Page 163 - Bulletin 9 2005

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tracks, the sport was inherently expensive and put ownership of a racing car beyond the
means of most, there were too few real racing cars participating and this diminished

spectator interest, competitors seemed apathetic about competing, and publicity and
advertising of events were inadequate. Post-war motor journalists would describe the

track’s configuration as “diabolical”, though this seemed not to have mattered at the time.

The Second World War was a final nail in Pollsmoor’s coffin. It was taken over by the

Union Defence Force for a variety of purposes and thereafter remained in State ownership.
Racing was revived briefly after the war but it then moved permanently to Killarney north

of Milnerton. By the 1970s most of the track had disappeared under a prison complex and
its vegetable gardens, while Mac’s Waggle was sliced through by the van der Stel Freeway

and covered by a housing estate. But there is still a BP garage on the corner of Military and

Main roads where “Mario” once had his motor car racing stable.

What of the racers? The lives of Grand Prix drivers were often glamorous but some were

tragically short. Within a little over a year both Auto Union drivers would be dead: von
Delius crashed fatally at the German GP at the Nurburgring in July 1937; Rosemeyer

crashed at nearly 430km/hr on the Frankfurt-Darmstadt Autobahn in January 1938 while
defending his 1 km and 1 mile world speed records of 415km/hr set in October 1937. Baron

von Oertzen returned to South Africa in the 1950s to establish Volkswagen SA (Pty) Ltd. at
Uitenhage and introduce the Beetle to South Africa. He retired to Switzerland in 1965. Pat

Fairfield died after being severely injured in a multiple crash at the 1937 Le Mans 24 hour

race.

Many of the other pre-War racers lived out lives of normal duration. Earl Howe, the 1938
Grosvenor winner, became President of the British Racing Driver’s Club. He died in 1964.

Kay Petre, one of the few women drivers, suffered severe head injuries during a crash while
practicing at Brooklands in 1937 and retired from racing. She worked as a journalist and

died in 1994 at the age of 91 years. Francis Chiappini remained active in motor racing and