Motoring historian Bob Montgomery delves into his archives.
THE BIRTH OF IRISH MOTOR SPORT: Before the great record-breakers of the 1920s and 1930s became household names there was no special aura attached to the business of going faster on four wheels.
Hence the the report on Baron de Forrest's record-breaking performance on his Mors in in the Phoenix Park in 1903, pushing the speed record up to 85.9 mph. The July issue of The Motor-Car World wrote:
"If anything were wanting to induce us to believe that we have gone as far in the pursuit of speed as is at all necessary or reasonable, the contests held in Phoenix Park a couple of days after the Gordon Bennett Race should serve to provide it. Surely, a speed of 86 miles per hour is perilously near to the limit of reasonable pace. Can any real or serviceable end be served by attaining anything greater?"
The year of the Baron's record marked the beginning of Ireland's love-affair with Motor Sport.
The affair began on July 4th 1903, just two day's after the landmark Irish Gordon Bennett Race, so successfully run over the Athy circuit. Organised by the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland, while it would not have been possible without the co-operation of the members of the Irish Automobile Club it was not until the Phoenix Park Speed Trials on July 4th that the Irish club organised and promoted their own event.
The largest enclosed park in Europe, the Phoenix Park benefited from being bisected by a perfectly straight road of considerable width and with a good surface which ran from its main entrance at Parkgate Street to the Castleknock Gate, a distance of almost two miles.
There was, however, the question of what to do with the Phoenix monument which sat plumb in the middle of the road halfway along its length. R J Mecredy, the editor of the Motor News magazine, used his considerable influence to have the base of both sides of the monument removed for the event, together with the railing, coping and lamp posts.
The total distance was one mile and one kilometre which allowed the competitors to reach full speed before entering the final kilometre which could then be timed independently as a 'flying kilometre'. It was over this latter section that two new world speed records were established.
Beginning that morning with the motorcycle runs, CG Gerrard riding a Clement-Gerrard set fastest motorcycle time at a speed of 48.2 mph.
Next came the cars starting with the Tourist Car Section, and the afternoon was devoted to the Racing Car Classes. It was in the 'Unlimited' class that records began to fall. The first was a new world record of 85.5 mph for the flying kilometre set by the Breton driver Fernand Gabriel on the Mors racing car with which he had competed in the Gordon Bennett Race two days previously. Next to run was the similar Mors of Baron de Forrest who pushed the speed up to 85.9 mph amid great excitement.
The Mors had developed a fault with its dynamo late on the previous evening. While the Baron's mechanics worked to repair it they unintentionally damaged it beyond repair. All seemed lost until it was remembered that the Ferdinand de Lesseps - the charted ship which had brought the French team to Ireland - was still berthed at Dublin's North Wall. The time was now after 10 a.m. and the Racing Car trials were due to start at noon. A dash to the ship was rewarded with a suitable spare dynamo, and perhaps more importantly, with several French mechanics from the Mors factory who set about completing the repairs to the Baron's car. Having been given permission by the officials to run last, just as the Baron was finally being called to the line, the Mors sprang into healthy life at the first turn of the starting handle. Without time to prepare for his run, the Baron was flagged off on the run that would take him and the Phoenix Park Speed Trials into the history books of motoring.
Despite the comments of The Motor-Car World, the challenge of going faster is still with us, even in this politically correct 21st century world. Happily, so too is Irish Motor Sport whose own tale began one hundred years ago in Dublin's Phoenix Park.