Readers’ write: here are your letters

Your feature Great Lost Circuits reminds me each month of the Marlboro Motor Speedway in the States, right. This compact 1.8-mile track had nothing to do with the famous brand of cigarettes, but was so named because of its proximity to the town of Upper Marlboro in the state of Maryland. Not a ‘great’ circuit by any stretch of the imagination, but one that has a certain significance for UK racing historians.

I was a student at Georgetown University, Washington DC, in the 1960s and attended race meetings at Marlboro on a regular basis. It was used mainly for local SCCA events including the annual Marlboro 12 Hours for touring cars. This was held from 1961 to 1966, before the track closed down in 1969 for safety reasons.

I remember going to the 12 Hours race in 1964, expecting to see the usual collection of SCCA drivers in their Volvos and Saabs, but was surprised to discover Jackie Stewart on pole position in one of three works Lotus Cortinas! Other Cortina drivers over the years included Jacky Ickx, Hubert Hahne, John Whitmore, Tony Hegbourne, Trevor Taylor, David Hobbs, Paul Hawkins, Frank Gardner and Jack Sears (who won in 1963 with Bob Olthoff).

Stewart won the 1964 race, together with Mike Beckwith. This, if I’m not mistaken, marked Sir Jackie’s first appearance in the USA and a significant overseas win, but it seems to be largely overlooked in his career statistics.

Andrew Rawlins, Nyons, France

With regard to your feature on great Australian sportsmen [Aussie grit, August]. I haven’t the faintest idea what cricket is all about, but no sport has given more insight into Aussie grit than motorcycle racing. Take Wayne Gardner, the first Aussie GP500 world champ. The ‘Wollongong Wild One’ came to the UK sponsored by a Kiwi rider, Graeme Crosby, to manhandle big, ungainly streetbike-based Moriwakis that Crosby imported among the nifty GP  machinery in the British championship. Living in a van, winning the occasional race, he’d become a Honda factory rider and the first Aussie world champion in 1987 on
the infamous widow-making Honda NSR500.

In 1992, Mick ‘Thunder from Down Under’ Doohan smashed a leg on the other factory NSR500, facing amputation before he came back in a display of mind-over-very-mangled-matter gritting his teeth as he “wasn’t
a painkiller type of person”. It took one season to get back up to speed before becoming utterly dominant, winning five titles in a row.

And there was two-times MotoGP champion Casey Stoner. His parents sold everything they owned to give him a shot in Europe. He repaid them in spades.

But the most grit can be found in the rough and tumble of World Superbikes. Men like Rob Phillis and Troy Bayliss. Bayliss picked up on racing late after giving up his job as a spray painter and won three titles. What sums him up was his first race in the American Superbike championship in Daytona. Asked if he was scared on the banking while his Ducati bucked and weaved with fully compressed suspension, he said he didn’t have time to be scared as he had a family to feed, mate. Aussie grit indeed.

Pieter Ryckaert, Belgium

I enjoyed the Motor Sport special issue F1 75 on 75 years of grand prix racing. Of particular interest to me is your opinion on which were the greatest 75 individual races [The 75 greatest grands prix]. I attended many of the races you mention and particularly remember the 1981 Spanish GP at Jarama (No24 in your list). The report covers the race and the struggle that Gilles Villeneuve had to stay in front of his pursuers. What I remember was standing with Bernie Ecclestone on the straight, and he said to me, “I never stay to the end of the race. I try to get out before the rush but I am not going to miss this. I don’t  like the little bugger but there is not another driver that could keep that car where it is.”

I also remember the 1959 US Grand Prix at Sebring, Florida (No53 in your list). It was the first F1 grand prix in the United States. I knew the track well because I had driven a Lotus 15 there in March of the same year. I had been at a sports car race in the Bahamas the previous week and decided to drive to Sebring for the F1 race.

The track surface was rough for the F1 cars. Early in the first practice session Jack Brabham had something break in the steering system of his Cooper-Climax with the result that the left front wheel swung right around and made a significant bend in the lower frame rail. Jack, unfazed, took off some body panels and with help from the bumper jack of his rental car and a few bits of timber he straightened the frame rail back to its original position. He then fixed the steering problem. He turned to me and said, “You can’t do that with your bloody Lotus, can you?” Jack ran out of fuel and had to push  his car across the finish line but he ended up 1959 world champion and it started many years of great competition from British cars and engines built by what Enzo Ferrari called “garagistas”.

