Racing Bentley

Racing Bentley

Not sure if she’s a 3 ..41/2 or a 6 .. but she is an unsupercharged beautiful relic from a bygone age. This old lady is a familer site around the Ards Penninsula. Pictured here from the classics gathered together to commemorate the Ards TT, first held in 1928. The race was the culmination of much thought and enthusiasm by two men. One was the legendary Harry Ferguson and the other was Wallace McLeod. Wallace was head of the motor engineering school at the Belfast Tech. The men were helped in their dream by the fact that (unlike the rest of the British Isles) the law in Ulster enabled roads to be closed off for motor racing. In 1927 the two men visited a race at Brooklands and persuaded some of the drivers that, if they could find a suitable Ulster road circuit, then they would participate. The venue was found and the six hour race was organised under the auspices of the Royal Automobile Club.

The circuit was in the form of a triangle 13.7 miles in total. The race started at the pits on the Newtownards Road Dundonald , and there still is a little commemorative building at that spot to mark the location. The cars then set off towards Newtownards via Quarry Corner then up and over Bradshaw’s Brae and into Conway Square, Newtownards .
There are still marks on the masonry made by the cars as they clipped the corner into the square, now a pedestrian precinct.
The eventual winner of the first race in 1928 was Kaye Don ’s Lea Francis.
At its peak the Ards TT attracted over a half a million spectators.
The Ards TT race continued very successfully each year until 1936 when one of the competing cars crashed at Newtownards killing eight spectators and injuring 40 others. The Ards TT was never held again.

Taken with a little Nikon S-200 7.1 unsuperchargedpixie

Racing Bentley belongs to the following groups:

! * Irish Eyes * !, "Old Things - 3 per Day", *Focus and Lighting*, 0 Nowhere Like Northern Ireland, 49er with Wheels, 60 and Beyond, Budget Photography, Cars, Motorbikes and Motorsports, Classic Cars Worldwide, Friends of Bangor and North Down Camera Club, Northern Ireland, Historic Motor Racing Photography Worldwide, Passionate About Vintage and United Kingdom Available for sale as

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