Hartlepool

One Thursday night in September 1975, and the North Eastern town of Hartlepool would never be the same again. For the locals had just been introduced to the world of BriSCA F1 stock car racing at the town's greyhound stadium on Clarence Road, next door to the football ground.

Driver turned promoter, Warren Taylor, is credited with bringing racing to the North East coast, to co exist with Aycliffe Stadium, just down the road, which had opened it's doors to racing in 1966. Taylor's opening meetings were staged on Thursday nights, with a switch to the more traditional Sunday afternoon staging coming in from meeting number four.

With now two tracks in the area, a whole new group of drivers and fans came into the sport, and Taylor's opportunity was rewarded with a couple of British Championship title meetings in 1980 and 1982 (the stadium also held BriSCA F2 World Finals), and a Semi Final in 1986.

Taylor was something of an entrepreneur and wasn't shy of trying something different. In 1985 he secured a sponsorship tie in with an American tobacco company, and the Skoal Bandits racing team was born. Three F2 cars and one F1 car, were all emblazoned with the Skoal Bandit livery, which also sponsored the track championship in 1985.

A 100 lap final was held in 1985, won by Frankie Wainman, including a pit stop on the centre green for refuelling! Dash for the cash races were also held, but some of Taylor's perceived maverick ideas put him at odds with fellow promoters. Fall outs and threatened break aways from BriSCA (F2) were mooted and Gordon MacDougall helped over see the racing in the late 1980s.

October 1987 saw the last F1 meeting for a while, as the November date was transferred to Scunthorpe, and it was April 1990 until the track saw F1 action again, this time under a new promoting team of Joe Jopling and John Toulson.

Unfortunately, this era was a time when car turnouts were low on tarmac, and it wasn't unusual to see meetings held with only 15-20 cars present. A couple of semi finals were held in the early 1990s, plus the fledgling UK Open Championship saw some of its earlier titles decided here, before Messrs Jopling and Toulson decided enough was enough.

The once smart, well appointed little stadium was starting to show signs of age, and one final meeting was held in 1996, promoted by Steve Rees. This sadly proved to be the last hurrah for Hartlepool and, bar a one off meeting at Barford, the last hurrah for the North East (as far as F1s go at least), but all is not lost, with strong rumours of a new track in the area, fingers crossed that the North East can once again see a return of the F1 stock cars to the region.

Andre Zang