Robert J Hanna, Former Executive Director, Canadian Automobile Sport Clubs 

I have been an avid Ferrari fan since 1970. At the moment Lewis Hamilton seems to be getting a lot of stick for underperforming at Ferrari [Lewis’s sluggish start, September]. But let’s not forget that when Michael Schumacher was winning his world championships they had Rory Byrne designing the car, Ross Brawn engineering the car and Jon Todt leading the team. I always thought it was going to be a tough job for Lewis but
I think he has the balls to see the job through.

Stuart James Warsop, via email

I was just reading through the September  issue and came across a name from the past, Ulf Norinder [Stepping out of the past]. I came across him at my very first race meeting at Castle Combe, which I attended with my dad. His name fascinated me as it sounded so exotic to me at the time. The photo, above, is one of my first motor sport efforts, taken with my Kodak Brownie showing him with his Lola F5000 car. I don’t think I even knew the tall guy was the driver. It was the car I was shooting. It is only on seeing the picture in Motor Sport that made me realise it was him.

Iain Trice, Wymondham, Norfolk

It appears that Doug Nye isn’t a fan of electric cars judging by his column in the September 2025 issue [Rumblings].

I wholeheartedly agree. Just aside from the extra wear and tear of tyres/brakes, etc due to the extra weight of the vehicles, I remain unconvinced of the ‘green’ credentials of electric vehicles. Yes the emissions are zero but how much damage do we do to the environment in the creation of the batteries in the first place? And then what is to be done when the batteries are depleted?

I won’t say much about the lack of range, but I’ll be staying with my 2.0 TDi for a good while yet. Six-hundred miles on a tank and re-filling in a matter of minutes.

Mark Killelay, Gainsborough, Lincs

In his Rumblings column Doug Nye questions the premise that cars made heavier with batteries containing rare metals and needing more energy to propel that extra weight along, thereby causing more wear to both tyres and road surfaces, will actually do much, if anything, towards preserving our planet.

Might the interests of the environment be better served by Doug’s preference for smaller, lighter vehicles running on alternative fuels?

John Tuck, Royal Wootton Bassett, Wilts

I’ve got to say, Matt Bishop has fast become a Motor Sport favourite. Every article, be it online or in print, gives detail, insight, humour and is written in such a comfortable style as to make you feel you can really get to know and understand the personalities or subjects he writes about. I sincerely hope that I’m reading his work in Motor Sport for many years to come.

Tim Johnstone, Chorley, Lancashire

The letter about the Railton [September] triggered a memory. I am sure I worked on this car as a boy apprentice in a garage in Braintree, Essex in about 1946. It was unusual to see a car like that and I asked the mechanic about it. He told me it had an American straight-eight side valve engine built for the long American roads. A few details that I still remember (I’m 95 now) is being given a wooden stick with a rubber sucker on the end and a tin of valve paste. I sat on the wing and for a long time rubbed in 16 valves. I also remember seeing the new head gasket taped to a long piece of wood having been posted from London.

Because the mechanic was so pleased with the engine when we had finished he said, “Come on, you deserve a ride.” It drove wonderfully. It did not have a Wilson box then. It was fitted with a bypass to the exhaust box and, to me, it made a lovely noise.

If it is not the actual car you refer to, it is certainly its sister.

Dave Farmer, Poole, Dorset

As much as I enjoyed the article Grand Prix vs Brad Pitt [September] (I was 11 when Grand Prix was released and have never tired of watching it) by Mark Salisbury, I find I have to point out a mistake.

Mark states that half of the driver’s appearing in the film were dead before the decade was out, including Jim Clark, Jochen Rindt and Graham Hill. Jochen passed away in 1970 and Graham Hill died in 1975. Of the three mentioned, only Jim Clark didn’t see out the decade having died in 1968.

John F Cunningham, via email

We see the confusion. The writer was referring to 10 years after the film was released – Ed

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