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The 1928 Ulster TT at Ards
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The following article first
appeared in "The Automobile," a magazine for classic car enthusiasts. Click on the magazine cover to view a larger image, and subscription details. © 2003 The Automobile, and Ian Andrews. This article may not be reproduced or distributed without permission.
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(The Automobile, June 2003) The commemoration of the Ards TT series this summer will be arguably the motor sporting event of the year in the British Isles. Ian Andrews, who owns the Le Mans Bentley in which Humphrey Cook took part, sets the scene. |
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The Ards TT races took place between 1928 and 1936. But the first Tourist Trophy race in the British Isles was held much earlier. It was run in the Isle of Man on 14th September, 1905. The RAC wanted to sponsor an event which would foster the development of the ‘touring vehicle’. That first race was won by J S Napier, driving an 18hp Arrol-Johnston, at an average speed of 33.9mph.
The TT was run on similar lines during 1906 and 1907. But in the following year, again on the Isle of Man, the regulations were changed dramatically. The field was limited to cars with an RAC rating not exceeding 25.6hp, a minimum laden weight of 1600lb and an engine dimension regulation which gave rise to the event’s being nicknamed The Four-Inch Race.
The TT was not to run again until 1914, once again on the Isle of Man and, as in 1908, over the Mountain Course. It was won by Kenelm ‘Bill’ Lee Guinness, of the Irish brewing dynasty, driving a Sunbeam. His brother Algernon also raced in another Sunbeam. This race is of particular importance to Bentley, as it saw W O and his brother H M making up the DFP team.
W O wrote, “We had brought two cars with us on which we had lavished hours of preparation, one for practice and the other for me to drive in the race... we lapped at around 47mph, while the two Guinness Sunbeams went around about eight miles an hour faster...There was neither prize nor cup for DFP, but for all the column inches of free publicity and photographs, we might almost have been first. We issued a new catalogue and even got our Tourist Trophy model on the market in that short time; but that was as far as we could go before the curtain came down.”
After the Great War only one more race was held on the Isle of Man prior to the inception of the Ards TTs. This was in 1922. By now the DFP business had been sold and W O had set up Bentley Motors in 1919.As he wrote, “The same reasoning that led us to enter the little DFP for the 1914 TT race decided us now to put in a full team for the 1922 Isle of Man event.”
In 1914 W O had stolen much of the Sunbeams’ thunder by taking on the larger and more powerful machines and finishing against the odds. The strategy would be similar this time. The aim was to finish as a team. In fact, the Bentleys were the only genuine touring cars that participated. The team consisted of WO, Clement and Hawkes, with Pennell, Browning and Saunders as mechanics. Chassagne secured another Sunbeam victory. Clement finished second and Hawkes fifth, giving Bentley the team prize. W O regarded the TT as “An introductory— an experimental race... and the results were very pleasing.”
On the homeward voyage from Douglas to Liverpool, W O met Bertie Kensington-Moir. Having been entertained by his new acquaintance and been extremely impressed by him during the passage, W O asked him to join the Bentley Team. To this Bertie replied “I think that would be a very good idea!”
It was not until 1928 that the TT was run again, this time at Newtownards. Its revival was largely due to two men: Wallace McLeod, the motoring correspondent of the Belfast Newsletter, and Harry Ferguson, the plough and tractor pioneer, who was at the time chairman of the Ulster Automobile Club. Ferguson had worked tirelessly since 1922 to bring the TT to Ulster.
While the RAC had revived the Tourist Trophy in 1922, the motoring organisation had elected to accept three-litre racing cars only. In consequence, only eight cars started the race. The Motor Vehicles (Races) Act, which the Ulster government had perspicaciously passed in the same year, allowed public roads to be closed for racing purposes, putting the province on the same footing as the Isle of Man.
Ferguson searched the countryside surrounding Belfast for suitable venues. Potential sites were assessed by a number of racing drivers. Having decided upon Newtownards, Ferguson approached Captain Philips, Competitions Manager at the RAC, and enquired what the prospects of holding a race meeting in Northern Ireland would be. The response was encouraging, and the Ulster authorities were approached.
The original proposal was that the race would mirror the Le Mans 24 hours event. This was vetoed. Instead, it would be open only to cars that were available to the motoring public. They would run with full touring equipment. The lessons of 1922 had been learned: the race was to be open to any size of engine and arranged on a handicap basis.
The system of handicapping was to cause much consternation, especially amongst the larger team cars. Bentley and Mercedes officially withdrew, the latter objecting to the number of spare wheels that had to be carried. Birkin remarked that it was “Unfair to arrange handicaps that exclude a particular firm from so much as a glimpse of victory.”
