It sounds as though Mallory Park is in a bit of a pickle. Verbal decibels have reached danger level in a row over its number of days’ usage and the noise that they generate. Its operator wants more of the former, to remain, it insists, viable in these straitened economic times, while some locals want less of the latter.
Test days have been cancelled, as have public meetings. And there is speculation that the site in Leicestershire has been earmarked for a housing estate. Circuit owner Chris Meek, a former lap record-holder, insists that he has not been approached about any such sale and that the amount of money mentioned in news stories wouldn’t even cover a deposit.
Despite the Chinese whispers, it’s undeniable that Mallory is having to revisit its working practices and the concerns that they create among its neighbours. This is hardly surprising given that the current creaking agreement has been in place since 1985. That’s a remarkable statistic when you consider how shouty the noise debate has become in recent times.
It does seem odd that you can buy a house close to a motor racing circuit and then complain about the mechanised row drifting over your fence or hedge. As someone who used to live at the end of a Heathrow runway, I am inclined to write: tough!
That’s a sentiment I once expressed to a lady who bought a house on the boundary of a cricket ground and complained on the day that she moved in about a ball landing in her garden. I took the opportunity to also snarkily point out that her new abode was directly beyond deep midwicket, a scoring area beloved by 2nd XI sloggers.
She refused to return the ball.
Fortunately, I will not be involved in the Mallory Park negotiations.
I should also point out that, according to Hinckley & Bosworth Borough Council, the complainants are not all new residents; some have lived in nearby Kirkby Mallory village for many years.
The same council document alludes to physical threats and to concerns over people from outside the borough flooding it to express their support for the circuit. The former is completely unacceptable: from either side. The latter is understandable from both points of view.
As motor sport fans, we feel compelled to help. It’s important, however, that we express our viewpoint while maintaining both an emotional and physical distance. Wading in won’t help. A resolution will require calm heads and reasoned argument. It’s been done before – 28 years ago – and so it can be done again, even though attitudes have changed and apparently hardened since.
Let’s hope the figures that I’ve read are opening bids with room for manoeuvre.
Let’s hope the matter can be kept out of the courts. For that way lie delay, disaster and disappointment.
And let’s hope that this year is not Mallory Park’s last. For it has packed a lot into its 1.35 miles during the preceding 57.
Actually, there has been a sporting venue at this former WWII RAF Standby Landing Ground – the lake in the middle is a later addition – since 1948. Initially it was used for horse trotting, and then for grasstracking – bikes and sidecars – before being metalled in 1955.
Mallory as we know it was opened in April 1956 by Bob Gerard, the redoubtable, bespectacled Leicester racer who twice came within a place of scoring a World Championship point in 1950 aboard his highly developed pre-war ERA.
The inaugural meeting was for motorbikes and, in truth, the two- and three-wheeled brigades have had the greater affinity with the place: the British Touring Car Championship stopped its visits after 1982; the British Superbike Championship attended as recently as 2010.
John Surtees, Bob McIntyre, Mike Hailwood and Barry Sheene have won there. The most famous bike victory, however, was scored by Derby’s John ‘Mooneyes’ Cooper, whose BSA Rocket, cheered to the echo by 50,000, pipped the supposedly unbeatable MV Agusta of multiple world champion Giacomo Agostini at the 1971 Race of the Year.
Cars’ heyday occurred in the 1960s and ’70s.
In 1962, Surtees, now in his guise of racing driver, won the International 2000 Guineas on Whit Monday to give Lola its only Formula 1 victory under its own name. Jim Clark had put his Lotus 25 on pole but was never in the hunt because of fading oil pressure.
Pure F1 did not return until the national Aurora AFX Championship of 1978, with Geoff Lees giving local marque Ensign a victory. The series returned later that year and Queenslander Bruce Allison won, I kid you not, the Dave Lee Travis Trophy in a March 781.
By 1980, Chilean Eliseo Salazar was squirting his RAM-run Williams FW07 round in fewer than 40 seconds.
Formula 5000 somehow rumbled its thunder round, too – with wins for Peter Gethin, Hailwood, Graham McRae, Alan Rollinson, Keith Holland, Steve Thompson, David Hobbs, Bob Evans, Guy Edwards, Teddy Pilette and David Purley. Holland also took a McLaren for a dip in the lake.
