More memories of Aintree

I read with interest Ralph's article about the British GP at Aintree.

As many of us would have watched the Grand National the other weekend not many would have realized as the Vet, medical and camera cars were following the horses along a road parallel to the race track into Becher's Brook, that this piece of tarmac was once the long straight in the British GP!

In 1980 I raced at Aintree not on a horse but in a racing car, a Merlyn MK 11 FF1600. As you approached Becher's Brook from an anti clockwise direction you rounded a 180 degree wide radius hairpin, there was no run off areas or crash barriers, just a very big hedge.

I spun off here and worried in the instant of the rotation not for my safety but going down in history as the person who trashed Becher's Brook. My worries were short lived but my nemesis was a pile of rubble in some long grass on the exit of the last corner, I spun again onto what I thought was a lush meadow only to hit the bricks and damage the front of the car – a car that was to be displayed at the Church Minshull Fete the following weekend.

It's amazing what a little fiberglass and paint can do!

A picture of the repaired car with the Mayor of Crewe is out their somewhere still...

Thanks Ralph for a trip down memory lane.

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