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Hereford Speed Trials - Steve kay - 14-02-2019
What I did today was to recce the Hereford Speed Trials in the Ruby. Speed events, hillclimbs and sprints, had become very popular post WW1, there were nearly forty in 1924, most of which were on public roads. Security and crowd safety had made police, local authorities and organisers increasingly anxious, and when early in 1925 there was a minor accident at the Kop hillclimb, it was decided that it was time to stop such events on public roads. By the time meetings in London of ACU and RAC had confirmed this, it was so close to the planned Hereford Speed Trials planned for 4th April that the organisers felt it was impossible to tell competitors, stewards and marshals of the cancellation. Hurried meetings with the police, the Mayor and the Watch Committee led to local permission being granted to ignore the national cancellation and proceed with the event.
To celebrate this an wholly uncompetitive gentle tour of the course of the 1925 speed trial along Whitacre Road, and the 1924 event at Rotherwas will be held on Thursday 4th April this year, to which all are invited.
Hereford Speed Trials are referred to in the narrative of Tim Nicholson's Sprint book, and in distinguished forum contributor Julian Hunt's Speed Explorer, but details require further research to find out about standing or flying starts, in which direction the event was run etc. All will be revealed to those who turn up!
The pictures show the timing line crossed for the flying start half mile. Grainy b&w picture from the local paper has a Morgan, possibly G.H. Goodall's which managed to be 2 secs faster than H.F.S. himself, who'd been victorious the previous year. The other image is of a Ruby, not even off the drawing board at Longbridge in 1925.
If you would like to know more or just want to put your name down for full final arrangements in due course please contact me; stevekaytwo@btinternet.com