When was an airfield first used for racing?

I am aware of the 1930s races at Mines Field, but that was dirt road course of which there were several at that time. This one just happened to be located at an airstrip.

What was the first paved airfield circuit, i.e. a course using runways and service roads? The earliest may have been used for a 1937 strictly-stock race at Longview airport in Washington, US. Can anyone offer further details about this?

The first post-war airfield race I am aware of was the Victory GP at Caversham, Australia in April 1946. Was there anything before that?

Rukuhia in New Zealand? 1935 or thereabouts, but possibly only a grass strip at that time?

http://www.cambridgeairforce.org.nz/RNZAF%...0BOP%20area.htm

In July 1945 a one-off sprint event was held at Filton Airfield, won by Bob Gerard (ERA).

An interesting event considering the date, Hans, but not a circuit race - sorry if my question wasn't entirely clear.

Rukuhia is interesting but entirely new to me. Who knows more?

A military airport that came into service in 1935. It was merely a stopover for refuelling. Only in that year 'races' were held, obviously only to keep the pilots happy.

As Vitesse says, it was a grass field then
First used in December 1933 (as Steele's airfield), and again a year later
Rukuhia was still being used for grasstrack racing well into the 1960s. I can think of at least one F1 driver who had his first race there

Ok, presumably that still leaves the 1937 Longview race as the first 'real' airfield race... surely someone must know more about?

October 1945, not July. It was the first all-tarmac speed event held in the UK after WW2 but, as Rob pointed out, doesn't fit this particular bill.

Could Brooklands be defined as an airfield circuit?

None of the previously mentioned predated Brooklands

I had that thought, but was Brooklands an airfield before a race track?

It takes a very long stretch of the truth to suggest Brooklands as an airport venue: it's either a motor racing circuit with an airstrip attached or vice versa.

Brooklands is completely different... I'm talking about runways, service roads or taxiways of an existing airport being used for racing. This became common practice after WW2 for obvious reasons, but it surely happened pre-war as well somewhere?

The Wright Brothers did use Le Mans in 1908 ......but probably doesn't qualify

As this picture from the centenary in 2008 illustrates




PAR

Well, again a sprint, and on an airport approach road rather than runways Whitchurch, 1937.

Concrete runways were still a bit of a rarity in the 1930s, of course.

I was wondering this exact same thing yesterday. If the Second World War hadn't happened, and the 'big two' circuits on mainland Britain hadn't been requisitioned for military use, what might British motor racing have looked like in the '50s and '60s? Without a ready supply of paved facilities at places like Thruxton, Snetterton and Silverstone; and presumably without the French recourse to closing off sections of the public highways -- what would the non-Donington, non-Brooklands race driver have done? Speedway-style racing? I believe Midgets raced at Wembley for a brief period after the war...

They would have had Donington and Crystal Palace. The BARC knew Brooklands was out of date and had evolved the low cost "Campbell" and "Mountain" circuits at Brooklands.

Racing in Britain was moving towards road circuits as is shown by the Donington GPs, the opening of the Palace track and races on the IoM and Jersey. Had finance been available and a way around the noise issue found, then it is feasible that the BARC might have built a road course at Brooklands. It might even have been possible to successfully lobby Parliament to lift the ban on closing roads for racing. Had the E-Type ERA been successful when the GP formula moved to 1500cc in 1940 then the case for all these would have become stronger. As I write this I can see the pig carrying out its pre-flight checks.

... which were the shape of the future. More artificial road courses were the way forward, but where they'd have put them is another matter. At least three projects failed during the 30s and several others never even got past first base.

The Mountain Circuit had been all but abandoned by 1939 and unless the BARC gave up 10-lap handicaps Campbell circuit racing was going nowhere fast. By mid-39 Brooklands was being beaten hands down by Crystal Palace, which was attracting larger and larger crowds to better racing.

The RAC had no intention of going back to the Isle of Man - they'd lost too much money there - and I doubt races on Jersey would have happened if not for the war.

The noise issue would have been the big problem. The residents of St George's Hill would not have been amused ...

No chance. They would have argued that the legislation was already in place in Northern Ireland, so why introduce it elsewhere? But after the 1936 TT both Ards and Bangor were closed: only Ballyclare was used in 1937 and even that was abandoned in 1938 due to road improvements. AFAIK they didn't even apply for a date in 1939.

Can we please nail this one? There would not have been a wholesale change to the GP Formula in 1940, although it's my belief that there were moves to run voiturette racing on a more formal basis. The CSI specifically ruled in October 1938 that the 3.0/4.5 Formula would remain valid until December 31st 1940 and I further believe that it could (and probably would) have been extended by at least a year, more probably two.

To get back OT, I know nothing about Longview, but the following airfield race meetings were run in 1946:

Apr 07 - Caversham, Western Australia
Jun 10 - Marsden Park, NSW, Australia
Jun 16 - Gransden Lodge, England
Aug 12 - Strathpine, Qld, Australia
Nov 11 - Seagrove, New Zealand
Nov 24 - Strathpine, Qld, Australia
Nov 24 - Seagrove, New Zealand

Possibly also racing at Ratmalana airport in Ceylon (as was), though that might not have been until 1947

Long Kesh airfield in Northern Ireland was used for a motorcycle race meeting in May 1945, as part of the VE Day celebrations. Two more motorcycle race meetings were held in the November of that year, but by then the Filton Sprint had been held on 28 October 45.

Vitesse 2 - that's why I said I could se the pigs getting ready to fly! Apart from Donington and the Palace, the rest sounded highly implausible.

But the real question for discussion here is whether anyone raced at an airfield prewar.

Thanks Fuzzi - that's one I had overlooked! - and David for the interesting list of 1946 airfield races. Perhaps one addition for that year: the airfield race in Maldegem, Belgium on 6 October, albeit only for motorcycles.

Not sealed, but most (as has been identified) weren't...

Penrith Speedway was built on the site of an airfield. No doubt aircraft still used the facility at the time racing was conducted... from 1924 IIRC.

Sorry, I don't regard motorcycling as "motor racing"

Arrgghh...*bites tongue* Better let's not go there

Maybe we should put it this way...

'Motor Cycle Racing' has a separate sub-forum since people tried to introduce the subject to TNF.

Going through Allan Brown's book again, I noticed the 1937 Longview race is listed twice, once in the Texas chapter and again in that for Washington. Both places have a nearby airport.

We are once again stuck on definitions. An airfield would suggest a grass strip, An aerodrome may well indicate a surfaced runway.

Mind you there were regular flights from Southport beach where they also raced!

How about Littorio ?

Hmmm ... yes! But IIRC Littorio was specifically designed as a joint aviation/motor sport facility (not many airfields incorporate banking!) OTOH, I think they did race on the runways ...

The Caversham circuit is still completly intact and drivable,the straight is mostly unsealed but the D section althoug bumpy the surface
is reasonable.It has been used in recent years for the Caversham Festival.

Most prewar airfields were dirt, not paved.

I believe that the land used for the Roosevelt Raceway on Long Island in NY was part of a larger parcel of land made up of two airfields. Since the previous airfield was one big runway anyway, I could argue that the tracks used in the 36 and 37 Vanderbilt Cups were "airport courses"

The "Brooklands" circuit in Western Australia, which lasted just two meetings in 1932, was built around the West Subiaco Areodrome, a grass strip - or probably paddock - used by one or two small-plane joy-flight outfits, about all we had in the state in that era. I guess it qualifies as a pre-war airfield circuit.