CEO ' s MESSAGE
A few months ago, I was invited by Matt Endean, the Chairman of the Chelmsford Motor Club, to attend their annual awards ceremony. So, on a recent Thursday evening, I joined a group of some 60 or 70 people in a small social club in a village not far from Chelmsford and had the opportunity to chat to members of the community about their personal experiences and the nature of the club events that they hold throughout the calendar. Apart from the Endean family, who seem to have a monopoly on some trophies, there was a great diversity of winners, machinery and types of competition. One of the key points that Matt and I agreed in advance was to present a Motorsport UK long service award to Gary Nicholls, who has had a 50-year career in motorsport. Initially a competitor in rallying, Gary has always contributed to club activities in a wide spread of official and committee roles, as well as other areas such as organiser, event official and contributor. As well as clerking and acting as secretary of many major events, including the UK’ s first closed road rally, Gary has served on many Motorsport UK committees including Timing and Council. He was for 10 years, the Chair of the Association of Eastern Motor Clubs. I think that this illustrates what I see time and again, which is the passion of key members of the community and their desire to work across so many different facets of the sport. Thank you Gary.
Clinton hill climb. I shall not spoil the narrative of what is an excellent story, but suffice to say, that it was one of the earliest motorsport events in the country starting in 1904. Quickly it established itself as a famous test of the new automobiles and although it only ran until 1925 it still has such a strong part to play in the history of the sport. Quite possibly that is down to lending its name to half of Aston Martin’ s brand which lives on in such a successful fashion, on the road and racetracks of the world.
But there was a personal twist to this story which took me a little while to figure out. My father, Marcus, left a fantastic legacy of photographic albums and other accoutrements among which I faintly remembered a picture of him in a Bentley annotated‘ Aston Hill Climb 1936’. And on rummaging around I found that image with suitable sepia tints, it did say in my father’ s handwriting‘ My Bentley 4½-litre at the Aston Clinton Hill Climb 1936’. You will of course see a disparity of facts, given the last hill climb at Aston Clinton was in 1925. As I say I was somewhat perplexed and could only assume that he had made a mistake, and it was in a different
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Going back to the sports conference, and that question of‘ what the sport looks like in 2050?’, it set me thinking: how is our motorsport community going to be shaped in 25 years’ time? I think that there has been a gradual erosion in the numbers of people who are engaged in volunteer work across the whole of society, and that does pose a real challenge, and perhaps one of the greatest risks to our sport in a quarter of a century’ s time. As I reflected on my two teenage sons and the approach to life that they and their friends have, one element is clear – they are spoiled for choice with a vast range of entertainment – even without leaving the comfort of the sofa. Motorsport UK needs to work really hard with the clubs to draft new people into the community, to run motorsport events, as I rather doubt that AI avatars will be managing the sport for us in 2050.
Speaking of years gone by, we are one of the few sports that continues to use the paraphernalia of our heritage in the form of historic and vintage cars. This is an incredible strength in that it brings our history to life and connects new generations to our past glories and to the enjoyment of these vehicles. I was therefore pleased to see that in this month’ s Revolution we have a feature article on the Aston
Gary Nicholls receives his Long Service Awards from Hugh Chambers
Revolution- April 2025
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