Sport and Class

The Stigler's earlier post on sport in schools got me thinking, a bit.  Some of you may know that my particular sport (passion?) is motor sport.  And in many ways the development of UK motorsport, and its rise to international dominance - although declining a bit now - is interesting in how it reflects class, or perhaps wealth.

Before WW2 motor sport in the UK generally revolved around Brooklands.  The spectators and participants came from the 'right crowd and there was no crowding'.  But, by the late '30's a small number of impecunious enthusiasts were looking to see how they could also go racing, without basically any money. And out of that grew the 750 Motor Club which was started, by among others the notable Bill Boddy.

The immediate post war racing scene was dominated by generally the same marques as pre-war; Maserati, Alfa Romeo, Lancia and by the early 1950's Mercedes Benz.  And out of the Italian marques grew Ferrari. Ferrari built his business by selling to rich people and basic cronyism and political manipulation.

Meanwhile back in England the 750 Motor Club encouraged innovation among its relatively low wealth members who developed very ingenious, and low cost, methods of making cars go quickly.  People like Cooper, Chapman, Broadley, Duckworth and Costin and others drove forward development.  And pretty well none of them were in any way upper class or aristocratic. This was grass roots stuff.  There were also Jingoistic industrialists like Tony Vandervell (Vanwall - whose aerodynamics were sorted by Costin and suspension by Chapman) or Lyons (Jaguar) who sought to challenge the Continentals. By the late '50's other players like Lister and Connaught - run by the same sort of underfunded enthusiasts - were making a serious impact in what we now call Europe.

Other factors also helped UK motor sport.  Lots of disused aerodromes with excellent perimeter tracks just made for setting out as a circuit; Silverstone, Snetterton, Thruxton and Croft to name but four.  There were also a lot of adventurous, underemployed and technically trained individuals looking for new excitements or to make an excitement to replace the lost adrenaline rush of combat.

In short the UK was a hot house of development and opportunity, and most of it came from the bottom, not the top.  The very sport that one would think would be a rich man's game became the game of everyman. And what this 'free market' did was to innovate and out-develop every other country in the world.  No subsidies, no government help, no tax breaks, no 'special status' or development area grants.  Just the famous free for all of the free market, and a huge amount of ingenuity, and I think crucially, a shortage of money.

The car I race now was designed in 1963 by a bloke who is still alive and whom I know well.  He was part of the 750MC revolution and he maintains that by the early '60's 'we had sorted out all the issues with designing suspensions and chassis and engines'.  Taking that knowledge - worked out by the average bloke - he and others like Cooper, Chapman, Broadly and Derek Bennett went and totally stuffed all the grandee continental teams.

So perhaps using the example of one of the most expensive sports of all, it is not being born into or having wealth or being subsidised that drives success. It is ingenuity and determination, and liberty; the absence of bureaucratic constraints.