San Sebastián (EFE).- Glamor and speed were the irresistible ingredients in the “Roaring 20s” that, exactly a century ago now, placed the Lasarte racing circuit at the epicenter of world motorsport and projected San Sebastián to the “ pole position” of the most exclusive capitals of the moment.
“Roaring 20s”
Some “Roaring 20s” in which, infected by the expansive euphoria of American capitalism after the end of the First World War, Europe experienced its own development fever as a time of economic and social confidence from which racing cars became into true industrial and technological icons.
Teams then incipient and now legendary, such as the French Bugatti, the Italian Maserati and Alfa Romeo, or the German Mercedes-Benz began to stand out in a continent where the “Grand Prix” were all the rage that inspired the then San Sebastian mayor, Felipe Azcona, to organize in July 1923 the Great Automobile Racing Week as a complement to the II San Sebastián Trade Fair.
Lasarte Circuit
As the writer Ángel Elberdin recalls in his book “Circuito de Lasarte. Memories of a Passion”, the famous French journalist Charles Faroux was commissioned to design an urban route of 17,815 kilometers that ran along the roads of Lasarte, Oria, Andoain, Urnieta, Hernani, Oriamendi and Recalde, whose good conservation predicted “fantastic speeds”. averages over one hundred kilometers per hour.
The interest in the project of King Alfonso XIII himself, a great lover of automobiles, together with the attraction of the names of “racers” such as Albert Guyot or Jean Haimovicci, contributed to the unprecedented sporting and public success of this first edition, of the which is now one hundred years old, whose international echo put Bella Easo into orbit, thus achieving its main objective of extending its summer season.
Turned into a true focus of tourist attraction thanks to the summer visitors of the Royal House, together with the main figures of the court and numerous foreign personalities, from 1924 the city ceded the leading role in the races to the Royal Automobile Club of Guipúzcoa -germen of the current and also centennial Royal Automobile Club Vasco-Navarro (RACVN)– which has been in charge of organizing the circuit’s grand prix ever since.
“Belle Epoque”
“Little Paris” thus experienced a new automotive “Belle epoque” in which, in two different stages separated by a two-year impasse (1931 and 1932) due to the proclamation of the Republic, its urban circuit rubbed shoulders until 1935 (the Civil War began in 1936) with the most select of the continent.
Some “wonderful years” in which hot rod races delighted locals, foreigners and tourists who flocked to Lasarte in their thousands, eager for the smell of fuel and engine noise, to witness the deeds of the most renowned international drivers, various of which lost their lives in the circuit.
In addition to being avant-garde in its time, the Lasarte circuit was also a precursor in the field of equality, with the participation of female driving “aces” such as the pioneering Frenchwoman Jeannine Jenky, who in 1928 drove in San Sebastián after having triumphed in the IV hours of Burgundy, or the also French Anne-Cecile Rose-Itier, both at the controls of two Bugattis.
The evolutions of the most advanced machines from brands such as Auto Union (later Audi), Talbot, Peugeot and Lancia made headlines in the international press, although in the early twenties, during the first stage of the circuit, the leading role was taken over by the French teams.
star pilots
“Especially Bugatti, but Delage also had a lot of weight, which were the two houses that dominated the races” with “constant duels” between their star drivers such as Bartolomeo Constantini, Louis Chiron and Robert Benoist, explains Ángel Elberdin in statements to EFE.
French dominance passed at the end of the 1920s to Italian hands which, with Maseratti and Alfa Romeo as top exponents -recalls Elberdin-, toured the European circuits, although in the last years of Lasarte the German teams Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union were the ones that prevailed, with great drivers like Rudolf Caracciola and Luigi Fagioli, already in the twilight of a circuit that in 1926 had come to host the fourth edition of the European Grand Prix.
A time to which the current president of the RACVN, Pedro Martínez de Artola, looks back a hundred years later with the longing of someone who believes that, if continuity had been achieved, “this could have had a very great significance worldwide” for Gipuzkoa, where A “pole” of the international automobile was beginning to take shape, which unfortunately “was cut off” because at the end of the Civil War there were already “other priorities.”
motoring deeds
Although those old motoring feats only remain in the memory, part of its glamorous spirit is still alive today in the “San Sebastián Circuit Spirit”.
Led by the nostalgic José Luis Vélez and Agustín García, this initiative has been recovering the history of the Lasarte circuit for six years with a tour of vintage cars that recreates the historic caravan that toured a large part of Gipuzkoa as the culmination of the Automobile Week of San Sebastian in 1923.
A mute witness to those old glories, the huge silver cup donated by the general representative of Cadillac for the Lasarte circuit and that none of the winners managed to claim as their own (two victories in a row or three alternate victories were necessary) rests today in the San Sebastian facilities of the RACVN, who knows if waiting for better times.
Written by Carlos López Izquierdo.