Grass Track Racing in France late 1950's

[Kwaussie]

Fun stuff once you work out how to use the site!
http://www.christian-claude.com/grasstrack_auto.html

[Steve Holmes]

Great stuff! I'm currently learning French, so this combines two of my passions.

[John McKechnie]

Sacre Bleu... looks like a car chase from a Tintin book............allez soixante neuf

[Kwaussie]

Great stuff! I'm currently learning French, so this combines two of my passions.
We have a great time in France every summer - our first day was so funny with me entering into pc about a train journey we wanted to go on. I printed it out and passed it on to the girl at the local Gare, she took it all in and printed out the tickets, took euros and then said in perfect NZud make sure you are here 10 minutes before departure - turned out she was from a farm just north of Geraldine in the south island.

[stubuchanan]

Fun stuff once you work out how to use the site!
http://www.christian-claude.com/grasstrack_auto.html

What a fascinating collection. I'm most surprised to find that the French went in for grass-track racing, even in the south where things can be a bit different. The site is mostly about events in Angouleme, a town about 100 km N of Bordeaux, and there is a lot more motor racing content.

Angouleme was a street race circuit, where races were held from late 1930's to 1955, and was typical of French and Belgian and Italian minor races of the period, for sports cars, Formula 2, 500cc Formula 3 or whatever else a field could be made up from.

If you click on "Accueil" on the site("Home"), you find 2 albums of "Circuit des Remparts" race pictures in colour and B&W (N&B in French) on a circuit which is small, even by NZ standards, at 1.289 km or 0.8 miles per lap. Fangio won the F2 race in 1950 and his fastest lap(of the 130) worked out at 45.1 mph - the lap includes a 3-hairpin zigzag leading from the lowest point to the top of the ramparts and cathedral. In recent years it has become the venue for an annual Classic Racing car event and would be well worth a visit .

My (unsuspecting) wife and I walked up the hairpins while doing the big "OE" in 1970 - bollards stopped up driving up.

Stu

[Steve Holmes]

Its a truly impressive collection the Angouleme colour shots. We will be staying in Limoges when we are there in a few months, which is not far from Angouleme.

[Oldfart]

The historic Angouleme seems to be one of the "jewels in the crown" for UK old car guys to attend. Usually mid September.