When you get the privilege of taking out the only remaining car from the world’s first Gran Prix, what would you do? Not drive it at all for fear of wrecking the temperamental beast? Putt around and pray nothing jumps out at you? Not this driver.
The car is a 1906 Darracq Grand Prix racer. Darracq was a French manufacturer that built cars up until the 1930s until they were absorbed by the Rootes Group. This model, a four-cylinder, is owned by Anne Thompson and was making a run at Hood Aerodrome in Masterton, New Zealand when the combination of wet grass, thin slick tires and a torquey four-banger got the Darracq to spin in the wet grass. The driver brings the car around like a pro and after a restart, moves along like nothing had happened at all. Which is a damn sight more than I could say for myself if I was in that position. I’d be driving back to the pits mentally writing my apologies and letter of resignation.
Looks like it’s got a prehistoric Lenco.
Roll something like that and he’d be wearing not a brain bucket but a “Bucket-O’- Brains.
That full face helmet seems a bit of a disconnect. That guy should have a leather bucket on, or just some goggles as they would have done back then. ha ha
That ain’t a he or a guy, it’s Anne the ower and she is renowned for not babying the Darracq.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-YVSlbCtwt7s/TbLafi1E0PI/AAAAAAAANPs/uBAxU3aM5Y4