Posted elsewhere.. but as 'some here' dont go there!!
MOTORSPORT MAGAZINE March 2004
Senna on a hot lap. Fangio steering with the throttle.
Belief lowering the Nordschleife's lap record, froma standing start. An awakening Chevy stock-block.
These are the motor-racing things that take your breath awav. cause your heart to skip a beat.
In contrast, distant memories of disused tracks evoke a slippers-bv-the-fire glow. True, drive Dundrod, or Montjmch. or Chimay, or Solitude, and a sense of awe does rise from the pit ot vour stomach to lodge uncomfortably in the back of your throat. True. vour mouth dries as a consequence. But that's about all. Until now.
Actually, we're not even supposed to be here. Preparatory faxes to the local tourist office had been met with an encouraging all-clear. But there is a problem when it comes to the crunch. Permission has not been granted. We cannot gain vehicular access. Not today, not manana.
We've come too far to stop just short, though. We mean no harm. We're here to pay homage. We decide to check it out in any case.
Nudging along at walking pace, determined not to create a give away plume of rust-red dust. the engine is silenced and we coast
the final few yards. \ "erv conspiratorial. We roll to a halt alongside an impressive - in size and construction - retaining wall. Imagine a northern milltown cobbled street. Flip it onto its side, through 90 degrees. Flex it into a pleasing curve. That's about what we have here.
The farm track ahead disappears into a tunnel. No Pasar, Privada, the sign says. We mean no harm. We're just curious. We don't plan to blat round on a hired holiday scooter. We will be reverential. This, we know, is a special place. How special we're about to find out.
We scramble up the wall. taking care not to dislodge anything, and peer over its edge, like snipers. My jaw drops. Not metaphorically.
Literally. We have stumbled upon the Land that Lap times Forgot. A concrete crop circle. A white elephant's footprint Majestic. Mysterious.
The most impressive piece ofmotorsport architecture. Le Corbusier at 15Omph. A Falling Water for petrolheads. To our left stands an imposing 16th century fortified farmhouse. Its retro sits well with the track's nouveau. I stand to get a better view. Oops, people. I duck down.
Mustn't compromise the mission. We need another point of access. One that affords us more cover.
The next approach ventured is much wider but strewn with boulders.
Photographer Newton minesweeps for our low-slung MR2, and we emerge behind the purpose-built stands. They could have been put up yesterday.
Brooklands has suffered the caprices of British weather; Autodromo Nacional has been faithfully preserved by solid Spanish sunshine. The buildings are boarded up and a roof has been laid over the integral seats, but it's all here- bar the wooden trimming.
Betwixt the stands and the track's edge lies a small olive grove - affording us more cover. We risk driving onto the track.
A lap is out of the question, home-made barricades of scrub, rubble and chain see to that, so we pull up on the curving start/finish straight - Sitges is kidney-shaped. Tufts of grass jut through the surface's 'zigzag' joins (to be explained later), but it is in remarkable condition otherwise, even on this section, where farm vehicles have done their worst Autodromo Nacional enjoys a 16-year technology advantage over Brooklands - 1923 compared to '07 - and its concrete is of a better consistency, is smoother,
and is beautifully edged, as a result. Deep pan rather than thin crust. This was meant to be the best, a showpiece.
Spain had big plans in the early 1920s. Part of the grandiose scheme was the construction of a modern road network. To this end, a Portland Cement factory was built close to Sitges. The track was their sampler, proof of the worth of their pre-cast sections, of the silence and comfort afforded by their aforesaid angled joints which precluded jarring caused by both wheels of an axle crossing them simultaneously.
This two-kilometre (1.242-mile) cutting-edge construction was gouged out of a rock face and moulded from 3.5 million kilograms of concrete in the space of 300 days during 1923. Two thrusting young architects, Jaume Mestres i Fossas (track) and Josep Maria Martino Arroyo (pits and grandstand), oversaw the project, and part of their brief was to build a Royal Box: King Alfonso XIII was coming to the races.
Autodromo Nacional was big news, a source of national pride for a country that had lagged behind industrial giants Britain and Germany and was determined to catch up. Sitges was meant to be a beginning. A pointer to a brighter future. It was to be a middle and an end, too. A microcosm, a litmus test of the problems and darker days to come.
Spains most ambitious motorsport programme began on october 21st, Albert Divo's Talbot 70 winning the voiturette Penya Rhin Grand Prix, held over 35 laps or the 9.2-mile Villafranca road course.
Fifth, in his first race outside Italy, was Tazio Nuvolari at the wheel of a Chiribiri 12/16. The Mantuan had a busy Iberian schedule ahead of him, for Villafranca was just for starters.
Sitges, the following weekend, was the main dish. And everything was ready. The crowd was impressive: 30,000, some ferried from the purpose-built train station to the track in purpose-built Model T-based coaches; others arriving in the
4000 cars parked on the infield-cum-aerodrome.
Early rain threatened the show, but afternoon sunshine saved the day: the first Spanish Grand Prix was go, albeit reduced to 200 laps from 300.
