The month of May saw several tragic events cast a shadow over our motorsport community. The first of these was at our home base in Bicester, where we moved to in 2021. We became part of a new enterprise created for specialist automotive and motorsport businesses, with the aim of building a hub at the heart of Motor Sport Valley. Dan Geoghegan and his team have succeeded in creating an extraordinary place and a wonderful community; so this made it even more personal and tragic when disaster struck on the 15th of May.

Having just left the office that evening I was told that one of the aircraft hangers was ablaze, which seemed altogether surreal; then as the news unfolded over the coming hours, across national media, it became apparent that the situation had become very serious. As we now know, two firefighters – Jennie Logan and Martyn Sadler – lost their lives alongside Dave Chester, who was an integral part of the Bicester Motion team, providing site maintenance and general construction over the past 10 years. The whole site was sealed off as the emergency services began to conduct their work and investigations, and with that came the realisation that the collapse of the roof structure composed of asbestos could present a hazard to the residents. Therefore, the Motorsport UK staff set up to work from home the next morning, with something of a sense of a return to 2020. In the end it was practically a week later that we returned to the Bicester Motion site, but with restricted access and a sombre mood. It is particularly hard for the Bicester Motion team as they have poured such energy and passion into making the site what it is today, and to lose a close friend in Dave was heartbreaking for all. Our very sincere condolences go out to the families of Jennie, Martyn and Dave.

While still reeling from this event, the following weekend our sport suffered not one, but two, tragic accidents resulting in the loss of co-driver Dai Roberts on the Jim Clark Rally and Julian Grimwade at the Vintage Sports-Car Club( VSCC) meeting at Donington Park. Our very sincere condolences go to the families and friends of Dai and Julian.

As I’ m sure many of you are aware the accident on the Jim Clark Rally comes 11 years after a particularly challenging moment in our history when three spectators were killed on the same event. This resulted in a fatal accident inquiry( FAI) in Scotland, that in turn led to the development of the Rally

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Future programme which instituted a new framework of safety across the whole sport. The Jim Clark Rally returned in 2019, as a result of the hard work of the volunteer community, and particularly the Jim Clark Rally Memorial Club. This accident was therefore a great shock to everyone involved as they had worked so diligently to implement the new protocols of safety. Motorsport UK’ s Safety Team, led by John Ryan and Dan Carter, were on hand at the event within hours, and are working with the police in Scotland, as well as the FIA, on a full investigation into the accident to understand the causes and the lessons that can be derived for the future.

Julian Grimwade was an experienced and much respected member of the vintage motorsport community and was a prolific historic racing competitor who tackled a wide variety of events, including races and hill climbs – predominantly in pre-war cars. He was a regular at Goodwood, frequently competing in the SF Edge Trophy at the Members’ Meeting, including in a Frazer Nash Norris Special. Julian was driving his Oakland Romano Special in the Mephistopheles & Lanchester Trophy contest for pre-1925 machines, which opened the day’ s racing, when his car left the circuit on the exit of Old Hall on the first lap.

We all know that motorsport has the potential to be dangerous, and indeed we recognise this when we sign on as competitors, officials, marshals and volunteers; but the stark reality is still hard to bear, when at the end of the day it is a sport and people’ s hobbies and passion. That is the reason that Motorsport UK, and the FIA have spent so much time and resources over the decades focused on incremental improvements in every dimension of the sport, from the vehicles themselves and their safety equipment, venue design, passive safety systems, personal protective equipment, and of course the training and development of our amazing volunteer community of marshals, medics and rescue and recovery specialists. Last year we had over 120,000 individual competition starts and during that period the sport suffered no loss of life from competition activity. That is a commendable outcome that reflects all the hard work of many thousands of people; however, the events of the last few weeks show that there is always more to learn and more to do in making the sport safer for everybody involved. We must always do more to make the sport as safe as possible for our members.

I would particularly like to thank the emergency services who attended the Bicester Motion site to deal with the conflagration and subsequent aftermath, as that community knows what it is like to lose a friend, colleague or family

Revolution- June 2025