September 18 is the birthday of the Goodwood Circuit, a race track built at Goodwood House that currently hosts the Goodwood Revival. It is not to be confused with the hillclimb part of the estate where the Festival of Speed primarily takes place.

On this day 77 years ago, the circuit came to life for the first time with its inaugural races put on by the Junior Car Club and Frederick Gordon-Lennox, the Duke of Richmond. Prior to racing, the area was the the Royal Air Force’s Westhampnett base during World War II, used as an emergency airfield for aircraft. Goodwood House had existed for centuries prior to the war before leasing the area to the RAF for the conflict; the estate itself was a military hospital.

After the war, a pair of RAF officers—Wing Commanders Tom H. Wisdom of London and Tony Gaze, the latter eventually the first AustralianF1 driver—approached Gordon-Lennox about possibly turning the airfield’s perimeter road into a race course. The Duke, who used to race as well, signed off on the idea and the 2.4-mile Goodwood Circuit was born.

The inaugural races took place on September 18, 1948. 90 drivers were present for three races, each of which was sponsored by the Daily Graphic. Among them were three women: Betty Haig, Dorothy Patten, and Monica Whincop. The Esher News and Mail mentioned “[o]ther drivers include a farmer, brewer, journalist, film producer, artist, and representatives of many other trades.”

Over 40,000 were in attendance. Hay bales, nicknamed “embattlements”, were situated along the track for officials and fans to safely watch as well as a run-off area. Even with the designated viewing locations, some spctators still decided to climb onto the roofs of temporary buildings for better vantage points. Those fans were eventually ordered down for safety reasons, which was validated when one roof started to collapse from the weight, giving everyone enough of a scare to back off without injury.

“Every road to Goodwood was packed yesterday with a crawling nose to tail stream of cars, coaches and cycles heading for Britain’s first big post-war motor racing event,” remarked The Sunday Sun the day after.

The first race was a three-lap run for non-supercharged cars with engines below 3000cc, which P. De F. C. Pycroft claimed in his Jaguar.

H. Lester topped the under 1000cc car event. This race was perhaps best known for Joe Lowrey’s ERA rolling twice, flinging Lowrey from his car at 60 mph and onto the turf, though he was okay.

The baby-slash-midget 500cc event was claimed by Stirling Moss, a young hotshot who had just turned 19 the day prior before going on to do some legendary things in motorsports. Birabongse Bhanudej, the Prince of Siam, was also entered.

The Goodwood Trophy was the main event, a five-lap event featuring 12 drivers for 1.5-liter cars. Reg Parnell ruled the day.

Featured image credit: BBC