7 replies to this topic

[Ray Bell]

I guess it's fairly well known that I have spent time looking for and driving/walking around old circuits...

Some have been shown me by nice people, others I've found through my own searching, still others are simply there!

Yesterday I looked for Bern. Starting with a circuit map (not a good one) from the internet and a partial map of the city, I was immediately struck by the total absence of anything that looked like it!

I went to the Bern tourist information office, the girl there ("You mean the bicycle grand prix?") did her best, but she came up with nothing and her superior told her that there were other people to help. She did give me a phone number, however, of the city council.

On phoning them and getting through the language barrier I found a very helpful chap in the archive department, his name is Roth. He quickly googled up the map I have and saw on it 'Wohler' and 'Eymatt', so he put two and two together and gave me the location of the intersection of Eymattstrasse and Wohlerstrasse. And told me that most of the roads included in the circuit could not be driven on now.

It seems that the 20th century did a lot to the area, two freeways cut across the circuit and the city expanded the Bremgarten Forest and so altered the landscape very much in the area.

Here's the circuit map from which I was working (apologies to whoever had it on the net, I've forgotten so I can't credit you):



And here's the Google Earth image of the area today:



While the name 'Eymattstrasse' is shown on the main link road (effectively a freeway section), it's not right. Eymattstrasse is the road which is immediately to the left of that, curving around from it at its top end and heading down through the small residential section before going into the bush. At that point the name changes to Eicholzstrasse and it is still in keeping with the broader interpretation of the map as it reaches down the the freeway.

At that point there is a narrow bridge across the freeway and in the residential area there you see the name 'Bethlehem', again a connection that fits in with the map.

The general shape of the roads where Eymattstrasse crosses that main link road is as per the map, but the Eicholzstrasse section is so narrow that it's hard to believe this is actually an old piece of racing circuit.

We need someone on the ground in the area with some time to spend more effectively pursuing this issue. There must be old maps of the city (I'm sure Roth would help get them out of archives) and we must be able to create a more accurate map of the circuit and find more links with the present.

If anyone wants to help, please post here or e.mail me. I don't like to give up on these pursuits...

[Barry Boor]

I know this is a bit late, Ray, and I should have mentioned it at Monaco, but when you were staying in Ventimiglia were you aware that just a few miles along the coast is the town of Ospedaletti where the San Remo Grand Prix circuit can be walked/driven in its original entirety?

It's so sad when these classic old circuits are obliterated.

[Vitesse2]

Map produced by the now-defunct Bern Revival website, linked from allf1.info:

 

 

And some relevant discussions from an old thread. Unfortunately Holger's circuit visit pictures have disappeared, but various people's comments from over a decade ago show that the lack of memory of the what and where is nothing new!

 

I was in Bern last December and never bothered to visit the circuit, although I had a car. Instead I spent as much time as possible at the Swiss Landes Bibliothek and a Motoring Publishing House. Adriano Cimarosti explained to me about several changes to the old circuit and that one cannot complete an entire lap because of a new highway cutting through and some pedestrian area, I believe to remember.

 

 

Some interesting remarks from the Autovisie report:

- This 23 and 24 June has seen a Grand Prix Bern Revival over the entire Bremgarten course. Does anyone know/read about that?
- The stretch of road from Glasbrunnen to Forsthaus has been eliminated completely. For the Revival it has been replaced by a longer link along the Halenstrasse, where it passes the new Forsthaus (not the one that gave the circuit corner its name) and then joins the Bremgarterstrasse, which in turn meets the original track at what used to be Forsthaus corner, which is also the end (or beginning, in circuit terms) of the Murtenstrasse.
- The Neuchatel Autobahn crosses the track at Betlehem at the end of the Murtenstrasse, goes along half the length of the Murtenstrasse to continue straight on where the Murtenstrasse turns away to the pit complex, and then crosses the now non-existent part of the track.
- The finish straight is still there but factories have taken the place of the former paddock and grandstands.
- When going under the Autobahn overpass onto the Eymattstrasse the territory becomes more like in the old days.
- There is a cross on a tree at the point where Achille Varzi was killed. The authors note that it can't possibly be the original tree as it seems to be no older than 30 years...
- The new Eymattstrasse is still not part of the original track at Eicholz, which ran straight across the Jordanweiher.
- The first original corner is Eymatt, which turns into the Wohlenstrasse - the one that used to catch out so many drivers. It is still a very dangerous corner and is now slowed down by some zig-zag road blocks.
- The course through the Bremgarterwald (the back side of the track) has been tightened into a pedestrian and bicycle path.
- At the point where the road now turns sharply to the right at Glasbrunnen, you can still the old track run straight on, albeit covered by weeds and low trees.
- Hotel Bellevue Palace, the five-star hotel that was the scene of many prizegivings, knows nothing of its heritage. The authors are rudely sent on by the management.
- The article even shows a few screenshots from the Bremgarten GPL rendition made by the Sim Racing Club Bern!

