38 replies to this topic

[john aston]

A year or so ago I remember choking on my coffee when I read a piece by Rebecca Clancy , The Times F1 reporter , that if the Japanese Grand Prix were run on a Saturday , to avoid a typhoon , it would be unprecedented . Which made me wonder what all the noise was at the many Saturdays I was at Brands and Silverstone in the 70s and early 80s-  the last Saturday British GP was actually in 1983... 

 

Anyway , I was browsing through a 1966 Autocar with my breakfast , which some might see as eccentric but is fairly normal here . There was a note in The Sport section , written by Peter Garnier, that Silverstone was holding its first ever Sunday meeting on 24 July , featuring an F 3 race with entries from Messrs Bell, Courage , Oliver, Nunn , Hart , Widdows, Irwin et al. 

 

 

Any recollections ? Was it commemorated in any way and how had it been made possible? Was it just a convention , the done thing not to race on the Sabbath ?  I remember the soul destroying boredom of being a 13 year old on a Sixties' Sunday , and I'm sure the crowd had leaped at the  chance to do something , at last , on a Sunday . 

 

 

PS The past is  foreign country , episode 227  - back in 1966 , Autocar, like Motor Sport , had the convention that its page numeration  started , not at page 1 of the magazine , but at page 1 in the first edition of the year . So Peter Garnier's piece is on page 219. But ... the previous page , an ad for Girling , is page 14. Why ? Because the ad pages were numbered by issue . With bureaucracy like that, it's no wonder we lost an empire 

[Bloggsworth]

Religious - Owen, thr major sponser of BRM, was a lay preacher and would not allow them race on a Sunday in the UK, hence the traditional Sunday F1 match cricket.

[Alan Baker]

I believe that in the UK it was actually a legal thing regarding Sundays. It was illegal to sell tickets to certain events on a Sunday, the only way around that was to specify entry by programme. In the fifties and sixties nothing much happened on a Sunday, In some places (especially Scotland) cinemas were not allowed to open, while West End  theatres still do not generally open on Sundays.

[Stephen W]

The Sunday Observance act of 1677 laid down the law with respect to what could and couldn't take part on a Sunday including the "transaction of business". in 1835 the Sunday Observance Bill clarified "the use of any building or room for public entertainment or debate on a Sunday. An Act for preventing certain Abuses and Profanations on the Lord's Day called Sunday." The Lord's Day Observance Society, which was founded in 1831, was exceptionally influential in maintaining the traditions of no business on a Sunday.

[Derwent Motorsport]

As a kid I remember Sunday's being boring and we were not a religious family. I don't think I was allowed to play out of the garden for example.   When we did go to races on a Sunday I am sure admission was by car parking charges rather than ticket per person. 

[Roryswood]

Racing in Ireland was always on a Saturday , change came in 1967 when IMRC , ran the Phoenix Park on Sat/Sun , hillclimbs were run on Saturday and Sundays , the opening of Mondello in 1968 saw a proliferation of race meetings some on Saturdays , but Saturday meetings faded after a year or 2 , Northern Ireland still trun race meetings ( Kirkistown) Saturdays only , Bishopscourt has run Saturday/ Sunday race meeting for a number of years , sprinting runs on Saturdays and Sundays

[Allan Lupton]

Until at least the late 1960s the schedule for Grands Prix was to practice on Thursday, practice for grid position (qualifying as they now call it) on Friday and race on Saturday.

 

When the British GP was at Silverstone, we would take Friday off as a day's hols to watch final practice and if the cars and practice times looked interesting, we'd buy a Race Day ticket as we left and come back on Saturday for the race.

Edited by Allan Lupton, 17 October 2023 - 09:11.

[Tim Murray]

These earlier threads may be of interest:

British GP race days: from Saturdays to Sundays …

Motor racing on Sundays - banned or just unusual in the past?

Grand Prix on Sundays

When did Sunday racing start?


The Autocar item must refer to just Silverstone having its first Sunday race meeting in 1966. As others have said, they’d been held regularly at other UK circuits before then, but with the restriction that admission had to be free, so any money changing hands was officially the cost of a programme or car parking.