There were five no-shows, including the Miller of 1922 Indy 500 winner Jimmy Murphy, but the seven starters thrilled the crowd, the 'Fiat copy' Sunbeams of Divo and Dario Resta slugging it out with Louis Zborowski's Miller 122.
Resta retired after 150 laps, but his team-mate upheld Sunbeam's honour, winning by a minute after the blistering pace forced Zborowski to fit new tyres with just 10 laps to go. The Count's consolation was a 45.8sec (97.49mph) international car lap record. It would never be broken.
And Nuvolari? He raced his 500cc Borgo in the Spanish Motorcycle GP, held the same day, over two 175-lap heats. He retired, but returned the next weekend to drive his Chiribiri in the Spanish Voiturette GP. This, in turn,was held the same day as me 200-lap Spanish Cyclecar GP (1100cc) was completed; it had been abandoned after 70 laps three days earlier because of rain.
Robert Benoist led a Salmson 1 -2-3-4 in the latter event, while Divo deferred to Resta in the former, missing out on a memorable Spanish hattrick by 1 sec. And Nuvolari ? Fourth, after brake and exhaust problems.
For his efforts Divo received nothing. For beneath the track's squeakyclean modernism lay a murky problem as old as business. The project, at four million pesetas, had gone over budget. Consequently, there was no money to pay the German contractors, Tanner and Eigenheer. So they seized the gate receipts.
The drivers would have to go without.
The bad-mouthing began. Despite claims by the architect that the track would be good for 200kph (almost 25% faster than Zborowski had gone), and that its 100-metre radius, 60-degree bankings (a giddy 90 at the top.') had been designed to act as a seamless continuation of the straights, word was that the circuit was flawed. The bankings were too severe, they said,
sucking the cars in, spitting them out, while the reverse-curve approach to the north-western banking unsettled the cars. Flat-out dangerous, no less.
This much-maligned banking is certainly flat-out impressive - on foot To stand at its base, to bask in the heat reflected from its surface, to crick your neck skywards, is to be bowled over.
Brooklands' Outer Circuit, at 2.75 miles, dwarfs Sitges' lap, but its bankings are Lilliputian in comparison.
Discarded shotgun shells add to the tang of fear. It's very quiet here. And the sign did say Trivada. And a distant dog is barking.
Despite these omens, we chance a third invasion, this time from the north, an even narrower track leading us through cornfields and the only unsightly tear in the track's fabric, and onto the south-east banking. Even on its levelling exit, to go slowly at this angle causes the car, on modem radials, to sideslip.
Then it happens. We had almost got away with it.
Perhaps we'd become complacent. We never saw it coming. A white 2CV van, that is. We freeze. The driver slows, gives us a pitying look (even his barking dog has sought shade) and drives by. Our worst fears have not been confirmed, but instinctively we know we have overstayed what welcome there was.
There is a dignity about this place, and we are intruding. Taking away rather than adding. We'd sneaked on. Now we scuttled off.
The track, too, went out with a whimper. Oval contemporaries Monza (1922) and Montihery (1924) had long careers. Even the insufferably dull Miramas in southern France, venue of the farcical three-Bugatti 1926 French GP, has found an outlet as a BMW-owned test track.
Sitges, however, was immediately and roundly shunned. International racing was prohibited because of the financial irregularities, and although the Catalunyan AC and Penya Rhin ran minor races, they did so with little success. The track had lost its direction. The owners were desperate: cars raced planes, the track was run in both directions, even a share offer was attempted, all in a bid to revive interest. All failed. The Millenium Dome of its day.
Abandoned in 1925, it was bought by Bugatti racer Edgar Morawitz in the immediate fallout of the 1929 Wall Street crash and, in 1932, Sitges hosted the Spanish Motorcycling Championship. But these green shoots of recovery were chopped down by the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War in 1936. Morawitz joined the fight - against Franco.
Spain remained in the General's tight grasp until 1973, and all motorracing breath was squeezed out of Sitges. But it was too big, too well-built to be erased completely. Its idealistic fathers had created a slumbering monster that lies a skipped heartbeat away frpm an awakaning, hot laps and wide-open throttles and new lap records.
BANKING ON THE FUTURE
entrepreneurs HAD SPENT 50 YEARS TRYING to persuade the owners to sell Sitges - to no avail.
Their on-site chicken farm was too successful to give up. So why is Peter Schemer on the verge of succeeding where others have failed?
He admits the timing was right: the owner had retired, and Catalonia's attitude to its heritage has recently changed.
"They really want to protect it now," says Schomer, a Canadian of German extraction. "So when the mayor of Sant Pere de Ribes [the track doesn't actually lie on Sitges land!] phoned the farmer to say that, legally, he had to look after the track, it was clear he was in no position to do so. He was ready to sell."
Schomer wants to create a Motorsport Resort. He has one planned in Majorca,but the potential of Sitges has seen it take priority. Before you recoil, he is adamant that trie track and buildings will be faithfully restored - for historic demos, maybe racing: "Why would you want to change it?
I couldn't believe it when I first saw it. this is an amazing fantastic place
Gone Racin..BRB..