Despite their misgivings, both Birkin and Humphrey Cook entered their Bentleys privately. The TT, Birkin wrote, “Aroused great excitement in the neighbourhood, and interest elsewhere... (it was) the first great British event since the Isle of Man TT in 1922. The most distinguished foreign drivers announced their intention of competing, seven nations were to be represented, and at last the old Empire was pulling itself together. Of course it was a pity one had to go to Ireland to see Englishmen driving English cars, but those were the laws... So over the Irish Channel everyone went, most of them rather sick on the way, and arrived to find Ulster en fête.”
“A great procession of buses and cars fought their way out of Belfast,” wrote Richard Hough in his book Tourist Trophy. “Spectators were estimated to be between a quarter and half a million. Loudspeakers were pouring out bright music, kites and aeroplanes were floating about the sky... Never had County Down known such excitement.” The Belfast Telegraph reported “The display of all sorts of banners, bannerettes and gaudily coloured signs of every description was something to wonder at. It made the whole course... like a giant rainbow... Never before has a sporting event attracted to Ulster such a vast concourse of visitors from far and near. From almost every port of the world they came in their thousands. A transatlantic liner had to be pressed into service to convey visitors to Belfast.”
The course itself, described by Birkin as shaped “like a kite,” had three principal corners, named after their respective villages, Newtownards, Comber and Dundonald, the last named with its famous hairpin. A lap of the course measured 13 2⁄3 miles. Sammy Davis remarked “The Ards course is fascinating. There is almost every sort of curve a man could devise and each one needs just a little difference of approach.” Earl Howe was equally complimentary, describing it as the “Most famous of all the circuits... Ards is a real, genuine road circuit, better than any of those on the Continent.”
All 44 cars were to start together, with the smallest ones deemed to have already completed five laps of the circuit, whereas the Mercedes, Stutz and Bentleys had to cover the full 30 laps, a distance of 410 miles. As the handicapping was based on engine capacity, cars had to have their bonnets painted in accordance with their class.
The cars and teams were as varied as the course itself, ranging from Thistlethwayte’s seven-litre Mercedes to the 750cc Austin of Barnes. Other competitors included Viscount Curzon (later Lord Howe) alongside Malcolm Campbell, both in very impressive blue Bugattis, and Dick Watney with his vast straight-eight Stutz. Indeed, it was the Black Hawk Stutz, driven by Brisson, that had given Barnato so much competition at Le Mans earlier in the year.
Then, driving Lagondas, there were Baron d’Erlanger, who became a member of the all conquering Bentley Le Mans team of 1929, and Eddie Hall. Sammy Davis, Clive Gallop and Staniland were with the Riley team. Kaye Don, George Eyston and Newsome raced Lea-Francis cars. Callingham, Taylor and Mason drove for Austro-Daimler.
Many of these drivers were household names and they would be continuing their Brooklands duels and encounters on the roads of Ulster. But the darling of the crowd, Birkin wrote, was Scrap Thistlethwayte, “Whose good looks and possibly the attraction of being described as a millionaire made him the victim of the ladies. He was so often besieged by the much advertised and charming Belfast girls that it was as though a newspaper had hired them for the purpose. On the bonnet of his white Mercedes was a silk stocking which went round the course at the lap record at 72mph.”
The Argentinian, Vasena, who was down to drive a works Tracta, boarded the wrong boat at Liverpool and ended up on the Isle of Man. When he finally arrived late at Ards, the officials apparently waived the practice rules and he was allowed to compete after all.
Practice for the race, both official and unofficial, was equally colourful. Strachan, driving a Gwynne, met a horse drawn cart and several cyclists, which forced him into evasive action and into a ditch. Cook bounced his Bentley off a cottage wall. Viscount Curzon proved to be the fastest in practice at 64mph, followed by Birkin at 63mph.
WO later described the TTs at Ards as “riotous affairs”, with “Anything up to 60 cars and a quarter of a million excitable Irish spectators ranged along the banks and in the most hair-raising positions.”
The start of the race was equally chaotic. Davis described it as “pandemonium”. “The air seemed full of figures rushing about, of hoods being snapped up, of crews clambering into cars and the roar of started engines.” To prove that entries were genuine ‘touring cars’, the first two laps had to be completed with hoods erected. A Le Mans style start saw both drivers and mechanics run across the road, erect the hoods, complete the mandatory two laps, then pull into the pits again to lower them before proceeding. Davis recalled, “Cars were allover the road, some people were getting by on the grass, some seemed to be on the pavement, and some, hemmed in, were cursing the drivers ahead good and proper.”
