113 replies to this topic

[jcbc3]

One more. This is the back side of the top of the banking. Seems erosion is taking hold. I wouldn't put too much centrifugal weight on that part.....

 

[Doug Nye]

I first visited the Sitges site in 1968 - during what proved to be a unique beach camping holiday in which I might as well have covered myself with cooking oil as with sun cream, such a crispy (and acutely painful) glow did I develop.

 

My main recollection from then is the noisy farm dogs and how odd the approach to each banking actually looked, quite unlike the expanse of Brooklands with its progressive transitions (the bankings that is, not the staff) into the Home and Byfleet curves.

 

DCN

[70JesperOH]

Probably just a copy of other posters but was incidentally in Sitges this past weekend and walked out to the circuit. There was very much a farmer, sheep and dogs inside, so only took pics from the edge.

Since I think those pictures are porn, I will for once link directly. These pictures mayby answers the question, was there ever a fence on the outside - The pictures says no? Would cars be contained within the parameters of the track, simply by the banking and current speeds? Why the two kinks on the straights?

The original Roskilde Ring in Denmark had a 660 meter perimeter circuit similar to Sitges - and high bankings.

Jesper

[jcbc3]

Well, I can say with certainty that there was no hole or indents to put fence poles in at the top of the banking.

[Porsche718]

Well, I can say with certainty that there was no hole or indents to put fence poles in at the top of the banking.

 

No period photos or film archives show any fences at the top of the bankings.

 

Just like Brooklands or most US ovals, if you stuffed it up ... you went over!!

[Ray Bell]

Not to mention Maroubra and Avus...

 

And some did so.

[jcbc3]

I did tell my spouse about the accident we all think of at Avus, but didn't want to raise that in this thread.

[FlyingSaucer]

Monza, If I'm not mistaken, had no protective poles and fences on the oval section either until the early 1930s.

[Catalina Park]

What do you need a fence for? We're not running sheep.

[Jim Thurman]

No period photos or film archives show any fences at the top of the bankings.

 

Just like Brooklands or most US ovals, if you stuffed it up ... you went over!!

Not correct. Not most, if any that didn't. US banked ovals had walls or guard rail from very, very early on. Even the board tracks of the 1910s-early 1920s.

 

Only Brooklands, Sitges, AVUS and Maroubra seemed to think they didn't need anything.

Edited by Jim Thurman, 05 October 2024 - 22:39.

[LittleChris]

Monza, If I'm not mistaken, had no protective poles and fences on the oval section either until the early 1930s.

Pretty certain there were no barriers on the old South Banking in 1933 else Campari etc might have survived

[Doug Nye]

Montlhéry had no lip barrier around its speedway section bankings - hence the death of Swiss driver Benoit Musy when his Maserati went for the high-fly - allegedly due to a steering failure - landing against André Loens's transporter some 18 metres below, during the October 1956 Coupes du Salon meeting.

 

Musy had been quite a player, former motor-cycle racing son of former Swiss Federation Council President (1925-30) Jean-Marie Musy. In early 1945 father and son were both involved in arranging the rescue of some 1200 Jewish inmates from the Theresienstadt ghetto/conception camp.

 

Musy Jr had trained as an agriculturalist, and served as a Swiss Air Force pilot before in 1947 qualifying as a display parachutist. He also competed on horseback, skis and as a fencer (meaning swords, foils/epée/sabre not boundary demarcation). In 1948, riding professionally for Moto Guzzi, he won the 250cc-class motor-cycle racing Swiss Championship title, and repeated the success in 1949-50 when he twice became International Champion too. He added the Swiss 250cc title twice more in 1951 and '53, plus the national 500cc title as well, 1951.  

 

When Phil Hill was confronted post-race at Messina '55 by an increasingly aggrieved Italian back-marker driver demanding pay-back for damage to his car as the American had lapped him, things looked really alarming...several of that driver's friends, surrounding Phil, proving to be Mafia-type heavies with threats to match.  

 

The situation seemed about to turn really ugly for Phil, when Benoit Musy happened upon the commotion, calmly produced a pistol, took unflurried aim direct at the ring leader's head and ... guess what ... problem evaporated, with no harm to anyone beyond the complainant's wounded pride (and, presumably, his wallet).  

 

Never argue with a real Racer - especially one holding a gun.

 

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 08 October 2024 - 07:13.

[Jim Thurman]

I wondered about Montlhery, but not being certain, I left it off the list.

 

So, all but one non-American banked oval felt they had no reason for walls, yet American ovals of even earlier eras* did. That the high banked version of Monza was as late as it was is probably the only reason they had a guard rail atop it.

 

Thanks for the back story on Benoit Musy, Doug 

 

*excluding Brooklands, which pre-dates the high banked U.S. board tracks by a few years

[Tim Murray]

Thanks for the back story on Benoit Musy, Doug

Hear hear. Someone I knew very little about.