The Roaring Season

In 1973 I used to drive past Crystal Palace every day on my way from Catford down to Croydon and Purley Way to Trojan Works. I joined the CP swim club so I could become a better swimmer which did not succeed and I always thought I would check out the whole park one day after I returned from my 2 week trip to California but I did not return ! I do remember walking down what I thought was a quiet trail and asking someone where was the car race circuit and he replied "You are walking on it !". It was hard to believe that they raced through this area as these pictures show. I had my own photos back then but my Trojan contact got ticked off that would not return from CA and he threw it all away. Any way the Crystal Palace deserves some recognition and I will try to put something together.



(Just a walk in the Park. )


(After a drive to work. )



(Ken H. )

1969 British Touring Cars. https://youtu.be/cYNRJ9z2bso

1964 British touring Cars. https://youtu.be/bWp-0TuY4Sk

1971 British Saloon Cars. https://youtu.be/mB8yV5VWRI8

bill hollingsworth wrote:1964 British touring Cars. https://youtu.be/bWp-0TuY4Sk

Wow, the crash of the mini at 1.06 was huge and the driver only had a broken pair of glasses and a broken tooth!... would you believe

Crystal Palace is one of the oldest venues in the world for holding motor sports with events being arranged in 1899.
New Zealand had a consulate in the park and that area is named New Zealand Hill. Also in the stadium area in 1905 Rugby matches took place at Crystal Palace’s stadium too- it was here, in December 1905, that the first ever international Rugby Union match between England and New Zealand was held (New Zealand won 15-0 )



(Note NZ hill in this map. I walked on the track at the Glade area.)


An early Crystal Palace race at the Glade corners.



(Ken H.)

A 1937 clip of a race at Crystal Palace pre-war circuit, won by the well known driver, Prince Bira of Siam.
p.s. I did not know this about him ; After leaving F1 and winning the NZGP at Ardmore in January 1955, he focused his attentions on sailing, taking part in the Olympic Games in Melbourne (1956), Rome (1960), Tokyo (1964) and Munich (1972).

[video]https://www.britishpathe.com/video/VLVAEUBCQ3165FCP7JNP7OJ1N2Q3T-CAR-RACE-AT-CRYSTAL-PALACE/query/Crystal+Palace[/video]

Note the lack of helmets or protection from the posts and trees !





The ERA B-Type, the same car which B. Bira had so much success. Prince Bira retired and returned to Thailand and the car went to rest at Lord Montagu's museum.

July 17, 1937: First London Grand Prix held at the Palace; won by Prince Bira driving an ERA R2B at an average speed of 56.5mph/90.9kmh

(Ken H.)

A timeline for key events at Crystal Palace race circuits.


1899: Enthusiasts first map out an impromptu track and race their new-fangled machines around the park

May 21, 1927: Inaugural Crystal Palace road racing motorcycle event held

November 30, 1936: Crystal Palace destroyed by fire

April 1937: Opening of new circuit, designed by architect C L Clayton as “a Donington Park for London”

July 17, 1937: First London Grand Prix held at the Palace; won by Prince Bira driving an ERA R2B at an average speed of 56.5mph/90.9kmh

October 1937: Racing ace Dick Seaman demonstrates his Mercedes W125 at the Palace, the first time a motor sport event had been broadcast live on TV

1939-1945: Motorsport suspended during WW2; the two water towers that had flanked the Crystal Palace were also destroyed for fear they may act as a navigational aid to the Luftwaffe


1953: New track layout opened; inaugural event attracts nearly 100,000 spectators

1964: Unknown Austrian Jochen Rindt makes a name for himself in a Formula 2 meeting at the Palace, beating Graham Hill and Jim Clark. Rindt would become World Champion in 1970, sadly losing his life the same year

1969 (approx): “You’re only supposed to blow the bloody doors off!” The famous scene from The Italian Job filmed in the park

May 1972: During the final International meeting, Mike Hailwood secures the fastest ever lap of the track, at an average speed of 103.39mph/166.39kmh.

September 23, 1972: Gerry Marshall wins the final car race to be held at Crystal Palace driving a Lister Jaguar (Last karting event October, 1972). Club events continued to use parts of the grounds until 1974

1997: Sprint racing returns to the Palace, but Millennium plans for the park result in an abrupt end to racing after four years

After the start at Crystal Palace there was a short straight leading up to the North Tower right hand corner that led to the downhill Glade Corner.
This shows how the great Ronnie Peterson negotiated these corners in a 1971 Formula Two race going past a very brave photographer !




Plus here is a Falcon photo for Paul B, taken at the North Tower corner.





