24 replies to this topic

[Kvadrat]

Motor sport in Britain is very interesting and I try to learn more about it. I discovered that most of well known races (of not all) usually were parts of bigger meetings organized by some national or regional motor club. As motor racing was banned for public roads suitable way to make motor competition was trials. In thirties, many trials took place. I want to sort out available information on clubs and their motor sport events.

It's too early to ask for help but if someone's interested feel free to post suggestions and information.

Club								   Residence		 Years of operation		Main venues



500 Club							   Bristol, London   1947 - 1950

Aberdeen & DMC

Aston Martin OC

Bentley Drivers Club

Berkhamsyead & District M.C.C.

Birmingham Motor Club

Blackburn Welfare MSC

Blackburn Welfare & LCC

Brighton & Hove Motor Club

Bristol Motor Cycle & Light Car Club   Bristol				- 1946

British Racing and Sports Car Club	 Brands Hatch	  1954 - present

British ARC

British Racing Drivers Club

Bugatti Owners Club

Cornwall MRA

Covendish Auto Club

Darlington & DMC

Derby & District Motor Club														Donington

Eastern Counties MC

Half Litre Car Club					London			1950 - 1954			   Brands Hatch

Irish Motor Racing Club

Junior Car Club

Leinster AC

Leinster MC

Light Car Club

Maidstone & Mid-Kent Motor Club

M.G. Car Club																	  Abingdon

Mid-Cheshire MC

Midland Automobile Club															Shelsley Walsh

Midlands Motoring Enthusiasts Club

Motor Cycling Club

North Staffs MC

Nottingham SCC

Peterborough MC

Royal Automobile Club

Scottish Sporting CC

Sheffield & HMC

SUNBAC

Vintage Cars Club

Vintage Sports Car Club

Welsh MRC

West Essex CC

West Hants & Dorset CC

Winfield Joint Committee

Yorkshire SCC

York SCC

[ian senior]

Don't forget TEAC - Thames Estauary Automobile Club, who organised races in Britain in the late 60s and 70s. Mainly at Lydden but also at Brands Hatch, I think.

[Kvadrat]

My favourite period is before mid-engined revolution so I know later years very little. But I'll consider it. Can you provide basic information for the table?

[Darren Galpin]

More missing clubs:

Coventry and Warwickshire Motor Club
Ealing and Disrtict Motor Club
East Midland Automobile Club
Essex Motor Club
Liverpool Motor Club
Luton and South Befordshire Automobile Club
Mansfield and District Motorcycle and Light Car Club
Scarborough Motorcycle and Motor car club
Southend and District Automobile Club
Southport Automobile Club
Surbiton and District Motor Car Club
Warrington Motor Club

http://www.teamdan.c...rints20-25.html will give you a few more.

[Stephen W]

Bristol Motor Cycle & Light Car Club Bristol - 1946

This club is still operating, however they have evolved and dropped the Motor Cycle & Light Car Club bit. They are now the Bristol Motor Club.



Many Clubs have evolved and had name changes to reflect their changing involvement with motor cars.
My own club (Liverpool Motor Club) started life as The Liverpool Self-Propelled Traffic Association in 1896. They held a 'trial' on Everton Brow in Liverpool the same year (Britain's First Hillclimb?)
In 1902 the association was disolved and reformed as Liverpool Motor Cycle Club. In 1903 the LMCC held a 'speed trial and sprint' on Southport Promenade on July 4th.
In 1904 the club changed its name once again as they evolved into the Liverpool Motor Club.

The club has been in continuous operation since then and are still heavily involved in Motor Sport running sprints at Aintree, a hillclimb at Loton Park and assisting in the running of rallies in the North West.

[Stephen W]

Bugatti Owners Club

Formed in 1929 and still operating. The 'Residence' is Prescott Hillclimb Course where they have a small Bugatti Museum and it is their main venue.

[RS2000]

We could fill the site with lists of UK clubs but as I understand the question you are interested in the period up to the end of the 1950s? That period in racing also broadly coincides with changes in rallying, with such events becoming more speed-related. Many clubs on your list disappeared or changed names but in reality new clubs with the same people took over (often following internal disputes that saw clubs split up and reform into new ones). Major races have usually been run by the BARC, BRSCC, BRDC but this is now changing as new owners of circuits recognise the need for more direct control of the organisation of racing if their circuits are to survive financially. Organisation of racing by individual "local" clubs has largely disappeared now (not a signal to list all the exceptions!). I guess what you need is the organising club to be listed for all the major race meetings in the period in which you are interested? A list of current motor clubs recognised by/affiliated to the FIA-recognised UK governing body, the MSA, formerly RACMSA, will not cover the full range of UK motorsport. A massive amount runs wholly outside that structure, including virtually all short oval racing, including on grass (NASA).

