Pilgrimage To Old Spa

I was able to photograph the old Spa-Francorchamps course in 2010.  It was a kind of pilgrimage.  With few exceptions, only the best drivers won at Spa.  Jimmy Clark, who famously hated the place, won four straight Belgian Grands Prix.  Other famous GP winners: Tazio Nuvolari, Rudi Caracciola, Juan Fangio (3 times), Alberto Ascari (twice), Phil Hill, Dan Gurney, and Bruce McLaren.

Spa still holds the record for the fastest sports car race ever run.  Pedro Rodriguez and Jackie Oliver averaged 156 m.p.h. for 1000 kilometers including pit stops in 1971.   The record is unlikely ever to be broken.  Courses that could, like Le Mans and Monza, have been adding chicanes for the past 40 years.

I was ambivalent about my pilgrimage.  Old Spa was insanely dangerous, even by the standards of the time.  Coming of age in that racing culture, I subscribed to the conventional wisdom then, that "a racer knows the risks when he gets into the car."  I'm now ashamed of that attitude.  Racing will always be dangerous.  But you shouldn't have to bet long odds on your own survival, against the house.  Passive safety is a good thing, even if it encourages some racers to take excessive risks.  These days, they bet (with the odds in their favor) that they will walk away from a steaming pile of junk.  Convictions aside, I still watch YouTube videos of Old Spa.  I am in awe of drivers who raced it.

A lap was flat-out or "just a lift," except for Les Combes and Stavelot: 130 m.p.h. sweepers, and Eau Rouge, the hairpin before the old start-finish line.  The movement toward passive safety in course design began with Jackie Stewart's crash in the 1966 Belgian Grand Prix.  After 1970, Grand Prix drivers refused to race there.  By 1977, Spa was closed even to small-bore sports car racing.  Being comprised of public roads, it could not be made safe by modern standards.

New Spa, which includes about 25% of the old track, is a purpose-built facility with state-of-the-art passive safety.  (New public roads now bypass this section of track.)  It remains my favorite course because Eau Rouge and Pouhon are so fast and hard to get perfectly, lap after lap.  It's about four miles long, half the length of Old Spa.

The Jacky Ickx/Brian Redman Ford GT-40 entering Les Combes in 1968: typical Spa road and weather conditions.
Ickx was the best rain driver of his generation, and this race cemented his reputation.  He waxed the field in appalling
conditions.  At the end of the first lap, he was entering Raidillon when the second-place car was entering La Source.

Track map: Old Spa, 1925-1977.  Pictures below are from Les Combes to past La Carriere.

Les Combes today.  A fast lefthand sweeper leading onto a downhill straight.

Entry to Burnenville.  A lift here, to settle and plant the car, then back into the throttle.  Burneville seems to go on
forever, in a racing car or a street car at 50 m.p.h.  Stirling Moss had a nearly career-ending crash here in 1960 when
the left rear suspension of his Lotus 18 Formula 1 car failed.

Malmedy: Burnenville straightens slightly before entering this right-left ess (the lefthander is just out of the picture).
Malmedy is flat-out unless your'e negotiating traffic.

The Masta Kink, looking against race direction.  The driver head-game in the 1950's was said to be to ask "Do you lift
for the kink?"  It was Jackie Stewart's crash here, in pouring rain, that led to the passive safety movement in racing.  He
was trapped in the car for an hour, sitting in a pool of gasoline, which gave him  the time and perspective to wonder if
there was a better way.  His perspective on "acceptable risk" shifted.  He inspired the Grand Prix Drivers' Association to
lobby for passive safety measures, which led to several threatened or actual strikes.  And he showed up at the next race
with a steering wheel wrench taped in the cockpit.

The house is at the exit of Stavelot, a 130 m.p.h. sweeper, which required shifting down 1 or 2 gears.

Entry to the La Carriere left-right sweeper.  This was a lift in a high-powered car; flat-out in a low-powered one.

Looking against race direction back toward La Carriere's exit.

Where New Spa rejoins Old Spa.  The exit of New Stavelot, sometimes called Frere (after the Belgian racer and
automotive journalist Paul Frere) is just visible here, over the tops of the vehicles.  The new course leaves the old
course just before Les Combes and winds through a valley to rejoin the old course here.