While Sir Alfred Owen might have disapproved of Sunday racing he didn’t prevent BRM racing in Sunday events in the UK, such as the Race of Champions from 1968 onward.

[Risil]

With regards to the notion of the "unprecedented" nature of some of the options at the 2022 Japanese Grand Prix, maybe one could be very kind and say that the unprecedented thing would be to move a Grand Prix so it takes place a day earlier than scheduled? I think the FIA would probably care about that far more -- after all we've got a Saturday Grand Prix coming up next month.

[Sterzo]

My recollection (as recounted in one of the earlier threads) was that an old English law forbade charging for admission to an event on a Sunday. The Lord's Day Observance Society, who had an office in West London, either prosecuted or threatened to prosecute offenders. The law didn't allow charging for admission, but did permit charging to enter a "special enclosure." They did this at Hickstead, for example, for show jumping. Silverstone apparently interpreted it to mean they could have charged for the few seats in their rag-and-pole "grand"stands, but not for the bulk of spectators who in those days had a trackside view. Not viable, so no Sunday races.

 

In the sixties, Brands Hatch and associated circuits under the canny John Webb charged for a special enclosure which happened to cover all the places where you could see the circuit. The RAC bowed to the ancient law for the GP, but the clubbies took place on a Sunday. The "quiet hour" in the morning enabled the local church to have its service without so much as a blipped throttle in the paddock. That wasn't a matter of law, but may have been a requirement set by the local Sevenoaks council when granting planning permission; or it might have been a good-will gesture by Webb to the locals.

Edited by Sterzo, 17 October 2023 - 10:58.

[john aston]

These earlier threads may be of interest:

British GP race days: from Saturdays to Sundays …

Motor racing on Sundays - banned or just unusual in the past?

Grand Prix on Sundays

When did Sunday racing start?


The Autocar item must refer to just Silverstone having its first Sunday race meeting in 1966. As others have said, they’d been held regularly at other UK circuits before then, but with the restriction that admission had to be free, so any money changing hands was officially the cost of a programme or car parking.

While Sir Alfred Owen might have disapproved of Sunday racing he didn’t prevent BRM racing in Sunday events in the UK, such as the Race of Champions from 1968 onward.

Not so - the piece states - "The BARC Silverstone meeting on Sunday, 24 July , will be  the first Sunday meeting ever to have been held on the Northamptonshire circuit " . Italics are mine . So it was behind the curve . How unusual for Silverstone.. 

[Tim Murray]

Sorry John, that was the point I was trying to get across. Namely, that it was Silverstone’s first Sunday race meeting, but not by any means the first UK Sunday race meeting.

[john aston]

Ah , got you Tim. 

[Dick Dastardly]

I remember going to Croft for a clubbie meeting on a Sunday in May '66, aged 12....don't know what Dad actually paid for eg programme etc to get us in.

Leighton Hall Hill Climb was always on a Sunday, scheduled to be the day after Barbon on the Sat. 

And Players No 6 Autocrosses...the ones I went to....were always on Sundays...

[D-Type]

I have a suspicion that South Africa also didn't like racing on a Sunday.  When I went to check, I found many GPs were held on public holidays: Boxing Day or New Year's Day which obscures the issue but they do appear to have avoided Sundays.
In Kenya, we happily held meetings on Sundays although in colonial times we tended to be "More British than the British"

[Doug Nye]

I found my feet as Brands Hatch duty press officer at - if I remember correctly - several Sunday clubbies 1964-65.  

 

I also remember 1950s Sundays as being notable only for 'ancock's 'alf hour on the wireless, which was welcome relief after apparently interminable Two-Way Family Favourites, bearing multiple messages and dedications between British Forces Posted Overseas - remember "...calling from BFPO 95?" (select to choice) and their loved ones (bored) at home.  

 

Otherwise the only highlight was a blow-out roast-beef or chicken lunch ballasted by masses of roast potatos from the garden, peas, vast mushrooming Yorkshire puds, delicious gravy (mum was a superstar so far as that was concerned) and what might have been cabbage or string beans for 'greens' - though in our case she would - with positively religious fervour - cook them beyond all reason until they were tissue-thin and just a pale yellow-grey colour "to make sure they are healthy to eat"...  

