A book about East London’s Grand Prix history sold out at its low-key launch at the track this past weekend.
Former East Londoner Glenn Hollands’ new book, Off The Circuit: A South African Town Makes Grand Prix History. How the First Grand Prix Outside Europe was raced in East London created a small sensation in an obscure corner of the food court at the track.
From pound-millionaire car owners and racers to humble, elderly East Londoners, racegoers visited the table and bought up to five copies at a time. Many said these were Christmas presents for older family members who had history with the track
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While the book delves into the history of East London’s motor racing culture, Hollands’ 18-month project was inspired by his research into the surfing culture of the city.
He came upon a photograph of local surfers giving international Grand Prix drivers surf lessons at Nahoon Beach, and this set him off on a research trajectory which culminated in the book launch at the track.
“I thought the photograph and what it said about the city’s history was really interesting and I started asking questions like why were the drivers here, what brought them here,” said Hollands, while showing off the photograph taken in 1962, which appears at the beginning of his book.
Self-published, the book chronicles the events and people that led East London to become the top city in pre-World War II South African Grand Prix racing, while also commenting on the social history and implications of the booming motoring culture.
“Brud Bishop, the then-motoring editor of the Daily Dispatch, was so successful in spinning this idea of a major racing event in Africa that 42,000 people turned up for the event in 1934 and it really put East London on the map,” said Hollands.
“I explore what that meant for East London back then and what it means now by questioning the connection of East London as a motor racing city then and a motor city now, being home to Mercedes-Benz,” he said.
Hollands, with a background in political science, admits he was initially not a huge racing fan and that his political science skills led him to take a different approach to writing about motor racing.
Not being a petrol head, he aimed to make the book appeal to regular readers without going into deep technical detail.
“There were fascinating political dynamics going on throughout the era of the Grand Prix in SA, so the book also explores things like the influence of the war and the fact that in the late 30s we had Nazi drivers here, competing in our races,” said Hollands.
“This project was purely for fun and I realised that when you research and write about something you don’t know much about, you learn so much along the way and you tend to approach it without any assumptions.”
Hollands said that he grew to be in awe of people’s accounts and memories of the racing events and all the pieces of history he discovered.
“It’s very easy to get out of your depth, and once you start digging in the archives its easy to find things that are outside of your focus but are still so interesting,” said Hollands.
The book will be available through the Border-Kei Chamber of Business and The What’s On from next week at R280 per copy...