“It was like travelling to another world. We all loved the track, because it was so different and the atmosphere was amazing. It was just one big adventure.” The words belong to 1970s and 1980s touring car star Pierre Dieudonne and their subject is the Brno street circuit in the former Czechoslovakia.
The Belgian was twice a winner, in 1976 and 1979 driving a BMW 3.0 CSL for Luigi Racing, on the 8.663 miles of public highway that wound through small villages, country roads and the outskirts of the city after which the track was universally known. Despite the obvious dangers, he has fond memories of his seven participations on the circuit, which was correctly called the Masarykring, in the European Touring Car Championship between 1976 and 1986.
“It was frightening, not the kind of place where you could go off and walk away,” recalls Dieudonne, who is perhaps better known for close the links with Mazda that brought him seven starts at the Le Mans 24 Hours than for a touring car career encompassing two victories in the Spa 24 Hours. “And of course there was no discussion about track limits like today. In places it was just road, some grass and then the countryside! You even went over tram lines as you went into the city.
“I was used to racing on the old Spa-Francorchamps, but this was a little bit different. There were a lot of what I might call awkward places and you really felt that you were risking your life.”
One of those was the sweeping section through the village of Bosonohy right after the wide start-finish straight of a track whose history dated from 1930 until it was replaced in 1987 by the permanent facility still in use today in what is now the Czech Republic.
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“It was very narrow through there and a place where you could gain a lot because it was followed by another long straight,” explains Dieudonne. “You really had to take a deep breath.
“It was impossible to go through there side by side with another car. I remember one year, it must have been 1985, when I was in an Eggenberger Volvo 240 Turbo and Gerhard Berger was in a Schnitzer BMW 635CSi, and lap after lap we were together and sometimes alongside each other past the pits. One of us would point as we approached the village to indicate who would go first.”
Source: Autosport