10 - Viva Lewes

2 4
lewes speed trials
Big crowds, cutting-edge cars, and glamorous drivers
Lewes’ equestrian race track was in its heyday
one of the finest in the country, but it is less well
known that the Motor Road, on the edge of the
course, was the venue for a series of events that
were for a brief period in the 20s and 30s, just
as much an integral part of Lewes’ sporting life.
The Speed Trials, involving cutting-edge racing
cars that also competed in glamorous venues
such as Le Mans, took place at regular intervals
every summer from 1924 to 1939, with up to
2,000 fans attending meets.
With the possible unrecorded exception of
the first trial, they were usually held on the
‘uphill’ section of Motor Road or Race Hill, as
it was also known. The course ran towards the
Lewes Racecourse grandstands, behind the old
chalk pits, with the starting line close to the
A275 Nevill Road, near to what we know as
the bottom end of the Borough/Nevill firesite
marching track.
As with the Brighton Speed Trials, there was
a long association with the Kent and Sussex
Light Car Club and its associates. In common
with the Madeira Drive venue, the event was
well located, on a fairly straight piece of road,
which could also be easily closed off for racing
purposes. An added advantage was the fact
that there was a parallel track (now a footpath)
meaning that vehicles could make their way
back to the paddock without interfering with
the main racetrack.
Other idiosyncratic differences were the incline
and late weasel left hander, some way up the
road (and just past the finishing line). This
added a test of nerve to the proceedings, when
the highly tuned machines were on full song
and suddenly had to negotiate a bend, when
they were at their most vulnerable. Don’t forget,
these cars were running on cross-ply tyres,
not radials - another world, another era.
The road was also steep enough to put mechanical
pressure and strain on the car engines and
provided some great thrills for the local fans.
The races were well documented in the two
well-read national motoring magazines Motor
Sport and The Autocar, and a plentitude of
photographs have survived of the trials, many of
which have been collected in the comprehensive
record of the events, Speed on the Downs, by
Jeremy Wood (which you can order from www.
lewesspeedtrials.co.uk). They show enthusiastic
groups of behatted men, women and children
standing behind (and occasionally sitting in
front of) a single-rope fence designed to keep
them off the track.
The events took place four times a year and had
an enviable reputation amongst the more well
heeled practitioners of the back-to-front flat
cap sports car fraternity. This does not mean
however that the back-of-the-shed brigade were
excluded. In those days, more down-market
petrol-heads could get a look-in, with Austin
Sevens, and the like, competing with each
other as enthusiastically as the more up-market
marques. As with all things English everyone’s
car had its own class category.
But inevitably the event will be remembered
for its association with the legendary names
of a period in which mechanical innovation
and development were regarded as a matter of
national pride.
There were some memorable entries, wins and
visits. Fame and achievement can be timeless
and deservedly so. The dashing Dick Nash set
the pace in the early years of the meets, driving
cars with nicknames such as ‘The Terror’ and
‘The Spook’; Nash set five course records in
the 20s and early 30s. One of his biggest rivals