(Ken H.)

Daily Express F3 Trophy Final - Crystal Palace October 1970.
Check out this exciting race at Crystal Palace with Murray Walker announcing.
At the end you can see James Hunt get out of his wrecked car and go up and deck Dave Morgan although the crash itself is missed.
Good racing and lots of action on and off the track !
[video=youtube;DSCDucychzA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSCDucychzA[/video]



This action was also filmed here again for the movie "Rush".


(Ken H)

Great video clip Ken, a real battle for 2nd & 3rd place, but Hunt battled just a little too hard.
I think the Falcon might be Terry Sanger at Crystal Palace?

Cheers

The North Tower Crescent corner area at Crystal Palace was named after the area where one of two water towers dominated the skyline as can be seen in these photos from the 1930s.




And in this early poster they can be seen against the original Crystal Palace before it all sadly burned down in 1936.




But once the English realized the German Luftwaffe could use the water towers for navigation guides to London it was decided to demolish both of these water towers, so in the space of a few years the Crystal Palace Park had gone through many drastic changes. But the motorsport venue was to survive but on a smaller track compared to the pre-war circuit.

(Ken H )

I found this entertaining description of attending racing at Crystal Palace, after arriving on the bus as it was only 4 miles from the centre of London, in a Motorsport Magazine.

