Le Grand Prix de Brum

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Sir,

Picture the scene: early one Thursday morning in July. The sound of Grand Prix racing cars being warmed ready for practice. D.S.J. arrives just as the public roads are being closed. A car, difficult to see in the early morning mist, “burbles” away from the paddock up to the Station hairpin and out of sight, its V12 scream ricocheting off the walls.

No, not Monte Carlo—Birmingham!

It is perhaps wishful thinking to imagine a “round-the-offices” race in this country, but it is refreshing to see that racing cars, including the 1962 World Championship BRM F1, are to he driven round our city’s streets, untaxed, etc. The Chief Constable has agreed to this, which is part of the Birmingham Motoring Festival.

I think that this attitude is commendable (although the precedent was set in London in 1964), especially after the reams of adverse comment about our “Goons in Blue’! Come on the rest of the country, take Birmingham’s lead, and we may yet have that GP in Hyde Park!

A. J. M. WILKINS – Solihull, Warwickshire