Half a century ago, Speed Week in the Bahamas was one of the most popular race meets on motor racing’s international calendar. Many of the sport’s top names looked forward to each December’s “working vacation” in the Caribbean as the runways of Nassau’s Oakes Field were transformed into a venue for races organized by Sherman “Red” Crise with the assistance of local luminaries Sir Sydney Oakes and Robert Hallam Symonette. First run in 1954, the event attracted entries from all over the world with the prospect of a racing holiday in the then British colony. Sadly, a combination of circumstances, not least of which being Sir Sydney’s death in a 1966 road accident, meant that it all came to an end after the 1966 running.
Following several previously unsuccessful attempts to restore the event, David McLaughlin of Formula One Race Car Entrants (FORCE) was contacted about doing a proper revival. “Through a friend in England,” explains McLaughlin, “I was approached two years ago by a group of the local car enthusiasts with the idea of bringing vintage Formula One cars through my FORCE organization, which is what I do in Europe. I pretty well immediately realized that that wouldn’t be practical and possible, and came back to them and said, ‘Look, you have a heritage, why do you want to do something different?’ So I diverted them into what we have here, and for about six months we bantered backwards and forwards as to the practicalities, and about 18 months ago it started to get serious.”
“What we have here” turned out to be a very low-key outing, a toe in the aquamarine Bahamian waters as it were, featuring a police-escorted Island Tour that led to a concours (above) at exclusive Lyford Cay on Thursday, then a hillclimb up to historic Fort Charlotte on Saturday and finally a Sunday filled with time trials, or “sprinting,” on a temporary 1.1-mile beachfront circuit at Arawak Cay.
None of it would have been possible without the enthusiastic backing of the local government, particularly Tourism Minister Vincent Vanderpool-Wallace (with Sir Stirling Moss in photo at right). McLaughlin describes the meeting when he realized he needn’t worry about that support, “about 12 of us were sitting around the Ministerial table making a very formal presentation. I was giving my pitch and explaining what it was. We all dutifully had our phones turned to silent, as you should, and then the Minister’s phone rang. He was the only one who hadn’t turned it to silence. It went Waaaow! Waaaow! Waaaow! He had Formula One Ferrari sounds as the call on his phone! The guy was dead in the water. We didn’t have to tell him any more. He’s been hugely supportive, as has everyone else, and we’ve been told that this is the best occasion that all the various departments have pulled together in the Bahamas.”
Once the deal was done, McLaughlin & Co. set about the complex logistical exercise of lining up further sponsors and organizing the Revival, all with an eye toward making it a lasting event. Invitations for cars and drivers were sent out, Sir Stirling Moss agreed to serve as the event’s Patron and the track marshals who handle Goodwood were lined up. Noted circuit designer Alan Wilson was also on hand, searching for a permanent site on which an annual temporary event could be staged as a way to turn the Revival into an actual vintage race meeting going forward.
The 2011 event on the first weekend of December was, however, a bit different, a bit lower key, even for the islands. Moss, winner of the Nassau Trophy in 1956 and ’57, and the Governor’s Cup in 1959, was the biggest name on the entry list, even though he retired from competitive driving last summer. Five-time Le Mans winner Derek Bell also joined in the fun as McLaughlin’s group began filling out the entry.
“We targeted 60 cars,” adds McLaughlin, “that was the number we wanted to achieve, and we’ve probably got about 40. A lot of people have said they’ll come next year, and I think they probably will, because here we are sitting beside the Caribbean in this nice Paddock Club tent; what’s bad about it?”
A couple of other drivers from Speed Week history turned up as well. Bouncing back from last year’s nasty road accident was the venerable Toly Arutunoff, who first raced at Nassau in 1963, and who described this year’s event as, “just wonderful, I hope it can continue.” His Bristol 407 Zagato’s Chrysler Hemi engine was not running quite right, however, and he found himself fiddling with its timing between runs.
Not driving, but enjoying the festivities, was former local Patsy Kenedy, who first raced at Nassau in 1961 as an 18-year-old driving a Jaguar. She later wheeled a Porsche 356B and a couple of Formula Vees, registering a string of top-five results between ’61 and ’66. “I think it’s great,” she offered about the Revival. “I’m so happy that they’ve ironed out the problems of getting people here and cars here. The logistics of it all are astronomical, and it was in the heyday also. Those cars, which were valued at X, are now, you know, 15 times X, and trying to bring them in through the Customs, and then handling them without damaging them is crucial. This is a slow time of the year for the Bahamas, which is why Speed Week ended up being the end of the year for the racing world, and it was a big party.”
In addition to the three drivers who raced back in the day, one of the cars boasted a victorious Nassau history of its own, as Monaco-domiciled Irishman Ean Pugh brought his Lotus 15 (above), the very same car Mike Taylor drove to victory in the five-lap Governor’s Trophy preliminary contest in 1959.
A good crowd turned out to see Sunday’s main event, and no one seemed to mind the absence of wheel-to-wheel competition, all quite entertained by the fast cars blasting by alongside the beach at Arawak Cay. If all goes to plan, the 2012 event should be something to behold as the Revival gets truly under way.