"Crystal Palace
One London Suburb reverberated to the sound of racing engines until 1972. Paul Fearnley takes a leisurely drive through a park that boasts a fast past :
Whit Monday, 1964. Top deck of a Routemaster, the windows rattling in sympathy with its faithful Gardiner's lumpy idle. Down those curving stain two at a time, one more bound and out the back. The bus hasn't come to a dead stop and the conductor shouts something.
Dive across Anerley Road, through the traffic and turnstiles and across the footbridge from Low Level Station. The new National Sports Centre is down the hill to the right — hugging the inside of Ramp Bend, to be exact — but who cares? Athletics is way too slow. Some reckon the Centre's arrival might affect the racing, though. Now that would be serious.
Straight into the gravel paddock. The place is packed. Abuzz. There's Graham Hill. And Jim Clark. Denny Hulme. Pete Arundell. Alan Rees. And that must be the New Bloke. It wasn't a big piece in the morning papers, but it had huge significance. You just don't do that: buy a single-seater, grab pole for your third race with it, ahead of Jimmy Clark, the world champion, on a track you've never seen before.
He looks pretty cool. Bit like Lennon. Broken nose. Just 22. And boy, can he pedal. Rees, an acknowledged track expert, tries all he knows but can't get past the opposite-locking New Bloke in the second heat. Can't wait for the final. Hill's John Coombs Cooper leads it but soon begins to struggle with understeer. The New Bloke makes his move and whistles by the former champion. And wins. He looks bushed in the paddock, nursing a sore hand lots of gearchanges here in a 1-litre Formula Two car but he's happy. Knows now he hasn't been kidding himself. Knows now he's got a great future.
The papers go bananas the next day: Unknown Australian beats Hill at Crystal Palace, screams one !
Jochen Rindt's sensational win in the London Trophy was the apogee of the Crystal Palace circuit's 35-year history. The National Sports Centre did affect the racing and, at the start of 1972, Greater London Council's Arts and Recreation Committee announced that motorsport would cease for good at Crystal Palace at the season's end. Rising speeds were a major cause for concern Rindt broke the 100mph barrier in 1970 but this was a drop in the ocean compared to the projected 1,250,000 bill for the safety revisions suggested by Jackie Stewart and Francois Cevert.
The bottom bottom line, though, was that there was simply no room for manoeuvre, for expansion. Crystal Palace was the crazy golf of motor racing a track hemmed in by trees, bandstands, lakes and life-sized dinosaur models. Unyielding sleepers and concrete walls were separated from the track by the width of a painted white line. It couldn't go on.
'Armco to the inside, retaining wall to the outside, the flat right can't have been a comfortable place'
Stand at the site of the later start/finish line on North Terrace it was shifted from the other side of the circuit when work on the Centre began in 1960 and the track curves trickily into a 130mph left before disappearing under trees. Turn one, North Tower Crescent, is an awkward, tightening, in-the-shade, double-apex right which spits you out downhill through an off-camber left, The Glade a heavily wooded section with a particularly stout tree standing right on the `sailing-off' point.
Through the quick right at Park Curve and over the stomach against-diaphragm crest of the New Link. With a steep approach, Armco to the inside, high, stepped retaining wall to the outside, the flat right at the bottom cannot have been a comfortable place, especially astride a cranked-over bike.
Along a straight and into Ramp Bend, an inviting uphill right Up Maxim Rise, a left-right-left which could be straight-lined (almost), then hard on the brakes for the 90 right of South Tower Bend. And back to the start. A breathless 48.4sec if you got it right, like Mike Hailwood's Surtees TS10 did in the final F2 event (May '72) to become the lap record holder in perpetuity. The track could have been designed for the smaller formulae cars. What it was like wrestling a tennis court-sized Galaxie around is a different matter. Good if you were out front, one imagines.
It was the biggest blazer London had seen in years. Sixty fire appliances rushed to the scene, but a lack of water pressure at the top of the hill meant a famous landmark was doomed. Rivers of glass lava-ed down the main road and all that remained in the morning was a massive, forlorn, twisted iron skeleton. Crystal Palace, Joseph Paxton's masterpiece, home to the 1851 Great Exhibition, tourist attraction ever since, had gone, on 30 November, 1936. Krupps of Essen bought the wreckage for scrap, Lloyds coughed up £110,000 and the proposed new attraction was needed more than ever. Efforts were redoubled.
The first sod was cut on Thursday 3 December and, despite a wet winter which caused several mudslides, the project was completed (just) in time for its April '37 curtain-raiser. Builders' rubble lay strewn around, still-warm roadrollers were parked up side roads, and workmen leant on their spades to watch the action — but it was ready. London's racing circuit was ready.
Thirty feet wide except at the start/finish line, where it was 20ft wider, and covered in Panamac — 'durable, dependable and non-skid', according to its producer, Bituminous Surfacing Ltd of London and Manchester — it wound, twisted and plunged for two miles. Richard Seaman, the leading British driver of the day, paid it the highest compliment of likening it to a Continental track — and all just a few miles from the seat of Parliament.
Carshakon MCC provided the marshals at the inaugural meeting, St John Ambulance and Antifyre Ltd the safety measures, Mecca Cafes Ltd the light refreshments. For a one-shilling return fare from Victoria or London Bridge spectators could step off the train and walk directly into the circuit. There were nine bus or trolleybus routes to chose from, too, and plenty of car parking space for the more affluent. Motor racing brought to the people. Brooklands"The right crowd and no crowding' attitude held no sway; Crystal Palace, for all intents and purposes, was a theme park — churning turnstiles and the Next Big Thing were the keys.
The Next Big Thing in 1927 was Path Racing, the brainchild of eagle-eyed promoters, Fred Mockford and Cyril Smith. Under the guise of their new London Motor Sports Ltd they approached the Palace's trustees in January. Just five months later, potholes filled, bends tarred, trees padded, 10,000 spectators watched their first 'bike race. It was a great success. But ever the opportunist, Mockford was soon on to the next Next Big Thing: speedway. An incredible 30,000 people attended the new 440-yard cinder track's maiden meet, and this sport took precedence thereafter.
In 1936, Harry Edwards of the International Road Racing Club and secretary to the BRDC, with support from racing driver Bill Everitt, drew up a plan and put it to the now motorsport-bereft trustees. Architect CL Clayton's layout included a complex infield section which was bypassed after WWII. The action began on Thursday 22 April, 1937, with practice for the Coronation Trophy. The event itself was given a Continental feel with the two-heats-and-a-final format favoured by the lesser French and Italian races. It was felt this would give the spectators better value for money. That showmanship thing again. Pat Fairfield's ERA won the first heat and the 30-lap final. Thereafter it tended to be a Bira-versus-Arthur Dobson battle (both in ERAs) for early Crystal Palace honours, the tiny Siamese Prince usually holding the upper hand. ERA founder Raymond Mays also got in on the act, while the Alta of George Abecassis, and the ideally suited Austin Twin-Cam gem of Bert Hadley, broke up the Boume marque's hegemony in 1938-39.
It took eight years for racing to resume at the Palace, now shortened to 1.39 miles, after the cessation of hostilities. Not everybody was delighted; an injunction raised by local residents would limit the track to just five days of racing per year until the end of the '60s. Over 40,000 others, however, were over the moon as they watched Tony Rolt win the first race of the new era, the track's golden era, for the Connaught concern.
In the '50s and '60s, London became the capital of motorsport — Cooper at Surbiton, Lotus at Homsey, Aston Martin at Feltham, HWM at Walton-on-Thames, Vanwall at Acton, McLaren at Colnbrook — and the Palace became their special day out, their showpiece. The races were invariably on a Bank Holiday, the crowds commensurate, the atmosphere all of its own — urban, more blue-collar than most, but intensely knowledgeable and appreciative. For the competitors, the facilities were better than most, the meetings compact, and metropolitan London was on the doorstep for those celebration parties. A win at the Palace was special: just ask Parnell, Moss, Hawthorn, Collins, Brabham, Salvadori, Clark, Ickx, Fittipaldi, Stewart and Scheckter.
Dragsters (last seen heading towards North Tower Crescent, parachutes hopefully unfurled), saloons, karts, RAC Rally and London-Sydney Marathon all converged on Crystal Palace in the '60s. But the lights soon went out in the 1970s. And stayed out — the oil crisis and three-day weeks saw to it."