[Kvadrat]

RS2000, you understand me correctly. There are many pictures from trials and hill-climbs from 20s and 30s in sites like Getty, British Pathe, Corbis and others. I watch them and realise that they were a large part of motorsport life in Britain in those years. I also make list of post-WWII British racing meetings and most of them are club events.

[Pete Stowe]

As RS2000 says, there are currently hundreds of UK clubs, and many that no longer exist. Those currently affiliated to the MSA (around 800) are listed in the Club Directory on www.msauk.org and many will have links to the individual club’s websites. Some of these will have historical information on the club ( however not all clubs know their history). For those clubs that existed in the periods you’re interested in they might give you the basic information you’re after though.

To add information for the clubs in your table the following year of formation comes from a Directory of Clubs published in Motor Sport, August to November 1952 (this directory also listed numerous other clubs).

Club Years of operation
500 Club 1946 - 1950
Aberdeen & District MC 1909 -
Aston Martin Owners Club 1935 -
Bentley Drivers Club 1936 -
Berkhamsyead & District M.C.C.
Berkhamsted MC & CC 1908 -
Brighton & Hove Motor Club 1920 -
Bristol Motor Cycle & Light Car Club 1911 - present
British Automobile Racing Club 1912 (as Cyclecar Club, then JCC)
Bugatti Owners Club 1930 -
Darlington & District Motor Club 1919 -
Eastern Counties MC 1950 -
Maidstone & Mid-Kent Motor Club 1936 -
M.G. Car Club 1930 -
Mid-Cheshire MC
Mid-Cheshire CC 1950 - (is this different to above?)
Midland Automobile Club 1901 -
Midlands Motoring Enthusiasts Club 1943 -
Motor Cycling Club 1901 -
North Staffs MC 1950 -
Nottingham Sports Car Club 1948 -
Peterborough MC 1947 -
Scottish Sporting CC 1932 -
Sheffield & Hallamshire MC 1904 -
Sutton Coldfield & North Birmingham AC (SUNBAC) 1908 -
Vintage Sports Car Club 1934 -
Welsh Motor Racing Club 1950 -
West Essex CC 1948 -
West Hants & Dorset CC 1932 - (possibly now merged into Bournemouth & District CC)
Winfield Joint Committee of the Berwick, Lothian & Hawick MCs 1950 -
Yorkshire Sports Car Club 1933 -

Coventry and Warwickshire Motor Club 1904 -
Liverpool Motor Club 1902 -
Scarborough Motorcycle and Motor car club
Scarborough & District MC 1903 -


As SteveW has shown, many clubs change name, or merge, and with national clubs the location of their headquarters can move significantly, e.g. 500 Club was formed in Bristol in 1946, HQ moved to London in 1948. The name was later changed to the Half Litre Club, then British Racing & Sports Car Club, & the BRSCC HQ is now in Kent (but no longer at Brands Hatch).

Some other Clubs in the Bristol area which ran hillclimbs pre-1914 were
Bristol Bicycle & Motor Club.
Bristol & Gloucestershire Automobile Club.
(these two I don’t believe restarted post-1918)
Somerset Automobile Club - formed 1904.

Later clubs include:
Bristol Aeroplane Company Motor Sports Club, 1944-46 Main venue: Filton
Bristol Aeroplane Company Motor Club, 1955 onwards (since 2000 known as the Bristol Pegasus Motor Club).

Edited by Pete Stowe, 10 February 2025 - 14:27.

[bluelite]

What about the Border Motor Racing Club and Berwick and District Motor Club?

[BRG]

My club, Middlesex County Automobile Club (see http://www.mcac.co.uk/ - click on ‘History’ on the side menu) is celebrating its centenary year.

Its first competitive event was in 1906, and its claims to fame include being the first club to obtain police permission to run a event on the public road, back in 1908. It promoted combined Speed Trials and Hill Climbs at Brooklands in the 1920s and the Amersham hill climb in 1931. If you go to the ‘Centenary’ pages, there are some nice old photos under the heading ‘Pictures of a Bygone Age’ which might appeal to some TNFers.

