The 1984 International Racing Season
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The calendar of the major International events is listed below, these being the ones counting towards the various Championships. Bearing in mind what Mr Ecclestone said early in the 1983 season, that none of the Grand Prix events for that season would be cancelled, and that somehow we missed seeing the Formula One races at Dijon-Prenois, New York and Las Vegas, be prepared for cancellations and alterations to the Formula One list. Certain events can be guaranteed, like our own Grand Prix at Brands Hatch this year, the San Marino GP at Imola and the Italian GP at Monza, but the thought of the European GP at the new mini-Nurburgring in October sounds very unreal.
Work on the mini-Nurburgring is forging ahead and a Formula 2 event is due on April 29th. Similarly a new Autodrome is being built at Fuengirola in Spain, just north of Malaga, and a provisional date is booked for one 3rd for a F2 race, with a non-championship long-distance sports car race to open the track on May 27th. A look at the opening of the Formula 2 season would seem to suggest that it is being sponsored by Townsend-Thoresen Ferries, with four races in April in the sequence England, Germany, England, Germany so the Dover-Calais ferry boats will be pretty full that month. Obviously there is a master scheme behind this sort of planning, but iris not very obvious to the lay-mind.
Reading the list of events for the European Touring Car Championship, in which the Jaguar XJS coupes really sorted out the BMWs on a number of occasions in 1983, must give any European with the wanderlust a twinge of excitement. Journeys from Sicily to Czechoslovakia, back to Austria, up to Germany and Belgium, over to England and then back to Belgium and down to Italy would provide some interesting motoring if it wasn’t for all the other people trying to do the same thing! — D.S. J.