After last year's centenary outing, the Gordon Bennett looks set to become an annual 'fixture'
The organisers said the first Gordon Bennett commemorative run was just that. Not a race. You just couldn't race cars and motorised bikes - all at least 100 years old. They wouldn't be up to it. This is a leisurely run for 20 old stagers, old enough to have been eligible for the fourth Gordon Bennett race, held in Ireland in 1903. That was the day the sport of racing on a closed circuit on a public open road came of age.
All I can say is - somebody should have told Jim Boland. Jim's in the motor trade in Clondalkin, Co Dublin, and he knows all there is to know about vintage and veteran cars. He has a collection of no fewer than 60 of them; he's driven in 20 London to Brighton runs. He has two cars entered in this run , with his son Tony - also a motor trader - driving the second, a handsome 1904 Clement Talbot which purrs along like a modern limo.
Today Jim is driving a 1902 Renault, open topped, with big wooden wheels, springs like a farmer's cart and brass hubcaps, and a little half door at the back through which rear seat passengers enter.
His young friend Shane Houlihan, also a motor trader, from Wexford is at the wheel of a 1902 Panhard et Lavassor which he has just bought from the family of the original owner. We are now on our way from the Phoenix Park to the Moat of Ardscull, a place hallowed in the annals of motor racing.
As we reach Lucan, rain begins to fall and we pull up to put on anoraks. Shane sweeps triumphantly by with his fiancée Suzanne Retajova beside him. Jim growls: "Never live it down if That Fella finishes first." Still struggling to pull on waterproofs we lurch back out on to the open road.
We catch up with That Fella at Leixlip and the Intel roundabout gives Jim his chance. Faced with two lanes merging into one, Jim just keeps ploughing ahead. Shane blinks and we are through.
We are still in the lead at Maynooth. The cars are rattling and bucking about. Gear changes are monstrous. Deafening sounds of crashing and grinding as driver disengages and tries to re-engage. Changing down is particularly unnerving as every moving part does noisy battle with all others. Not for nothing are these known as crash gearboxes.
At Prosperous in Co Kildare, disaster strikes. That Fella sweeps by with a triumphant grin all over his face. Jim grunts and presses his right foot more firmly on the floor. Soon we are back in our rightful place - the lead.
An hour out from the Phoenix Park our navigator, Breda Foley, notes that we have covered 30 miles. So we have been doing 30 mph on average. "And That Fella is only doing 29 ¾," says Jim triumphantly , gesturing towards the Panhard which is - for most of the journey - either a few feet behind, or in front of us. Near Kilcullen, we slow down as there's a Garda patrol car in the vicinity.
Approaching the Moat, Shane gets in front again, as Jim battles with the gearbox, but the appearance of two tractors pulling loads of hay hinders Shane more than us, and Jim sweeps by and romps home first.
We started earlier at the Royal Irish Automobile club in Dawson Street, members of which organised the original 1903 event, for a leisurely Sunday morning procession through the streets of Dublin to the Phoenix Park, sponsored by property consultants Colliers Jackson -Stops.
Jim is at the wheel, Breda is beside him, and I'm crouched on a little bench seat at the back. Going down Trinity Street to swing left on to Dame Street, with Garda patrol bikes keeping the hoi polloi back, I nearly got spilled on the roadway. Jim must reckon that slowing down at corners is for wimps.
"This story really began back in 1899," explains Bob Montgomery, motoring historian and contributor to Motors, who persuaded the RIAC to stage this first commemorative run. "James Gordon Bennett, millionaire owner of the New York Herald donated a silver trophy for the new sport of road racing. The first two races attracted little attention, but in 1902 a British driver Selwyn Francis Edge won in dramatic style in Innsbruck."
So, like the Eurovision song contest, the winner's country hosts the next year's event. "The motor car was barely tolerated in Britain and a blanket speed limit of 12 mph applied." In short, Ireland took up the challenge, made some legislative changes to allow the race go ahead - around counties Kildare and Laois on July 2nd, 1903. Belgian driver Camille Jenatzy won in thrilling style in a Mercedes.
On the 1903 course, the Moat of Ardscull hosted a canvas village of 400 tents, and 2,300 RIC men mustered here before taking up duty around the figure of eight course which, with three laps of the western sector and four of the eastern, amounted to a total distance of 327.5 miles. There's no reliable estimate of the number of spectators then, but contemporary photographs show them turning out in droves around the course, with at least 700 at Ardscull.
On July 2nd, 2004, just 101 years later, 16 of the 20 vehicles which started completed the run, including three motorcycles, the last ridden by a very grimy party who on closer inspection turned out to be the usually dapper Jonathan Bewley, chairman of the governors of St Columba's College. Four did not, a 1904 Cadillac, which did not get beyond the end of Dawson Street, though it had completed the 2003 London-Brighton run in much harsher conditions, a 1904 Pope, and a 1902 Renault.
Nor, technically, did the oldest car in the run, the electric 1899 Sperry Cleveland of Reg Plunkett, as battery problems meant it had to travel part of the journey on a trailer.
"Next year we'll double the entry," says Bob Montgomery. By then I hope to have recovered from the painful realisation that old cars are truly "boneshakers". It is no fun typing standing up!