Oulton Park memories

My father, happily for me, loved motor racing in those days, and took me to the Gold Cup at Oulton Park. Already my hero was Jean Behra, and there he was, in the blue Gordini. In delight I watched him lead the first couple of laps; in despair I watched him pull off, magneto broken.

There was, however, much else to see, notably S Moss, whose Maserati 250F had arrived only that morning, obliging him to start from the back. By lap four he was at the front, away into a race of his own.

I was eight, and knew it all. 'There's Moss,' I said to the kid next to me at the fence. 'There's Salvadori... Parnell...' A blue Connaught went by. 'There's Daddy,' the kid said.

In a single day, therefore, I not only fell in love for life, but also learned the beginnings of humility. The sight and sound of Grand Prix cars - particularly that red Maserati - captivated me. And it was only a month or two, my old man said, before I forgave him for being a doctor.

Memory sometimes plays you false, of course, but that first Gold Cup meeting I recall as one of those days that come only a handful of times. The weather was wonderful, and I got to see some of my gods. 'Give me Goodwood on a summer's day,' Roy Salvadori once said, 'and you can keep the rest of the world.' I feel the same about Oulton.

Being a northerner, it was my home circuit. We used also to go to Aintree, but I never developed the same affection for it. Where Oulton swooped through parkland, the Liverpool track was flat and soulless, its spectator areas too far from the action.

In comparison with today, I suppose, 'safety' was horribly primitive. I think now of the sand traps and Indy-style debris fences at Silverstone, and then consider how it was in the '50s. Crowd invasions, mercifully, were unknown even in football back then. In the Gold Cup programme there was merely a polite reminder that, 'The earth banks around this circuit have been erected as a crash barrier for your protection. It is forbidden to stand, sit or climb on them.'

The drivers took their chances. Earth banks may have protected spectators, but they were not good things to hit. And elsewhere worse awaited. That afternoon Salvadori's Maserati had its throttle stick open, and the car went into trees, which lined much of the track. It was the first racing accident I had ever seen, and it seemed impossible he could have survived. But an hour later, in the paddock, there he was, sandwich in one hand, shandy in the other. Could I have his autograph? Yes, I could. It's faded now, but legible still.

The following year was better yet: factory Maseratis for Moss and Luigi Musso, a pair of Lancia D50s, entered by Scuderia Ferrari, for Mike Hawthorn and Eugenio Castellotti, a new BRM for Peter Collins, three Vanwalls, Alfonso de Portago in his own Ferrari... for a non-championship race, the entry was sensational.

The race, too. Moss won again - as he seemed always to do at Oulton - but this time there was real pressure. Lap times were four seconds quicker than the year before, and I became aware, for the first time, of the delicious spectacle of a racing car in a drift. Stirling seemed to do a minimum of his steering with the wheel.

Musso, too, although without Moss's certainty of touch. It would have been a Maserati one-two, but the Italian pulled off in front of us, with five laps to go. He behaved as heroes were expected to behave, kicked the car's rear wheel, then walked to the fence, asked if anyone had a cigarette.

After 54 laps Stirling took the flag, and waved to the crowds through Old Hall. At the exit, he floored it, and out stepped the tail of the 250F. A flick of the wheel, and the car was straight again. Through the whole manoeuvre, his left arm remained raised in salute. Worth a guinea a box, memories like that.

Moss, as I say, was unbeatable at Oulton. Wherever else his lousy luck pursued him, it seemed to give him a break when he came here, but if any other driver comes instantly to my mind at the mention of the gorgeous Cheshire circuit, it is Archie Scott-Brown, who twice won the British Empire Trophy there. In 1957 a Lister-Jaguar was a fearsome thing, and how Archie, with his withered arm, whirled that car around as he did, no one quite understood. He seemed like a magician to me.

Through the '50s and '60s, I never missed a major race at Oulton Park. Some years there were two Fl races there, one in April, the other in September, and the images are unforgettable - Stewart twitching the BRM H16 up Clay Hill, Amon's oversteering Ferrari at Old Hall, the Surtees Honda bellowing painfully down towards Cascades, Clark elegantly outbraking into Lodge.

I remember, too, when Jochen Rindt won the second part of the Gold Cup in 1970; how he immediately brought the Lotus 72 to a halt at Old Hall, hopped out of the car and straight into a waiting helicopter. It was the first stage of a journey back to Austria, for a guest appearance at a hillclimb the following day. As we watched him walk from the car, removing his helmet, we were watching the end of his last race.

By this time, Oulton Park's great days were essentially done, although Pedro Rodriguez memorably flung his BRM to victory on Good Friday in 1971, and the following year Niki Lauda gave notice of intent with a brilliant wet weather display in the spring Formula 2 meeting.

That September Lauda placed second to March team mate Ronnie Peterson in the Gold Cup, but by now, under the ownership of Motor Circuit Developments, Oulton was changing for the worse, with the emphasis on such as Formula 5000. Bacon sandwiches were giving way to cheap hamburgers.

I have been back only once in the last 20 years. One Wednesday in June of 1975 Chris Amon drove me round in the glorious Ferrari 33OP4, steering on the throttle as ever. It was the perfect way to take my leave of a place where all my memories are fine ones, all my gods intact.