Here is a map of the Revival track. You can easily compare it with the map on Darren's site. And here is a picture of the aforementioned Varzi memorial.

 

 

Most of the Bremgarten circuit has disappeared under a motorway and a housing estate. Fifteen years ago I discovered a wooden grandstand in a wooded area, but I found no sign of a defined track, although I did not have enough time to look properly.

Of course even if the 1955 Le Mans tragedy had not happened, leading to the Swiss government ban on circuit racing, Bremgarten probably would not have survived much longer. It was a very dangerous track, and the chances are that there would have been bad crash involving spectators sooner or later, especially after cornering speeds rose in 1960 and beyond.

 

 

Paul thanks for the input, I often tried to find out, where that Bremgarten circuit was. And which location it had in Berne, but I didn't find somebody who could give me an answer. From all the pidctures I know , I got the impression, it must be a track on normal streets.

 

 

Further to the discussion on Bremgarten, I realised after posting my reply that I did not qualify my comments vis a vis the fate of this circuit. In fact a local told me categorically that most of it had disappeared under a motorway and housing estate but I have never checked the veracity of this.

 

And here are the pics:

This pic shows the curve on the old track - you can find it in my old post with the map, it's the small white street parallel to the red one at Tribüne 3. In the background the bridge of the Aare river (The same point of view is in Nixon, Racing the silverarrows.


This pic shows the track after that curve after Tribüne 3.


The old track near Forsthaus


The old track at Glasbrunnen, now the street looks smaller than in the 30s/50s.


And today the track is in use for bikers.

On this map I took my pictures at no.1. at Eymatt, no.2. at the parking sign near the Aare river, no.3. at No. 12 (Forsthaus) and no.4 at No. 13 (Glasbrunnen).

 

[Vitesse2]

Just found these on flickr!

 

https://www.flickr.c...in/photostream/

[Rupertlt1]

I was there in 2015:

 

"Next morning we went to find the old Bremgarten motor racing circuit in Bern.

Tram to town then rented bicycles (first four hours free), at Hirschengraben, near the Hauptbahnhof, for the short ride to the old Bremgarten circuit. While the park remains, there was nothing to tell that Grand Prix cars used to race there in the fifties and before WW2. The old circuit has been severed by a motorway and the park seems much more overgrown than in the film."

 

RGDS RLT

[Jovanotti]

We need someone on the ground in the area with some time to spend more effectively pursuing this issue. There must be old maps of the city (I'm sure Roth would help get them out of archives) and we must be able to create a more accurate map of the circuit and find more links with the present.

Check out this link (1940's map, if you drag it with the hand-tool you can see the overlay with today's map): http://www.map.apps....c7-b2d75281f8b6

 

Also, on this (brilliant!) site, you find historical aerial pictures of Switzerland (every red square is a picture, the number displayed is the 19xx number). You can see the circuit pretty clearly there as well and compare it to today's Google Maps images.

 

More info: https://permanenttou...d-prix-circuit/

Edited by Jovanotti, 30 July 2020 - 14:58.

[Ray Bell]

So I wasn't the only one looking!

Keep the info coming, please, I'll look at some of these things when I get home again.

[Radoye]

Looking at the Google Map i can identify about 2/3 of the circuit. There are some differences in the north portion but most of the route seems to still exist. Some of it even has street view. But in the south, on the other side of the highway, i could identify very little of the actual track, it seems mostly obliterated there.

 

If i'm not mistaken, these should be parts of the old track:

 

https://www.google.c...!7i13312!8i6656

 

https://www.google.c...!7i13312!8i6656

 

https://www.google.c...!7i13312!8i6656

 

https://www.google.c...!7i13312!8i6656

 

https://www.google.c...!7i13312!8i6656

 

https://www.google.c...!7i13312!8i6656

 

https://www.google.c...!7i13312!8i6656

Edited by Radoye, 02 June 2016 - 17:59.