1987: CZECH GP “IN THOSE DAYS THE GRAVEL WAS A BIT COARSER”
It is almost impossible to reimagine what it was like when the fine new Brno circuit was opened back in 1987. The Iron Curtain still divided Europe, the Berlin Wall was still standing, and while there were at least as many race fans there as today, and probably more, it was hard to know exactly how they’d got there.Their smoky Trabants and battered Skodas were nowhere to be seen, hidden over the hills in the official (i.e. compulsory) campsite.
The traffic jams outside the circuit were made up of trudging lines of pedestrians, whose wear y grey faces and care-worn clothing made them look like refugees. And ever y so often one of those dramatic split-rear-window Tatras would come beetle-backing past at contemptuous speed, the apparatchiks within invisible behind shaded windows.
“IT WAS THE START OF WHAT OLD-TIMERS LOOK BACK ON AS THE FIRST GOLDEN AGE, WITH A VARIETY OF BIKES AND A GROWING TALENT POOL OF GLAMOROUS STAR RIDERS.”
Official figures put attendance at 140,000 compared with 2018’s raceday, 84,678; and there were rumours of massive queues at the nearest border with race-starved East Germany.
It was