[Alan Lewis]

I see that we have two of the three hillclimb venues in the Midlands covered - Prescott with the Bugatti Owner's Club and Shelsley with the Midland Automobile Club.

The third, Loton Park in Shropshire, had most of its meetings run by the Hagley and District Light Car Club, which I don't think has been mentioned yet, apologies if I've missed it.

APL

[RS2000]

The earlier years of Loton Park, up to about 1970? were run by Severn Valley Motor Club and I think the venue was first used about 1960?
West Hants & Dorset CC, which I see is listed in the first post, dropped out of running Wiscombe Park hill climbs about the same time.

[Rupertlt1]

Ref Loton Park:

https://forums.autos...b/#entry9545216

 

Fradley's disused airfield, near Lichfield, Midland Automobile Club, 3 October 1965

FTD Bryan Brown, Lotus Dragon, 1,498 c.c. supercharged — 35.73 sec

Best MAC member, Mike Hawley, white Cooper FJ — 36.91 sec

Class 6: I. D. Parker, Lotus 18

 

Hixon aerodrome sprint, near Stafford, Midland Automobile Club, 10 October 1965

"The course is 1300 yards long with four tricky corners"

Concrete surface

FTD Ray Terry, Elva-BMW — 48.4 secs

 

RGDS RLT

Edited by Rupertlt1, 07 October 2024 - 09:50.

[Mark A]

One I was member of in the past, Swansea Motor Club, been around since 1924, (originally called The Swansea Motorcycle and Light Car Club until 1927), I was a member in the 1990's when they ran their Rally of the Vales as a Historic event (a rally that 1st ran in 1995).

They ran trials, hillclimbs etc in the early days.

Another interesting one is Oxford University Motor Drivers Club, around since 1934 and the organisers of the infamous Targa Rusticana road rally, and the inventor, I understand, of Targa timing.(I'm sure someone will correct that last statement if not true)

[Derwent Motorsport]

Wigton Motor Club was formed in 1923 and is still going strong with over 1000 members.

[BRG]

Another interesting one is Oxford University Motor Drivers Club, around since 1934 and the organisers of the infamous Targa Rusticana road rally, and the inventor, I understand, of Targa timing.(I'm sure someone will correct that last statement if not true)

I believe Targa timing was devised by John Brown, an ace rally navigator in the 1950/60s, who was a member of OUMDC and one of the organisers of the Targa Rusticana which was one of the first road rallies to move away from regularity in favour of going as fast as possible. Brown was rallies editor for Motoring News for a while.

 

Targa timing involved setting back the clocks at successive controls by the time allowed for that section, so if you ran bang on time, you would get the same time at every control - not that anybody did, as the system allowed rally organisers to tweek the clocks to make sections tighter and subvert the maximum 30mph average that the RAC required for rallies.  So much so that I recall one rally, with a two mile section  and fairly fast roads where we were hitting 100mph but still dropped a minute.  The true average must have been 60 or 70 mph.  It took the RACMSA years to get round to banning Targa timing and reverting to BBC timing, and when they did, it rather ended the era of high speed road rallying.

[RS2000]

Targa timing involved setting back the clocks at successive controls by the time allowed for that section, so if you ran bang on time, you would get the same time at every control - not that anybody did, as the system allowed rally organisers to tweek the clocks to make sections tighter and subvert the maximum 30mph average that the RAC required for rallies.  So much so that I recall one rally, with a two mile section  and fairly fast roads where we were hitting 100mph but still dropped a minute.  The true average must have been 60 or 70 mph.  

 

 

I gather the current method in some less populated parts of out green and pleasant land not a million miles from where I now live involves arrows departing the 30 mph public road route on to private farmland and returning to it very close to where you left it...

[Mark A]

I gather the current method in some less populated parts of out green and pleasant land not a million miles from where I now live involves arrows departing the 30 mph public road route on to private farmland and returning to it very close to where you left it...

 

I haven't done any Historic Road Rallies for years but the night section on the bigger evens like the Targa were pretty much flat out, cryptic clues meant lost time, very tight and twisty roads, having to stop at all the give ways, and as they had a lot of Marshalls they would check the give ways.

Some would head into the forests as well where the route was harder to follow, and as it was on private property, the distances between controls could be shorter than on the road, making it harder to catch up time after a stop. Plus a 2.5 mile section would be rounded down and timed at 4 minutes, not 5.

