>Can anyone tell me who invented autocross, and when? It just occured to me
>that I have no idea where this sport came from...
>
>Thanks,
>Tom Buller
And Charlie writes:
"When I moved from St. Louis to San Francisco in 1980, I was informed that
John Kelly invented it..."
Actually, we were all informed that last Saturday at our annual awards banquet.
I didn't know that he invented autocross. I thought he invented the wheel.
Before there was autocross, there was gymkhana, which was introduced to the
English language in 1877. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, it is
probably a modification of the Hindi word "gedkhAna". The definition reads as
follows: ": a meet featuring sports contests or athletic skills: as a :
competitive games on horseback b : a timed contest for automobiles featuring a
series of events designed to test driving skill."
Gymkhanas with two-seater English sportscars became popular in the 1950s, and
evolved to autocross I'm assuming in the 60s. When it was gymkhana, there was a
bit more physically and mentally involved. It was like solving math. You didn't
just drive around cones; you had to negotiate obstacles, some of which included
even getting out of the car. One stunt could only be achieved on the hard,
narrow tires of the day, as it required simultaneously locking the brakes and
putting the car in reverse while still traveling in a forward direction into a
box marked with pylons, probably, or maybe even hay bails. You could never do
that with wimpy ABS. Another was something called a four leaf clover, that
consisted of four cones, set up as four corners, and you had to drive around
each one, and the resulting design left on the ground, if your car could draw,
would look just like a FOUR LEAF CLOVER!
I have photos of an autocross/gymhkana from the 50s, in DIRT! Here's a photo of
my dad at one in his 1956 Austin Healey, and I can only guess it's from that
same year. What I find terribly eery is not only the lack of helmet, but the
appearance of HAIR. This would make him about, well, I should say it,
TWENTY-TWO YEARS OLD.
http://www.sfrscca.org/solo2/images-autox/healey.jpg
And if you read the caption, it mentions Wilma Kline in the "second ring." What
the heck is that? Another gymkhana obstacle?
-Katie
P.S. That's a '56 Austin Healey LeMans, that's still sitting in his garage.
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