 

Still - other families round our way reputedly had only one thing available to them. They have since claimed it was nothing but gravel.  And some even then would snort "Huh - gravel? You were lucky", etc.  

 

Yes indeed - old time Surrey/Hampshire border Sundays truly were a highlight of each week.    

 

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 17 October 2023 - 18:34.

[SamoanAttorney]

Gosh, we will be going Round the Horn next.....

 

Bona Law indeed.....

 

HORNE: Will you take my case? JULIAN: Well, it depends on what it is. We've got a criminal practice that takes up most of our time. HORNE: Yes, but apart from that, I need legal advice. SANDY: Ooh, isn't he bold?

[Rob Miller]

Sunday was truly dead on a Sunday growing up in South Africa in the Sixties. My dad was an American and neatly solved the problem by buying a speedboat. Sunday thereafter was water skiing and picnics.

[F1Frog]

Could the article have meant that it would be unprecedented for a Grand Prix to be moved to a Saturday to avoid a typhoon? And if so, would this be accurate?

[AJCee]

And Hancock’s Half Hour memorably documented the utter boredom of a British ‘Sunday afternoon at home’
https://m.youtube.co...h?v=ZID_5AZG4To

Looking it up earlier I was surprised just how late full Sunday opening for shops started (1994). Football routinely started being played on a Sunday for TV the decade before. (I used to watch it and even go to it back then).

Edit: wasn’t the German Grand Prix also routinely on a Saturday?

Edited by AJCee, 17 October 2023 - 21:17.

[john aston]

Could the article have meant that it would be unprecedented for a Grand Prix to be moved to a Saturday to avoid a typhoon? And if so, would this be accurate?

No - it was to the effect that a GP had never been held on a Saturday , ever .. God knows what Rebecca might have made of the South African GP , often held on 1 January, which - eek - was a Friday in 1965.  

[DogEarred]

Sunday was truly dead on a Sunday growing up in South Africa in the Sixties. My dad was an American and neatly solved the problem by buying a speedboat. Sunday thereafter was water skiing and picnics.

Am I correct in saying that in the mid seventies, in S.A., the shops and pubs were closed from 2pm Saturday until Monday?

I remember getting rat&rsed at Saturday lunchtimes then going to sleep and waking up at 10pm.
Nothing to do! Boring, boring…

[ensign14]

And Hancock’s Half Hour memorably documented the utter boredom of a British ‘Sunday afternoon at home’
https://m.youtube.co...h?v=ZID_5AZG4To
 

The TV episode The Bedsitter was the first, and for nearly half-a-century the only, British sitcom episode which featured only one actor.

[opplock]

Am I correct in saying that in the mid seventies, in S.A., the shops and pubs were closed from 2pm Saturday until Monday?
 

 

In New Zealand the shops closed at 8 or 9 pm on Friday and stayed closed until Monday. Pubs were closed on Sunday unless you lived in a rural area and knew the secret knock. Until the mid 60s pubs shut at 6pm. 

 

Four Yorkshiremen - amateurs.

 

From memory Brands Hatch used to advertise Special Trackside Enclosures in order to bypass Sunday trading laws. You had to pay to get into the circuit but could spend all day in the car parks free of charge. 

[Derwent Motorsport]

Strangely in Scotland Sunday trading laws were much more relaxed than in England.  I am also sure the races and speed events north of the Border I went to as a child were on Sunday.

 

At Croft they are still strict on !Quiet" Sundays.  Even this century I was ticked off for starting the engine to get the car off the trailer. 

[nca]

Strangely in Scotland Sunday trading laws were much more relaxed than in England.  I am also sure the races and speed events north of the Border I went to as a child were on Sunday.

 

At Croft they are still strict on !Quiet" Sundays.  Even this century I was ticked off for starting the engine to get the car off the trailer. 

 

In the 'fifties all the public houses in Scotland, were closed, but hotels were allowed to serve drinks to 'bona fide' travellers.

The Scottish drinking fraternity rose to the challenge! Coaches were hired to allow the thirsty to travel legally, and therefore to partake of alcoholic refreshment. 