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W H Cook’s Bentley, YW 5758, number 54,was the first car away from the start. It is now owned by the author. | |
The Bentley of Humphrey Cook, followed by
Birkin, stormed into the lead and took the field through Quarry corner.
Campbell, on lap two, followed closely by Birkin, who was on his third lap,
slowed to enter the pits to lower the hood on the indomitable Bugatti.
Birkin noted that, as he swung out to overtake, he could see small flames
shooting from beneath the Bugatti’s petrol tank. Campbell and his mechanic,
having now stopped to lower their hood, had jumped out of their car, unaware
of the impending danger.
Moments later the entire car was enveloped inflames. Clouds of black smoke
covered the road. The use of several water based extinguishers only made
matters worse. Birkin noted, “As I rushed by, the smoke blew into
my eyes and I could see nothing, but had a vague idea that people were on
the course and very near me. I went straight by, missing some, so I heard
later, by inches.” When Birkin came round again the car had been reduced
to ashes, with Campbell a dejected onlooker: the Bugatti, worth over £1000,
was not insured.
For the rest of the field, the campaign had become both competitive and
compelling. Birkin’s progress was hindered by a broken oil pipe while Watney
and his giant Stutz had come to grief at Ballystockart. Similarly Gallop,
leading at 15 laps, exchanged views with a telegraph pole, which was chopped
in two, leaving the car standing on its nose.
Adding to the excitement, local rain storms were now making driving
extremely hazardous. Davis commented, “As soon as one car led,
trouble overtook it.” Urquhart-Dykes skidded terribly on Mill Hill in
his Alvis, lost control and overturned. Viscount Curzon, then in second
place, developed a fuel tank leak in his Bugatti and, given Campbell’s
experience, saw retirement as the only option. “Thistlethwayte,”
wrote Hough, “So elegant, so dashing and so popular with the crowd, had
handed over to Kindall, who promptly put the white giant in the ditch.”
Kensington-Moir’s meticulously prepared Lagondas fell one by one, with
d’Erlanger breaking rocker pins as monkeys break nuts, apparently always the
same one.
By mid-afternoon, some 130 miles from the finish, Kaye Don with his LeaF
grasped the lead. The race was between Don and Cushman’s Alvis. Both
cars had handicaps of three laps. On lap 26 Cushman had narrowed the gap and
was only 10 seconds behind Don and closing. The crowd, gripped with
excitement, roared Cushman on. The assembled masses were enthralled. Cushman
skidded and lost a further 25sec. The crowd fell silent. Despite his best
efforts the gap, albeit further reduced in the closing laps, was too great.
The Alvis was beaten.
As the chequered flag broke out over the finishline, Kaye Don finished the
inaugural Newtownards TT in the lead at 64.06mph to rapturous applause. The
courageous light green Alvis of Cushman followed 13sec behind at an average
speed of 64.02mph. Third place belonged to Mason with his Austro-Daimler,
averaging 64.65mph. Tim Birkin, with the highest average of 65.76mph, was
fifth. Humphrey Cook finished in seventh place, averaging 64.77mph.
The Ards TT of 1928 had been a great success. Soon after the flag fell,
rumour was rife that the race would be repeated the following year. Indeed,
despite W O’s concerns about the handicap formula, the TT races at Ards
proved to be truly important events for Bentley Motors and their
antecedents. Many of their illustrious drivers raced there and much valuable
experience was gained. Furthermore, to the astonishment of some,
particularly Kensington-Moir, W O himself entered as Birkin’s mechanic in
1929 in one of Tim’s first supercharged Bentleys.
The TT races held at Newtownards were set to achieve their longest unbroken
run until the tragedy of 1936. Local driver Jack Chambers, driving a Riley,
lost control entering Newtownards. The accident claimed the lives of eight
spectators and injured scores of others. The Ards TTs had run their course.
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Top: Thistlethwayte’s
seven-litre Mercedes (number 57) leads the Le Mans type start line-up.
Dick Watney’s straight-eight Stutz, number 56, follows.
Below: Humphrey Cook’s Bentley was to finish seventh. |
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Special thanks to both the Ulster Folk and
Transport Museum and the UVCC for their help in producing this article.
Acknowledgments also to the following published sources: My Life and My
Cars, W O Bentley (Hutchinson, 1967); Full Throttle, Sir Henry ‘Tim’ Birkin
(G T Foulis and Co Ltd, 1932); A Racing Motorist, S C H Davis (Iliffe and
Sons Ltd, 1949).