Just A Mix Of Pics - Ray Green Collection

[ERC]

Sorry David. No. The name is relatively well known though!

It was a great era for sports and sports racing cars, most, like this one, were road registered. The registration plate shows this to be a local (Nottingham) car and as it was an NSCC event, that is no surprise. NSCC ran many meetings at Mallory in the early days (from 1956) whilst still also running many Silverstone meetings, so there was a meeting on most weekends during the season.

An amazing workload in pre computer times, so no wonder that they eventally had a full time secretary, the very competent Betty Shaw. NSCC in its prime, would have been one of the largest clubs in the UK. They ran the opening meetings at Mallory, possibly the club circuit at Silverstone, the opening meeting at Donington, plus meetings at Croft, Cadwell and even a foray to Aintree (Liverpool) and Thruxton, plus of course the Gamston meetings in 1950/51.

As circuits got stronger, they realised that they should be getting the profits as well as the track hire income and clubs without their own track, such as NSCC, were eventually frozen out. Although they did actively search for their own venue, they almost had it sorted for a circuit at the Southwell (horse) Racecourse and looked hard at the Newark Showgrounds, but sadly, they came to nothing.

Betty retired (to Spain) and the secretary was then a part time post but once the club racing side finished - the last meetings were at Croft, the club almost folded as it had nothing left to offer. I took over as Competition Secretary and newsletter editor (and printer!) when it was at its lowest ebb. I devised and built up the Sprint Championship, which had a far fairer points system than the ones usually based on class records.

As part of the AMMC (Association of Midland Motor Clubs) sprint championship mainly at Curborough, NSCC points were concurrent and it wasn't too long before numbers rose from one (me!) regular sprinter to about 60 and the club has maintained and increased that strong sprint involvement to this day.

Sorry if this appears to me blowing my own trumpet a wee bit, but minnows in the sport, even with a proud heritage, can be wiped out so easily, when venues aren't available or circuit owners get too greedy.

Thankfully, NZ is more like the UK used to be, with clubs having a very strong role in the sport, each with their own slant on things.