Reviving the Yorkshire racehouse that was ‘F1 up your garden path’

But it was here, or close enough, that the world of motor sport gathered a century ago to watch the legendary racer Sir Malcolm Campbell take on Yorkshire’s greatest challenge.

For a brief moment this summer it will once again be at the centre of the racing world.

Holme Moss is perhaps best known today for its towering radio mast, but in the years before broadcasting began, its topography made it the perfect place to try out the thrilling new sport of motor racing on public highways.

Records from the first competitive event in the county indicate that Campbell won his class, taking his Talbot around a one-and-a-quarter mile section of the route in a minute and 42.6 seconds. Two years later, he was back, in a Sunbeam.

“It would have been an important event given the calibre of drivers it attracted – even though in those days it would have been a dirt track,” said Max Crosland, joint managing director of the Yorkshire Motorsport Festival, which has unveiled new signage to mark the centenary of the first climb.

“It was one of the first forms of motor sport. It was like Formula One, up your garden path.

“It was a dangerous pastime and thre was a cavalier spirit among racing drivers back then. But it remained a big event until they outlawed motor sport events on public roads, before the war.”

The centenary event planned for August will take place as close as possible to the original, eight mile course –which the tyre maker Dunlop described in its Great British Road Awards that year as “challenging but rewarding”.

Permission had been given to close the road for a competitive re-run in June, which would have been the first for decades to be allowed on the public highway. Its organisers confirmed yesterday that the event would become an annual fixture for at least the next five years, with a smaller celebration this year.

“People came from far and wide to race cars up that hill. I’m so pleased we are keeping alive this now century-old tradition of closed-road speed hill climbs in the region,” said Michael McErlain, the festival’s other joint managing director.

He added: “Even at this early stage we are well advanced with bookings for the 2021 climb.”

Yorkshire eventually had hill climb courses on private roads at Castle Howard and at Rufforth and Elvington airfields, near York. A track remains at Harewood.

The sport was already well established by 1920, with climbs at Greenhow Hill, near Pateley Bridge, at least eight years earlier.

But Campbell’s presence marked out the Holme Moss run as the premier event of its kind. Even today, the route appears regularly on lists of the country’s best “normal” drives.