A TEST FOR THE BEST

In the latest in our series looking back at the roads of classic races, Simon Warren explores the Chiltern routes of the Archer Grand Prix

- Simon Warren

The list of past winners of the Archer Grand Prix reads like a who’s who of British domestic racing over the second half of the 20th century into the dawn of the 21st. Hugh Porter, Paul Sherwen, Paul Curran, Chris Walker, Roger Hammond, the list goes on. And then there was Mr Archer Grand Prix Steve Farrell, who between 1987 and 1991 took an unprecedented four wins in this now sadly lost classic British race. Run by north London’s Archer Road Club and orchestrated by the late Stuart Benstead, the race first appeared on the calendar in 1956 and was a mainstay of the domestic scene until its demise in 2007.

We are here to get a feel for the roads that made the race, to see where the attacks were launched and the hurt dished out over the years. The first editions of the Grand Prix departed the London Borough of Hillingdon and ventured up and down the A40, but even with 1950s levels of traffic this soon became unfeasible, so after a couple of years it relocated to the Chiltern Hills. Utilising the lanes and indeed the main roads between Beaconsfield and Amersham, a 12-mile circuit was plotted in this famously lumpy part of Britain and the race had its home.