Inner Ring Road by announcing that he would make it the major project for his coming term as Lord Mayor. I believe that motor racing in the centre of Birmingham would be a terrific tourist attraction to the city when linked up with other projects we have in mind, he explained as he fiercely promoted the scheme, and, eventually,

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