At that time my pal and I were regular cycle tourers & racers in time trials.  Returning from the Loch Lomond area one Sunday, Jack & I decided to exercise our legal rights and ventured into a hotel for a shandy.

We were required to sign-in, stating where we were traveling from and to. The 'sign-in book showed an imaginative attendance by various Scottish heroes. such as Wallace, Bruce and Burns.

It was claimed at the time that the number of coaches hired ran into the hundreds across Scotland in total.

The Lake District was within our weekend touring range, and we had no such tomfoolery to comply with there. I well remember enjoying the hospitality of a hotel at Pooley Bridge, one warm Sunday!

 

As I remember cafes were open, but shops in general and cinemas were definitely closed.

I used to attend motor cycle sand racing on the beach at Prestwick, and that was quite definitely a Saturday event.

 

At some time in '50- '51, a notice appeared in our local paper the Kilmarnock Standard, inviting those interested to attend a meeting on the Western Road, Kilmarnock's only dual carriageway at that time.

To show interest in the formation of a local car & motorcycle club, and participate in an initial club run.

I attended on the Sunday as a 'nosey-parker' all of 12-13 years on my trusty Hercules.

I well remember the first three vehicles to turn up; a Jaguar XK 120 open roadster, a Healey Silverstone and a Ariel Square Four. Not a bad selection for a first event, leading to the Formation of Kilmarnock Car Club.

Alas that club is long defunct, but it was initiated on a Sunday. 

 

nca

[Geoff E]

In 1975, a workmate and I spent a fortnight's camping in Scotland, playing two rounds of golf each day.

 

On our first Sunday we played at Kinghorn and travelled to nearby Kirkcaldy for our evening meal.  All seemed to be closed along the main street and the cinema had gates locked across its front.  Returning along the deserted street, we eventually found a Chinese restaurant up some stairs next to a shop.  On its door was a sign "Couples only after 7pm".  It was 7.10pm and we weren't allowed to "eat in", we bought a takeaway meal to eat in the car.

 

Without a word of a lie, the film (not) showing at the cinema was "The Land that Time Forgot"!

[nca]

In the Outer Hebrides, you will find very few premises open on a Sunday, even now.

In June this year, we set off from Tarbert in Harris to view the sands of Uig Bay and to view the area where the famous Chessmen were found.

 

The community shop at Timsgarry was closed, including it's petrol station. Fortunately we were not in need of fuel.

The Community Centre, which houses a cafe was also closed. A restaurant located very close to the beach: Closed

The Chessman area proved to be a modern replica, with very little information to hand, except to refer one to the community centre!

The beach is white shell sand, but there is much less of it than that at the famous Luskentyre, or Scarista.

 

By this time we were desparate for a coffee and scone, so we set off to the famous Standing Stones near Callanish.

These stones are probably the most visited tourist attraction of the Outer Hebrides, and there is a well stocked visitor centre complete with cafe, that we had used on a previous visit.

The Sabathh struck again. You could visit the stones, reckoned to be older than Stonehenge, but the cafe was, you have guessed it, CLOSED for the day.

 

nca

[pete53]

I  note that Oulton Park continues to predominantly run meetings on Saturdays. Is this just tradition, or is Sunday racing  disallowed for a particular reason?

[opplock]

I  note that Oulton Park continues to predominantly run meetings on Saturdays. Is this just tradition, or is Sunday racing  disallowed for a particular reason?

 

Sunday morning racing is disallowed due to noise restrictions. Circuit regulars will know more but during the 2022 BTCC meeting the first race on Sunday was scheduled to start at 12.20. On the Sunday of 2023 Gold Cup meeting the first race started at 12.05. 

[Henk Vasmel]

There has been a time when all WC Grands Prix (current, continuous series) up to then had been run on a Saturday and none on Sunday. OK, it is a bit of an extreme use of statistics and it lasted for only a week and can not be repeated easily.

[bsc]

Sunday morning racing is disallowed due to noise restrictions. Circuit regulars will know more but during the 2022 BTCC meeting the first race on Sunday was scheduled to start at 12.20. On the Sunday of 2023 Gold Cup meeting the first race started at 12.05.

