“It was certainly worth losing a pair of trousers to gain this triumph”

When I hit the wall, made of two-ton concrete blocks, it hurt. The car stopped dead with the engine underneath it, hard up to the broken wall. My right shinbone had a couple of hairline cracks and it was six weeks before I could walk. But I could still drive – just. A physiotherapist enabled me to win the race five days later.

That’s Tony Dron, in a Triumph Dolomite, in 1977. Imagine what he could do in a Mercedes W125, the most powerful unturbocharged Grand Prix car and the most powerful altogether between its birth in 1937 and the election of Margaret Thatcher:

So far so good. I have braked, changed down with heel-toe action while double-declutching, and turned into a corner. Now I open the throttle, smoothly but deliberately: the engine roars, delivering a vicious mountain of torque, the wheels spin again and the tail slides out. It is violent and tricky…

Here he is doing just this at Donington last month:

The racing rule-makers of the day had made a mistake, thinking their imposed maximum weight limit of 750kg (1,653lb) would keep power and speed within reasonable bounds. They had no idea that German engineers had the ability to design a chassis that could cope with more than 600bhp, let alone a 5.6-litre supercharged straight-eight engine that produced such power.

1937 was still what most Europeans could call “peacetime”, and never more or less so, if you see what I mean, at the Grand Prix races of that year. Bern Rosemeyer recounts what he did when his wheel fell off at Coppa Acerbo (”..so then I had to drive the last 300m on the brake drum..”):

In 1962, the car celebrated its quarter century by returning to the ‘Ring in the hands of one of its original drivers, Herman Lang. The late - most regrettably, the late - Graham Hill talks us round the terrifying circuit whilst we hang on to the steering wheel and pray:

Life On Mars, Brooklands

When you reflect on it, Sam Tyler was lucky: flinging himself off a modern Manchester office block only consigned him to a railside shootout in 1973. He could have woken up a racing driver in 1908:

Indy 500 1939 and 1941

I think it was Patrick Crozier who coined the phrase “safety is dangerous.” This isn’t what he meant, but this film reminds me of it in an ironic sort of way nonetheless:

It puts Murray Walker into some kind of perspective, doesn’t it?

Grand Prix 1908-1914

“This way of spending your time demands real enthusiasm” comments the speaker behind this film. “Surprisingly few people are seriously hurt.”

The first great sports photographer, in my opinion, and the best photographer of any kind of the twentieth century, was Jacques Henri Lartigue. He knew how to photograph a car long before most people had even seen one (click to enlarge):

Pre-War Racing Mayhem

1933 - Tourist Trophy Donnington Park UK
1934 - Indianapolis 500
1934 - Monaco Grand Prix
1934 - German Grand Prix
1934 - French Grand Prix
Includes the first Auto Unions, and some fabulous spills. Modern life feels incredibly dull and lifeless up against this.

It’s worth clicking through the video to Youtube itself - this video is part of a long series.

Three Wheels On My Wagon

At the Coppa Acerba, seen here in colour in 1937, Bern Rosemeyer lost a wheel on his way into the pits. It doesn’t seem to have worried him, as the interview shows. Followed by coverage of the Donington Grand Prix of the same year:

There’s a specific attitude to fear there that’s worth exploring. Not an absence; an attitude.