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 How Times Have Changed #3
Club Racing Weekends
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The third article
in the "How Times Have Changed" series covers how Club Racing
weekends have changed (at least in Ontario). This is not meant to
be an all-encompassing discussion but rather a quick overview from
a spectator's point of view.
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British
Empire Motor Club
12th Annual Sports Car Trophy Races
Saturday, May 19, 1962
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8:00
am
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to
10:00 am |
Late
crew registration |
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9:30
am
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to
11:15 am |
Warm
up (by classes) |
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11:20
am
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Drivers'
Meeting |
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11:15
am to
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12:00
noon |
Lunch
Break |
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12:00
Noon
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Race
#1 |
Production
Sports Cars - up to 1300cc |
10
laps |
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Race
#2 |
Production
Sports Cars - 1300cc to 1600cc |
10
laps |
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Race
#3 |
Production
Sports Cars - over 1600cc |
10
laps |
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Race
#4 |
Modified
Sports Cars - all classes |
12
laps |
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Race
#5 |
Formula
Junior and Canada Class |
10
laps |
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Race
#6 |
Touring
Cars - all classes |
10
laps |
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Race
#7 |
Novice
Class - all classes |
10
laps |
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Race
#8 |
Dunlop
Challenge Trophy Race
Open to the first six finishers in races #1, 2, 3 and 4 and
by invitation |
25
laps |
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8:30
pm |
Trophy
Presentations at the Empress Hotel, Peterborough |
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A
GRID START WILL BE USED FOR ALL RACES
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The first change
is the schedule. Today, Fridays are an optional day and the actual
weekend covers Saturday and Sunday. As you can see from the below
schedule, in the 1960's, a club weekend was contained to the Saturday
only. This is partly due to the fact that it was illegal to race on
Sunday. This changed in the late 1960's.
The format has
changed greatly since then. Today, competitors get practice time,
qualifying and up to three races each. In 1962, it was warm-up in
the morning and races in the afternoon. The last race of the day was
the feature event and was typically open to the top finishers of the
earlier races with the winner being declared the winner of the event
ie "The
Indian Summer Trophy Races", "The Spring Trophy Races",
"The Great Lakes Trophy Races", etc.The photo of Ludwig
Heimrath at the bottom of this page is an example. The weekend was
topped off by the trophy presentations and banquet at a local hotel.
Two typical
things are missing from the schedule above: motorcycles and Novice
Races. In the 1950's and 1960's it was common to have motorcycle races
on the same weekend. This was especially true for BEMC, as they had
their start organizing motorcycle races. Novice Races were a way to
separate the new competitors from the more experienced ones. Their
performance was monitored by the marshalls and in time, were allowed
to run with the regular racers.
The schedule
from above came from the weekend's souvenir program; that's the second
thing that has changed since then. This particular program cost 25
cents,  tax
included. The programs were pretty bare in the 1950's but improved
through the 1960's. The quality of the souvenir program also depended
on the club that was organzing the event. BEMC usually put together
a very good one with photos and short articles in addition to the
schedule and driver entries. Smaller club's programs often were only
a few pages and only listed the entries and schedule.
Today there is no program, probably because the events are generally
not open to spectators. This leads us to the third item that has changed:
attendance. Each
club operated differently but most weekends were open to spectators.
The occasional weekend was closed to spectators; often this would
be a Novice weekend. Weekend attendance would be as low as a few hundred
or up to 5,000.
The clubs even advertised as shown in these two newspaper ads. The
first is from The Toronto Star in 1965. The second is from the Simcoe
Reformer in 1956.
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Ludwig
Heimrath, winner of the 1965 Indian Summer Trophy
Races
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Next time we'll
cover such topics as the various classes, clubs, organizations, etc.
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