COVENTRY INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
Situated at Brandon, Coventry Stadium is the spiritual home of most stock car supporters and itself an integral part of the sports' heritage. It is the longest running stock car venue, the first meeting having been staged on 30th June 1954. During the last 56 years it has been owned and managed in ways that have seen stock car racing flourish, even in times of economic recession.
There have been the inevitable ups and downs including periodic rumours of closure, a hole in the track and even a threatened drivers' strike but through it all there has only ever been one place that stock car enthusiasts want to be on the first Saturday of every month - at Coventry to feast on real stock car action on the superfast 303 metre shale oval.
For many, the 20 World Finals held at Coventry to date have provided the most memorable occasions - good organisation, an electric atmosphere, action-packed racing, incidents galore, big hits, last bend attacks, surprise results all contributing to a fund of vivid memories.
Congratulations to all involved at Coventry. They staged their 20th World Final on Saturday 4th September 2010 and celebrated well those 56 continuous years of providing a venue for the mighty F1 stock cars.
From my model collection I have brought together all 20 World Final winning cars at Coventry between 1960 and 2010:
History of the Formula One World Championship
The idea of a World Championship came from pioneer promotor Digger Pugh. It was Pugh who brought the sport to the UK in April 1954 and succeeded in attracting massive crowds and dozens of cars to his events. But he needed to go bigger and better and came up with the idea of a World Championship. The first one was staged over three weeks in June 1955 and consisted of qualifying heats, two semi-finals a week later, followed by the final on June 24th at Harringay, won by 35 Mac Macdonnell. This was in the days before BriSCA (British Stock Car Association) and the BSCDA (British Stock Car Drivers Association), and each promotor was a law unto themselves. Macdonnell's reign lasted only two months. Rival promotor Johnny Hoskins staged his own World Championship at Belle Vue Manchester, in August 1955, won by 99 Jerzy Wojtowicz. (Below are models of these cars):
Hoskins ran similar World events in 1956 and 1957 but in 1958 the organisation of promotors that today is called BriSCA inaugurated qualifying procedures to ensure that the whole of the UK was involved. Towards the end of 1959 agreement was reached between promotors that the World Championship event would go on rotation to all premier venues in the UK.
Semi-finals were introduced for the first time at the end of the qualifying rounds in 1961. For a few years each semi-final meeting comprised two reverse order grids, with the World qualifiers being the top ten aggregate scorers, but in 1965 a sudden death one race format was adopted, which remains to this day.
In the early years there was little regard for an 'international element' and even towards the end of the 60s and 70s, 'overseas entries' tended to be a token gesture. This began to change in 1978 with the establishment of links with NACO in Holland and further ties with New Zealand were introduced in 1981. Since then there has been an ongoing desire to ensure that a genuine and valid element of overseas drivers should feature on the World Final grid. Currently, the thirty-two car grid usually comprises a minimum of twelve overseas drivers, of which, six are from Holland, two from New Zealand, with the balance coming according to availablility from Australia, South Africa, the USA or Canada.
The existing World Championship trophy was first presented to 103 Johnny Brise at Coventry in 1960 and the name that appears on it most frequently is 53 John Lund, who has won it a record eight times. The next most prolific winners were 1/391 Stuart Smith Snr who won it six times, 1/391 Andrew Smith (son of Stuart Smith Snr) has won it five times, 1/33 Peter Falding four times and 103 Johnny Brise and 252 Dave Chisholm who each won it three times. Only 252 Dave Chisholm, 1/391 Stuart Smith and 1/391 Andy Smith have won the trophy in three consecutive years. (See models of their cars on the Multiple World Champions page.)