(Ken H)

I was checking out the 1972 Formula Two race at Crystal Palace and note this talented field that raced there on such a short track, there must have been action everywhere.

I Greater London International Trophy 1972
European Championship for Formula 2 Drivers, Round 5
IV John Player British Formula 2 Championship, Round 4
Crystal Palace Circuit, London, Great Britain

May 29 2 heats x 45 laps x 2237 m = 2 x 100.67 kms + Final 50 laps = 111.85 kms Pole Position; Heat 1: John Surtees, 49.0"
Pole Position; Heat 2: Francois Cevert, 48.8" Fastest Lap: Mike Hailwood, 48'4" = 166.355 kmh
Graded Drivers not eligible for EC-points in bold.
FINAL
Pos Cla. # Driver, Nationality Entrant Car - Engine/Tuner Chassis Cyl
vol Tyre Laps Time Reason Out
1 1 60 Jody Scheckter, RSA Impact Group McLaren M21 - Ford BDF/Cosworth M21-1 1927 GY 50 41'32.4" 161.55 kmh
2 2 46 Mike Hailwood, GBR Matchbox Team Surtees Surtees TS10 - Ford BDA/Brian Hart TS10-01 1850 F 50 41'34.6"
3 3 3 Carlos Reutemann, ARG Motul Rondel Racing Brabham BT38 - Ford BDF/Cosworth BT38-11 1927 GY 50 41'35.8"
4 4 54 Vic Elford, GBR Chevron Racing Team Chevron B20 -Ford BDA/Alan Smith B20.F2.2 1900 F 50 41'37.0"
5 5 24 Francois Cevert, FRA Elf Coombs Racing March 722 - Ford BDA/Brian Hart 722-4 1850 GY 50 41'44.2"
6 6 5 Jean-Pierre Beltoise, FRA Motul Rondel Racing Brabham BT38 - Ford BDA/R.E.S. BT38-14 1930 GY 50 42'14.0"
7 7 25 Patrick Depailler, FRA Elf Coombs Racing March 722 - Ford BDA/Brian Hart 722-45 1850 GY 50 42'15.8"
8 8 22 Jochen Mass, DEU STP March Engineering March 722 - Ford BDA/R.E.S. 722-17 1930 GY 50 42'16.2"
9 9 10 Silvio Moser, SUI Scuderia Jolly Club Switzerland Brabham BT38 - Ford BDE/Cosworth-Schenker BT38-21 1790 48
10 10 4 Bob Wollek, FRA Motul Rondel Racing Brabham BT38 - Ford BDA/Racing Services BT38-15 1960 GY 46

11 DNF 35 Adrian Wilkins, GBR John Coombs Racing March 722 - Ford BDA/Felday 722-15 1850 GY 43 Accident
12 DNF 9 Richard Scott, GBR Uniacke Chemicals Brabham BT38 - BDE/Geoff Richardson BT38-17 1790 GY 35 Valves
13 DNF 30 David Purley, GBR Lec Refrigeration Racing March 722 - Ford BDA/R.E.S. 722-10 1930 GY 12 Drive shaft
14 DNF 61 John Watson, GBR Allan McCall Team Tui Leda-Tui AM29 - Ford BDA/Brian Hart AM29-BH-2 1850 GY 9 Head gasket
15 DNF 14 Jean-Pierre Jaussaud, FRA Ecurie A.S.C.A. Brabham BT38 -Ford BDA/Brian Hart BT38-18 1850 F 6 Overheating
16 DNF 29 Mike Beuttler, GBR Clarke Mordaunt Guthrie Racing March 722 - Ford BDA/R.E.S. 722-18 1930 GY 0 Collision with Beltoise

17 DNS 48 Andrea de Adamich, ITA FINA Team Surtees Surtees TS10 - Ford BDE/Novamotor TS10-04 1790 F - Crash on warm-up lap