Oulton can operate on four Sundays a year - with no racing before 12pm.

[MCS]

I can remember there being quite a fuss in the early to mid-seventies when the first Sunday meeting was scheduled for Oulton Park.  I can't remember which one it was (F5000 rings a bell) but I don't recall that there were many. 

 

The Club Meetings at Aintree were always on a Saturday, but there was usually fun to be had on the Tuesday evening open test sessions - they were novel, finishing at 8 o'clock unless I'm mistaken.  I have often wondered if similar testing was available anywhere else at that time.

[Emery0323]

Lime Rock Park in rural Connecticut (USA) always has its races on Saturdays or Mondays (in the case of 3-day holiday weekends).  This has affected both professional events like IMSA / ALMS sports car races, Trans-Am races, etc. as well as vintage events.

 

There is a church across the road from the track, which resulted in a long-standing local noise ordinance which forbids the starting of unmuffled racing-car engines on Sundays, which is still in effect to this day. 

 

During the track's big annual vintage event, held over the 3-day Labor Day weekend in early September, the racing cars practice on Friday and Saturday, are idle on Sunday, and then race on the Monday federal holiday (US equivalent to a bank holiday in the UK).   The Sunday is used for a large antique & classic car show on the track for street-legal cars with mufflers.

Edited by Emery0323, 19 October 2023 - 05:20.

[john aston]

So, the conclusions  I can draw are that it seems there were legal reasons preventing race meetings happening on Sundays. But then workarounds evolved as society became more secular , with race meetings taking place on Sundays , and with  some jiggery pokery with the ticketing to avoid an offence being committed. It' also clear that Silverstone was late to the party but we don't know why . And other reasons exist to prevent or restrict racing on Sundays - these are usually planning permission related (and  permissions often cover noise levels too ), or be imposed by a term of the lease of the site , or a restrictive covenant on freehold land -   and also can relate to just being good neighbours . 

 

All good stuff - Any idea of the year when the great shift started - was it , in Larkin's words (about his sex life ) 

 

In nineteen sixty three

(which was  rather late for me ) 

Between the end of the Chatterley ban 

And the Beatles' first LP  

[GazChed]

It was forty five years into Castle Combe's existence as a race circuit (1995) before racing was held on a Sunday as part of Combe's first two day meeting. Even now, most meetings are held on Saturdays or Bank Holiday Mondays except for the occasional two day meeting.

[Charlieman]

It' also clear that Silverstone was late to the party but we don't know why . 

Topography may have played a part, although this applies to other UK circuits. We think of Silverstone as flat but it is more like an inverted soup bowl, slightly higher than the surrounding area.

[GazChed]

Easter Sunday was sacrosanct at Thruxton certainly up until the eighties. The annual Formula Two International meeting saw qualifying held on the Saturday while the racing was on Easter Monday. The HSCC's Easter Revival meetings from 2013 to 2015 took place on the Saturday and Sunday with just the Sunday morning Church Break to interrupt them.

[Sterzo]

Out of curiosity I checked the current restrictions at my local circuit (Brands Hatch) and found:

 

1.1. Operating hours
1.1.1. Race vehicle movements including practice, testing, qualifying and racing may only take
place during the following hours:
Fridays, Saturdays and Bank Holidays: 09:00 to 18:30
Sundays: 10:00 to 18:30
1.1.2. No racing engines shall be started before 08.15 on Fridays, Saturdays and Bank Holidays or
before 09.15 on Sundays
1.1.3. On one designated event per year there may be an exception to the start times in 1.1.1. and
1.1.2. so that on the Sunday, race track activity may start at 09.00 and racing engines may be
started at 08.15.

 

The nearby church has Sunday services at 8 am and 10:30 am, so they must get an earful. (From the track, that is).

 

As a devout atheist, I think there are better ways to persecute Christians than to drown out their services. A "quiet hour" - or longer - was a good idea. There is the old argument that "you shouldn't move there if...", but St Edmund's church was erected in 1030 A.D., even before Derek Minter was hailed as "King of Brands" in the fifties.

 

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