Aussie tin-top oppos Frank Gardner and Brian ‘Yogi’ Muir scored wins in both Ford Falcon Sprint and Chevrolet Camaro. At a squeeze.
This compact track was – sorry, is – better suited to nimble Formula 2s and the cheeky Minis of John Rhodes, Warwick Banks and John Handley, plus the Saab 96 of Björn Rothstein and BMW 700 of Hubert Hahne. The latter pair fought an epic three-hour battle in 1963 in what was the ETCC’s fourth ever round.
Mallory’s F2 highlights included Jochen Rindt’s debut pole of 1964, Ronnie Peterson’s spectacular crash at the Esses of ’71, and Dave Morgan’s humbling of the works teams the following year in Ed Reeves’ updated Brabham BT35 on narrower tyres that suited the chilly conditions.
Mallory Park’s future is what really matters. But its history – even the farcical land-and-lake invasion by the Bay City Rollers’ hysterical teenaged Tartan Army at a 1975 Radio 1 Fun Day – is an inextricable part of why it matters.
As a total by the by, I noticed that the International 2000 Guineas was the 11th of 22 non-championship F1 races held in 1962. These races took the sport through from January to December, and from South Africa to South Africa via New Zealand, Belgium, Norfolk, Sussex, Pau, Liverpool, Northants, the Bay of Naples, SE20, Champagne, Solitude, Sweden, Sicily, Denmark, Cheshire, Mexico and an airfield in Western Australia.
That’s a lot of effort for zero points. So I retrospectively awarded some on a 9-6-4-3-2-1 basis.
And that year’s winner of my Non-Championship World Championship was: Jim Clark. His 58.5 points included four outright victories – plus one he shared with Team Lotus colleague Trevor Taylor in Mexico – and a trio of second places.
The consistent Bruce McLaren (three wins) was the runner-up on 49 points, followed by Graham Hill (two wins) on 40, ‘Yorkshire Trev’ (2.5 wins) on 35.5 and, with a victory apiece, Innes Ireland and Jack Brabham on 35 and 29.
The other race-winners were Willy Mairesse (two for Ferrari) and – all with one each – Lorenzo Bandini, Masten Gregory, Dan Gurney, Stirling Moss, Surtees and Maurice Trintignant.
But there was a twist. My concurrent eight-round British Non-Championship Championship – with rounds at Snet, Goodwood (twice on the same day,) Aintree, Silverstone, Mallory and Crystal Palace (held on the same day), plus Oulton Park – was won by a single point by: Graham Hill, the man who would pip Clark to that year’s real World Championship.
While Clark was retiring at Mallory Park in June – a similar problem would really cost him dear at East London in December – Hill was in the process of winning the four-cylinder class in Rob Walker’s Lotus 18/21. His third place that day made all the difference.
In my hypothetical world at least. Life is so much more straightforward there.
As one of the guys running @savemallory on twitter, I’d just like to say what a well written and informed piece this is.
We as supporters of Mallory agree entirely that “mob handed” is not the way forward and we would distance ourselves from any such action.
We do however wholeheartedly support the circuit in any of its endeavours to remain a viable race circuit and will assist to that end in any way we can.
If one lives on a beach, one may expect to be flooded twice daily. The Mallory Park Circuit has been in existance since the 1950′s. I have to regard those who choose of their own free will to buy a house adjacent to a motor racing circuit, then complain about the noise, to be plain bonkers! I lived at Newbold Verdon, next door to Kirby Mallory; we could hear the noise; we lived with it. There were sheep in the field next door; we didn’t complain about them either!
I have so many Mallory memories… My first Motorsport experience in the very early 60′s. being frozen to within an inch of my life in between races sat in the Gerard’s grandstand, needing a tractor to pull my Dads Triumph Herald out of the mud by the foot bridge.
When I was old enough to have my own car and tackle the Hinckley one way system on the way to the track,then mistakenly going in through the competitors entrance and being told the guy in front had made the same mistake,but “he’d been told which way to go so follow him” and ending up driving through the gate onto Shaws and finding myself in the paddock ! Magic moment ;-)
Who can forget the Red Rovers Capri in the supersaloons.
The Formula 5000′s , Minis in the same race as huge American saloons.