18 DNQ 17 Roland Binder, DEU Roland Binder Brabham BT36 - Ford BDE/Cosworth BT36-4 1790
19 DNQ 7 Wilson Fittipaldi, BRA Team Bardahl Brabham BT38 - Ford BDE/Novamotor BT38-25 1790 GY
20 DNQ 51 Tom Walkinshaw, GBR GRS International GRD 272 - Ford BDA/David Wood 272-016 1860 F
21 DNQ 23 Niki Lauda, AUT STP March Engineering March 722 - Ford BDF/Cosworth 722-5 1927 GY
22 DNQ 47 John Surtees, GBR Matchbox Team Surtees Surtees TS10 - Ford BDA/Brian Hart TS10-02 1850 F
23 DNQ 49 Carlos Ruesch, ARG Matchbox Team Surtees Surtees TS10 - Ford BDA/Brian Hart TS10-05 1850 F
24 DNQ 33 Gerry Birrell, GBR Sports Motors (Manchester) March 722 - Ford BDA/Brian Hart 722-1 1850
25 DNQ 1 Graham Hill, GBR Tate of Leeds Racing Brabham BT38 - Ford BDA/R.E.S. BT38-1 1927
26 DNQ 31 Brett Lunger, USA Space Racing March 722 - Ford BDA/R.E.S. 722-11 1927 GY
27 DNQ 26 José Dolhem, FRA Shell - Meubles Arnold Team March 722 - Ford BDE/Felday 722-14 1790
28 DNQ 18 Dick Barker, GBR Richard Barker Brabham BT28 - Ford BDA/Dick Barker BT28-20 1601
29 DNQ 12 Tom Belsö, DEN Team Viking Brabham BT38 - Ford BDA/Tony Steele BT38-19 1790
30 DNQ 28 Hiroshi Kazato, J Peter Bloore Racing March 722 - Ford BDA/Broadspeed 722-8 GY
31 DNQ 6 Henri Pescarolo, FRA Motul Rondel Racing Brabham BT38 - Ford BDA/R.E.S. BT38-12 1930 GY
32 DNQ 8 Dave Morgan, GBR Edward Reeves Racing Brabham BT38 - Ford BDA/David Wood BT38-16 1860

33 DNS 2 Peter Westbury, GBR FIRST Brabham BT38 - Ford BDA/Felday BT38-23 1973 Crash

34 DNQ 11 Giancarlo Gagliardi, ITA Scuderia Jolly Club Switzerland Brabham BT38 - Ford BDE/Novamotor BT38-22 1790
35 DNQ 15 Adam Potocki, FRA Ecurie A.S.C.A. Brabham BT38 - Ford BDA/Brian Hart BT38-24 1850 F
36 DNQ 19 John Wingfield, GBR Nicoby Racing Brabham BT36 - Ford BDA BT36-10
37 DNQ 52 Claude Bourgoignie, BEL GRS International GRD 272 - Ford BDA 272-010 F

38 DNA 27 Jean-Pierre Jarier, FRA Shell - Meubles Arnold Team March 722 - Ford BDA
39 DNA 32 Hannelore Werner, DEU Eifelland Caravaning Brabham BT38 - Ford BDA
40 DNA 34 Ernesto Brambilla, ITA Beta Utensili Racing March 712M - Ferrari Dino 206/Brambilla
41 DNA 40 Carlos Pace, BRA Banting & Earle Racing Team Pygmée MDB17 - Ford BDA/Pygmée
42 DNA 41 Patrick Dal Bo, FRA Banting & Earl Racing Team Pygmée MDB17 - Ford BDA/Pygmée
43 DNA 42 Lian Duarte, BRA Banting & Earl Racing Team Pygmée MDB17 - Ford BDA/Pygmée
44 DNA 43 Fred Stalder, FRA Fred Stalder Pygmée MDB17 - Ford BDA
45 DNA 53 Tetsu Ikuzawa, JPN GRS International GRD 272 - Ford BDA F
56 DNA 55 Georges Schäfer, SUI A.C.A. Racing Club Chevron B18 - Ford BDA

It was also the last win for the McLaren M 21 with Jody Scheckter driving.
So for one more time there is this for all to read.


https://primotipo.com/2018/03/26/jodys-mclaren-m21-and-trojan-t101/

(K. Hyndman)

A brief clip of the Crystal Palace 1972 race, best watched at full screen at this site.
https://www.britishpathe.com/video/VLVAAZFK5US27FLH8S33X2M3THLFT-SOUTH-AFRICAN-RACING-DRIVER-JODY-SCHECKTER-WINS-FIFTH-ROUND-OF/query/Crystal+palace#

Jody Scheckter in his McLaren M 21 # 60.








(Ken H )