I can remember a regularity section in a Scottish forest that was 50sec between controls at an average speed of 30mph, timed to the second, uphill on gravel, we were late.

[Derwent Motorsport]

Historic road rallies, or Targas (same but for modern cars) are much tamer now. All 30 average on the road or less, and on historic rallies, used as regularities at legal speeds while the road sections on Targa events are basically non competitive to get cars between the special tests which are genuinely tined at 30mph. 

[Mark A]

Historic road rallies, or Targas (same but for modern cars) are much tamer now. All 30 average on the road or less, and on historic rallies, used as regularities at legal speeds while the road sections on Targa events are basically non competitive to get cars between the special tests which are genuinely tined at 30mph. 

Having not competed for about 25 years I had a look at the regulations for this year Road Rally Championship with the HRCR, and was disappointed with what I found, none of the big events I remember exist anymore, except perhaps the East Anglian. 
Targa Rusticana, Welsh Retro, Rallye Bristowe, Illuminations and the Border Rally all gone. In fact only a couple of 2 day events left. I used to enjoy a days rallying on tests and regularity, stop for some dinner before heading out for a number of hours flat out round the lanes, despite the average only being 30mph, allegedly. Then a couple of hours sleep before a few more tests and regularity.

Even some of my favourite single day events seem to have gone.

 

To bring this back towards the original thread, are the clubs struggling? These events don’t happen anymore, is it lack of competitors, organisers or money?

Edited by Mark A, 13 October 2024 - 07:42.

[Derwent Motorsport]

Having not competed for about 25 years I had a look at the regulations for this year Road Rally Championship with the HRCR, and was disappointed with what I found, none of the big events I remember exist anymore, except perhaps the East Anglian.
Targa Rusticana, Welsh Retro, Rallye Bristowe, Illuminations and the Border Rally all gone. In fact only a couple of 2 day events left. I used to enjoy a days rallying on tests and regularity, stop for some dinner before heading out for a number of hours flat out round the lanes, despite the average only being 30mph, allegedly. Then a couple of hours sleep before a few more tests and regularity.
Even some of my favourite single day events seem to have gone.

To bring this back towards the original thread, are the clubs struggling? These events don’t happen anymore, is it lack of competitors, organisers or money?

The reason is due to a number of issues. The number of active motor clubs is steadily decreasing and some exist in name only to run one big (stage) event a year. Organisers are getting older and there a few younger folk coming to take their place. Several organisers i know have switched to running events themselves for profit. At the same time getting venues for tests is much more difficult. Added to that is that events like HERO are quite happy to pay big money for venues that clubs have had for years for a bottle of whisky or a donation to charity. There are fewer marshals available to make a good road rally with plenty of controls.
My club has a historic/targa rally at the end of the month with an entry fee of £130 including coffee, lunch and dinner, with 15 special tests Now a typical HERO one day event is £395 with 6 tests and 4 regularities with lunch and a gala dinner. Scrutiny is the night before so you have to stay over at your cost and of course if you got to the gala dinner you are likely to stay over. So that event will cost you perhaps £700. Now they can get 100 entries but from a different type of person who does the club run events.

[BRG]

. There are fewer marshals available to make a good road rally with plenty of controls.

We now have digital marshals.  There are a couple of systems that use a GPS device in each car, programmed with the location of controls and as you reach each point, it records your time.  Very nifty and no poor cold lost souls hanging about in some remote corner waiting for the cars!  These widgets even transmit data to rally control so the results are compiled almost instantaneously. 

 

I experienced this technology on a Bespoke Rallies event, using their Virtual Marshal set-up,  and was floored by how neat and effective it was.  

[Derwent Motorsport]

You still need marshals on the tests of course.    I think the Bespoke events were not authorised by MSUK

[BRG]

You still need marshals on the tests of course.    I think the Bespoke events were not authorised by MSUK

No, they seem to be run under FIVA (Federation Internationale de Vehicules Anciennes)  rules.  Not completely sure about the legality of all that. And yes, tests still need good old human beings.  We are not quite obsolete yet.

 

"The 2050 Elon Musk Memorial Rally will have a 100km route for self-driving, unmanned EVs and all controls will be entirely unmanned with Rally Direction operated by AI.  Spectators are only permitted by streaming the event on-line to your cranial inserts"