The chaos at the Radio 1 meet. And one Mr Noel Edmonds hiding in his caravan after stuffing his Mk 3 GTX Cortina.
I’m still going after 57 years and so must Mallory.
Very sad to hear about the threat to this fine old circuit, but the name of the sponsor on Salazar’s FW07 cockpit sides made me laugh in the context.
Ah, that Radio 1 meet….. KIds running across the track in front of the clubmans cars doing 120 plus, wombles falling out of VW campers. Mad.
Bloody NIMBY’s….
And that goes for all circuits where the NIMBY brigade are getting more of their own way.
i am a bit mystified by the nimby’s and their ambitions to limit other’s enjoyment and as other’s say, [a] why move there in the first place [b] why stay there- beyond me, we had a similar thing at Croft and you just wonder
what i would add is that it seems Mallory is hardly promoting itself and that’s a shame, its a nice little circuit and friendly – perhaps MS you could take a leaf out of the ‘olden’ day when there was a comprehensive fixture list per month – that was useful
The problem seems to be that Mallory has been exceeding the agreed number of events days. Granted, this has been part of an attempt to make the circuit a viable business, but it’s still a move hardly calculated to win friends in the surrounding area. As far as I can tell, there are a very small minority of residents who have a problem with the presence of the circuit, but there’s a slightly larger one who, with some justification, have a problem with noise on an ever – increasing number of weekends and weekdays. That said, Mallory is one of my favourite small circuits and I hope they can reach some sort of agreement with locals.
https://submissions.epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/46739
If you wish to sign ..this has been set up
Phil
The perfect venue for Formula E then. Hope the issue gets resolved in the circuits favour, a bit of give and take on both sides perhaps.
The paint job on the FWO7′s a bit iffy, but the car still looks great compared to today’s dog’s breakfast F1 cars.
Remember watching Mike Wilds in a F3000 car chasing someone in a F5000 car in some libre race there in the late 80s early 90s, great fun.
Andrew Scoley, the F5000 was likely being driven by Tony Trimmer in a Lola T330/2. He used to ring the neck of that thing, I had the pleasure of seeing him thrash it around Mondello here in Ireland a number of times. Trimmer was a libre stalwart through the 80′s and early 90′s. I think Richard Lyons races that car now, or at least the tub of it built up with other bits.
Daryl, I think you are probably right on that one, seems to ring a bell.
been going to mallory over 50 years for bike racing would be a complete disaster if it was no more, hope this nonsense gets resolved
The Mallory Park Cicuit has been established for 57 years and has been a well supported leisure activity. How can local residents who have chosen to live nearby since 1955 complain when they know fullwell that motor racing is noisy !.Surely the cicuit has a strong case for an established use.
I’ve raced (sort of!) at the track several times, and now use it once or twice a year as a test venue for younger riders using my bikes. Apart from being one of the few remaining circuits to allow ‘proper’ ACU testing sessions every week, it has some of the most accommodating staff I have ever come across. Long live the ‘Friendly Circuit’
Hugh
Great days riding and watching classics at the VMCC festival of 100 bikes. Hope this is not the last year.
Bloody do gooders. Next step golf course for it I suppose.
Unfortunately its the sign of the times where people wish to spoil things for others by complaining and whinging when they knew the circuit was there on purchase of said house.
The main trouble is their opinion’s get heard along with a sympathetic ear and places like mallory park suffer!
I do hope there is someone in authority that can resolve this problem and go tell the whingers to…..
Just look at that superb write up with all the great sporting legends, what about the future racers, where are they going to compete?
Laterz Wacky
This news really saddens me. It worries me where the country is heading when it comes to motorsport, it seems that everyone seems to want to moan about something, which if there is a noise I can understand however this is the reason I chose not to live near an air port, or next to a main road.
We all have our pastimes and we all have hobbies, I just wish folk would leave this one be, as before long, this industry will be another destin for the history book. Also Mallory is steeped in history, and to loose such a historical place, is simply wrong, if it were a tree, or a building, it may well be protected! The classic car market is booming, along with this are the historical motorsport groups and up to date motorsport groups, the last thing we need to do is drive this abroad also, and by threating iconic venues like Mallory is doing such a thing. To the moaners, please please please find something else to moan about!
