The Cape Town Heritage Foundation has awarded Killarney International Raceway in Table View a Blue Plaque in recognition of its historical significance.
Few sports facilities in Cape Town can boast a history encompassing 76 years of continuous activity at the same venue.
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The Divisional Council of the Cape Province opened a new road connecting Cape Town and the Northern Cape in 1947. The old road to Malmesbury had fallen into disuse and had been closed, so the Metropolitan Motorcycle and Car Club (the ‘Mets’) asked the authorities if they could rent it out as a venue for sprints, or what we now call drag racing.
On March 1, 1947, a speed trial was held on the old Potsdam Road, a few hundred metres north of the Killarney Hotel. Mr JL Craig won in a 1250cc MG TC roadster, clocking a time of 22.6 seconds over the standing quarter mile.
By 1951, a tarred road loop had been laid alongside the old highway to create a basic, roughly triangular racetrack. This was extended to the west in 1952 and to the south in 1955 for a total lap length of 1.65 kilometres, but when an ambitious plan to host a Formula 1 Grand Prix was hatched in 1959, a completely new, 3.267-kilometre track was built for the inaugural Cape Grand Prix on December 17, 1960.
Part of the original road to Malmesbury remains as the service road from the main entrance to the tube, while a section of the 1951 circuit is preserved inside a fenced-off area behind Sarel’s Sweep, named after motorsport legend Sarel ‘Supervan’ van der Merwe.
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The track is wider, smoother and safer today than it was in 1960, but the layout remains unchanged. The Mets merged with other clubs in 1965 to form the Western Province Motor Club, and since then the club has added a one-kilometre karting circuit, an 800-metre drag strip, a tar oval and a one-kilometre ‘Short Circuit’. The motocross track has been transformed into an adventure motorcycle and 4×4 event area, with training facilities including the Western Cape’s only skidpan.
In 2017, an FIA-approved rallycross circuit was built to host Africa’s first World Rallycross Championship round (and, yes, World Rallycross will return in October 2023!). In 2022, a spinning pitch was built specifically for that purpose.
A multi-story clubhouse, an administration and control tower, two blocks of pits, a number of workshops and garages where racing vehicles are stored, prepared and repaired, bomas for corporate and private hire and grandstands for thousands of spectators have also been built by the club. Denis Joubert, the club’s chairman from 1970 to 2006, oversaw the development of the entire facility over the years with no government funding.
But it is the people – the competitors, officials, marshals and fans – who give this historic venue life and continuity. Mr JL Craig and his MG are long gone, but his son John and grandson John Junior are still active in Killarney motorsport.
This Blue Plaque is dedicated to the Killarney family and the long-ago committee that created what is now Cape Town’s most-used sports venue on a dusty piece of wasteland alongside the old Malmesbury Road.
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Picture: City of Cape Town / Facebook