It was industrialist M.A. Chidambaram (MAC) who, as the then Chairman of the Automobile Association of Southern India (AASI), sowed the seeds for a separate motoring club in Madras. Chidambaram felt that the AASI should concentrate on the motoring activities of the public and a separate organisation should be formed to help develop the sport of motor-racing. Thus was born the Madras Motor Sports Club (MMSC) in 1953. The Club was registered in 1954.

MAC also wanted a separate unit to be created by the MMSC to conduct races. The first Race Committee was formed in 1955 with MAC as its Chairman. The Committee included Govind Swaminathan, B.I. Chandhok, F.V. Arul, the then Inspector General of Police, A. Sivasailam, who later became the Chairman of Amalgamations, the Officer Commanding, the IAF Station at Tambaram, and Janji Varugis. Chandhok was asked to be the Secretary of this Committee. “The committee had just one 30-minute meeting and thereafter each of us carried out the allotted tasks and reported the developments to MAC,” recalls Chandhok.

Soon, a track was selected at Sholavaram. It was an old Air Force airfield. The track selected was the south and west wings of a L-shaped area. A tight left after the start and a fast right-hander after two U-turns completed the 2-mile circuit. There were two chicanes, one on each of the straights. A car once missed the right-hand turn and nearly ran into the crowd at the corner on a practice day. Immediately, it was decided to shift the public stands further south and away from the run-off area. The pits and paddocks were located on the western side of the track which, unfortunately, had a lot of potholes. “I remember the miraculous escape of Hari Rao on his bike,” recalls Chandhok. “He hit a pothole and went flying.”

For the next few years, this L-shaped track was used for all the races. Because of the non-standardisation of the variety of cars and bikes, the races were handicapped.

As the Sholavaram facility belonged to the Military, the MMSC could not say anything when someone in the Army decided to test its new tanks on its runway. Before long, the surface of the southern section of the track was ruined. This forced the MMSC to use the east-west straight and, to make it interesting, the Club used a portion of the northern runway. This change made it a T-shaped track. The stands were located on the southern side and gave the spectators a great view of the entire track. The time-keeper and judges were located on the opposite side – at that time there were as many as 50 time-keepers and 50 lap-recorders.

Bharat Bhushan had a tough time getting these 100 persons. He used to convince many to come to Sholavaram by suggesting that it would be a picnic for the family. J.N. Patel, who was in charge of the Club’s ‘construction department’ for over 25 years, built a part of the stands over the concrete runway without making holes. His elder brother, Suresh, was responsible for framing the rules and he strictly enforced them. Their younger brother, Dr. Prakash Patel, set up a mini-hospital at the track every year and had a great team of doctors to help competitors. He was kept quite busy, especially by the two-wheelers.

The medical centre and pits were located to the northeast of the track and the approach was by a narrow road which led to the Sholavaram Dak Bungalow. This bungalow was used by many senior officials of the Club to stay the night before the races in order to save time and an hour’s drive on the morning of the races which often began at 8.30. This was also a very popular finishing point for family fun rallies.

The start of the northern end of the runway was used as the starting paddock. The southern runway provided enough space for car parking, a police outpost for over 1000 policemen, ticket booths, etc.

The track of Sholavaram also had non-motoring use. Whenever there was a shortage of space in Government godowns, the Sholavaram track was used to store wheat. Fortunately the wheat was stacked right in the middle of the ‘T’ track. This storing of wheat actually sorted out another problem. The track was so wide that there were many crashes at the U-turns, especially the first one, after the start on the western side. The problem was discussed with the RAC in London and the Club was advised that the width of the track should not be more than 35’. After the wheat stock was removed, the 150’ wide runway was divided by having a 80’ no-man’s land in the centre with 35’ wide tracks on the two sides. This wide space in the centre was used for the wheat storage as well as for ambulances, marshals, etc. The result was a difficult corner on the northwest side – left corner – and a chicane was designed to slow down vehicles before the corner. The northeast corner became very fast and many a vehicle went into no-man’s land after crossing the hay bales. Cotton bales were tried, but they were too hard for comfort.

The most prestigious stand was at the northwest corner of the track opposite the chicane and the corners. All along the northern side and next to the time-keepers and judges’ boxes, the Club built special boxes, each to hold 30 persons, and sold them to various companies so as to raise funds. A special Chief Guest box was also located there.

The Club had the good fortune to have MGR as its Chief Guest on more than one occasion. During his visits, Chandhok was often asked to look after him. He spoke his Tamil and MGR often answered in his English. At the prize distributions MGR spoke in Tamil and V. Chidambaram (CT) was always the official translator of the speech into English.

(To be continued)