Featured

Observe the Sons of Ulster: Paris-Madrid 1903
- Racing Daydreams
- 25 December 2023
- France
- motor racing
- motor sport
- motorsport
- Northern Ireland
County Down, Ireland: September 1916 Responding to deft touch, the Sopwith Strutter prescribes a shallow arc from Carnalea. Barely above the telegraph wires. No conscious check of bearing – instinctively the pilot dips a wing, and there… K and the children are at the homestead. Waves, and kisses blown. Banking right over Helen’s Bay. Swinging […]
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Race to Disaster – The Ards TT
- Racing Daydreams
- 14 May 2023
- belfast
- motor racing
- motor sport
- motorsport
- Northern Ireland
The phone vibrated on my office desk. A glance to see the notification… email… subject line, “TT Film”. Curious, I locked the work laptop and read the message… it was about the Ards TT. Dear Colin, I came across your website in the course of doing some research for a film I am making for the BBC […]
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Elliott Zborowski – Death on the Corniche
- Racing Daydreams
- 8 May 2023
- France
- Mercedes-Benz
- motor racing
- motor sport
- motorsport
1 April 1903, the motoring greats were set for the literal high-point of Nice Week – the hillclimb from Nice to La Turbie. 1903 was planned and expected to be a huge year for the sport, and Mercédès in particular. There were 12 of their 60hp machines in Nice, including a brand-new one for Count […]
Read More...Avenues & Alleyways – The 1903 Mercédès Limousine
- Racing Daydreams
- 18 April 2023
- France
- Mercedes-Benz
- motor racing
- motor sport
- motorsport
If a picture is worth a thousand words, then what value a location? To stand on a street corner and watch the world scurry past. To stop and smile at the thought of the excitement, innovation, history that once filled a space, so mundane today. The Mercedes-Benz entry for the 1952 Rallye Automobile Monte Carlo […]
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Ici Repose Jean Behra
- Racing Daydreams
- 16 April 2023
- F1
- France
- Grand Prix
- motor racing
- motor sport
- motorsport
Follow tramline 1 in Nice towards its northern extremity – until it is just you and some shoppers heading to Saint-Sylvestre. Hop off at Gorbella – walk past Lidl & Monoprix. Take a left, up the hill – to Mont Claire Virenque – and there opposite the lycée you will find Cimetière Saint Barthélémy… and […]
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The Road to Ballyshannon – Gordon Bennett
- Racing Daydreams
- 25 July 2022
- Gordon Bennett
- Ireland
- motor racing
- motor sport
- motorsport
It’s not so much raining as there’s more humidity than the sky can bear. It pattered down most of the night. Now it hangs in the air – spritzes as you walk. I quietly leave the rooms, grab a cap from the car, and walk to the town square. Past the Gordon Bennett memorial plaque, […]
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Chasing the Ghosts – Gordon Bennett
- Racing Daydreams
- 14 July 2022
- Gordon Bennett
- Ireland
- Mercedes
- motor racing
- motor sport
- motorsport
I’ve always considered ‘Racing Daydreams’ to be an attitude. The willingness to look beyond presented information, armed with some knowledge and an empathy for times & people past. How better to explore and take joy from our sport? Similarly approached, locations too can rattle the senses. Standing in silence at the top of Dundrod. Inhale […]
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Sascha and The Ace of Clubs
- Racing Daydreams
- 1 April 2022
- Mercedes
- motor racing
- motor sport
- motorsport
- Porsche
- Targa Florio
Small cars hold an attraction – I would imagine since les Frères Renault first took-on the Edwardian giants – and the idea of a smaller car as a generally more efficient machine has held sway. An efficient use of resources, or merely a more stressed & stressful way of covering the same distance? I suppose […]
Read More...Caracciola’s Over-Blown 1930
- Racing Daydreams
- 6 February 2022
- belfast
- Mercedes-Benz
- motor racing
- motorsport
- Northern Ireland
H.M.S. Catherwood’s central works, Donegall Road, Belfast. Friday, 22 August 1930 The driver retrieved a half Woodbine from his top pocket. “You still here, cub?” “Aye… til the death. Told me to stand here til I got somethin’.” “Wha? Like pleurisy?.. don’t think that would make the morning paper.” The Bo Peep flared on first […]
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