Race Promotion and Circuit Ownership
In the post-war era, the BRDC expanded its activities, taking over the lease of Silverstone from the RAC in 1952. In 1966, the club formed a subsidiary company, Silverstone Circuits Limited, responsible for the development of the British Grand Prix and – after its purchase in 1971 – the circuit itself. Aside from the GP, other notable BRDC-organised events at Silverstone included the BRDC International Trophy.
In recent years, Silverstone and the British GP have become an ongoing contentious issue between the BRDC board and Bernie Ecclestone's Formula One Management, with differences of opinion over the costs involved and the state of the circuit's infrastructure.
Also within the remit of the club are:
- The BRDC Marshals' Club.
- BRDC Club Races.
- BRDC 500 Summer Races.
- The BRDC Walter Hayes Trophy.
Read more about this topic: British Racing Drivers' Club
Famous quotes containing the words race, promotion, circuit and/or ownership:
“We’ve become a race of Peeping Toms. What people oughta do is get outside their own house and look in for a change.”
—John Michael Hayes (b. 1919)
“Parents can fail to cheer your successes as wildly as you expected, pointing out that you are sharing your Nobel Prize with a couple of other people, or that your Oscar was for supporting actress, not really for a starring role. More subtly, they can cheer your successes too wildly, forcing you into the awkward realization that your achievement of merely graduating or getting the promotion did not warrant the fireworks and brass band.”
—Frank Pittman (20th century)
“The Father and His angelic hierarchy
That made the magnitude and glory there
Stood in the circuit of a needle’s eye.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“They had their fortunes to make, everything to gain and nothing to lose. They were schooled in and anxious for debates; forcible in argument; reckless and brilliant. For them it was but a short and natural step from swaying juries in courtroom battles over the ownership of land to swaying constituents in contests for office. For the lawyer, oratory was the escalator that could lift a political candidate to higher ground.”
—Federal Writers’ Project Of The Wor, U.S. public relief program (1935-1943)