Training Ground
How shortsighted people are. While those who CHOSE to live next to a Motor Race Circuit do not want their Sunday mornings disturbed(most have commuted on test days) it is worthwhile pointing out to residents in the wider council catchment just how much income is brought to the area. Also a number of Motorsport businesses have established over the years as a result of the “Friendly Circuit”
It is unfortunate that the resident race school found it necessary to de-camp to its purpose built circuit at Prestwold near Loughborough in the interest of economics and flexibility of use (Incidently overcoming protests from locals, including a couple of tintack sabotage efforts!)
For many years Everyman Motor Racing incorporated into its popular and ground breaking Driving Experience days the ARDS courses for those wishing to take up Motor Racing at an amateur or professional level and it was a great privelege to train and certificate hundreds of drivers, many who went on to become household names in the sport/industry.
Having also run race teams I know that everyone will concur when I say that Mallory is(was) the best value in money and the set up of the circuit for testing. If you can make a car handle round Mallory you have a base set up for every circuit in the country(World!)
We must stick together and fight in the pits,on the track and on the spectator banking. Any campaign will have my full support.
Dave Wall
Senior Instructor at Mallory for 23 Years
Forty years after its closure I still mourn the passing of Crystal Palace , we need to defend all the tracks we have .
I first went there in 1957 aged 12. My parents did not know where it was other than somewhere near Hinckley. An AA patrolman on his motor bike was stopped and managed to find directions for us. I still have the programme. When I could drive a friend and I went to all the meetings in the mid/late Sixties. I then competed there occasionally, or at least I started when everyone else did! Happy Days! A great little circuit which needs saving
The answer is simple, rather than sell/close the circuit, buy all of the house of the people who object and rent them out to motor sport lovers.
It will be a very sad day if a few people who are not motor sport fans can get such a fabulous venue closed . I suppose they can always go and make loads of noise at football matches and no one moans . My memorise of Mallory Park go back 60yrs watching grasstrack racing as a child , seeing Dick & Jim Tolley / Eric Oliver /Bill Evans etc , and then when i had my own transport watching Chris Vincent in them days invincible , Max Deubel on his B M W Owen Greenwood on his controversaul 3 wheeler , watching Agustine / Mike Hailwood / John [mooneyes] Cooper , Dereck Minter to name a few , and then there was all the car meetings Minis / Anglias / Mustangs / Camaros / Cortinas and many more . I went to the British Rally Cross championship meeting what a shambles no programs when we arrived, no speakers on the Stebbe Straight no one had any idea what was going on , so much time wasted getting cars onto the grid between heats . Not the ussual slick meetings we are used to at Mallory Park .
I recently bought a house in Kirkby Mallory , and live 500 yds away from the entrance .
I can hear a small amount of noise , but nothing to get bothered about and I must say I quite like it .
I’d rather it stays ,” Better the devil you Know”
I first went to Mallory Park when I was twenty years of age. I am now 73. How can people stupid enough to either move to a house next to a race track or event build one near it and the complain about the noise.
I really do hope that we can save Mallory park I have some great memories of this place my first ever motorcycle track day and eight more since its a brilliant place and I do tend to agree why do people decide to live by a race track and then complain its beyond me I wonder if I build a house next to Gatwick airport do you reckon I could get that closed down I doubt it .
I am a past Mallory motorcycle champion and cannot believe the age old argument, the track was there before most families get over it or get out . When you buy a house you do a local search and I’m sure most have heard of Mallory Park and Kirkby Mallory being a race track venue. I Have given the best part of my life to motorcycle sport and most of it at Mallory, they are great people at a wonderful venue, why do people seem hell bent on shutting Mallory, I don’t get it. Sorry if I sound like I’m a angry ranter, that’s cos I am.
I took my son to Mallory today as I haven’t been for a few years and was surprised to find there was no racing.
Having found this website I am surprised to see that local residents are complaining about the noise. If you buy a house near a race track, you have no right to then complain about the noise from racing engines, just the same as moving near an airport etc etc etc
Mallory is my local circuit. I love its intimacy, history and the enthusiasts who use it or watch racing there. As such I’d love to live in the village! And as has already been said, ‘ You buy a house next to etc’.
We MUST keep Mallory alive and in the hands of people like Chris who know how important this circuit is and continue to manage it as befits its unique place in British MotorSport.