Guinness is good for you!

Sir Algernon Lee Guinness used to tell the tale of how he got fed up with Pierre de Vizcaya in his Bugatti passing his rivals on every lap of a race in full view of the spectators in the grandstands and decided to surprise the French driver, by keeping his own car going flat-out past the stands and then instead of slowing for the corner at the end of the straight, going up the escape road. Doing this when Vizcaya was close behind him, Algy had the pleasure of seeing the Bugatti running out of road and going over a hedge. 

I decided to try to check on this piece of amusement. Could the occasion have been the 1922 TT, when Algy drove a Darracq and Vizcaya a Bugatti in the 1,500 c.c. class? No, because although there were times when Guinness and Vizcaya ran in close company in this contest, run in rain, and the Crossley-Bugatti driver was delayed after hitting a wall, there is no report in my records of Guinness taking to an escape-road in that race which he won so convincingly for Talbot-Darracq. It could not have been in a French Grand Prix, because Sir Algernon did not drive in those races, although both his brother Kenelm and Vizcaya did. So can any student of motor-racing history enlighten us? 

Another story told by Sir Algernon was of how he and his brother altered the signs the German drivers had put on trees before the corners, in readiness for a pre-WWI Kaiserpries GP. If they moved them forward a dangerous situation could have arisen, but I suppose moving your rivals’ braking-points back from a corner could do no harm to them, and much good to oneself! — W.B.