"Whilst sitting at café in evening watching policeman directing traffic at cross roads, see large Vintage Citroën run on to foot of pedestrian trying to cross. Elderly driver gets flustered, stalls car, still on foot of pedestrian who is now stamping free foot and yelling to beat the band. Helpful onlookers rush forward to push car, but as some go to front and some to back, merely results in car rocking violently, still on wretched man's foot. Policeman eventually sorts thing out, gets car moving and roundly ticks off pedestrian for walking in front of car. Man limps off, turning round at intervals to shout rudely at policeman who replies in kind. Crowd of about fifty people who have arrived from nowhere now busy explaining what has happened to another hundred who didn't see it at all"

The above VSCC extract sums up the atmosphere of laughter and fun which once again prevailed at Albi. 29 TOPS members took their Grand Prix and pre-war racing cars to the circuit for the weekend at the generous invitation of René Mauries of Ecurie Cathare. The sun shone, people smiled, cars behaved and a good time was had by everyone except poor Graham Burrows. After his monumental crankshaft blow-up at Monza, he visited Rumania and had his briefcase stolen; dashed to Albi to play with Noble's Cooper-Bristol and seized the engine in the first session - then the radiator on his tow car burst …….

Our cars were all displayed in the paddock and really did look good. It was a marvellous selection which included Maserati, Aston Martin, Talbot Lago, Bugatti, HWM, ERA, Cooper-Bristol, Amilcar and Alfa Romeo - the French were thrilled.

After Friday afternoon's car titivation and sight-seeing, there was a Gala Dinner for 300 in René's aircraft hangar. The Frazer Nash group attracted bribes when they were seen using their Leatherman knives to attack the lobster claws. The French were showing off their popular locally-made Laguiole knives and the rest of us were relatively normal.

Maurice Trintignant was guest of honour and led every warming up lap in a Ferrari 512BB. The first track session at 8 a.m. on Saturday was for cyclecars and a varied grid of 32 took part, practically in the dark. The only English entrant in this group was Erika Pilkington in her Austin 7 Ulster. She was thrilled to find that she was able to overtake most of the field of Amilcars, BNCs, Salmsons, Lombards, etc. In fact her car 'Bumble' was so excited by this rare occurrence that he even dropped the exhaust pipe to help distract the opposition. The next race was mainly for DB racers and another entry of 32 set off. Chris Wilson's Nash and Tony Bianchi's Allard went out with them and found it a hair-raising experience requiring the use of the escape road on several occasions - 'mainly for avoidance' they both said although Tony admitted that his brakes were getting too hot. His legs were later seen protruding from under the car amid a variety of tools and oil.

After that it was the Bugatti race. We had been asked, at the last moment, to help with the entries. What a surprise they got! Two type 51s, a type 45, 2 Frazer Nashes, 2 Alfa Romeo 1750s, 2 C6 Amilcars - actually they pinched some of these from our GP grid but no-one minded. Michel Blanchard's very fast Bugatti 35B gave Charles Dean's raucous Bugatti type 51 a good race and prevented Charles from stopping to sort out his exhaust pipe which was falling off and ended up holed. Behind them Lord Raglan (Fitzroy) was having a marvellous time with his 51 and delighted in overtaking John Howell's recently repaired Bugatti 45. Fitzroy said he was going far too fast for himself but thoroughly enjoying it. Appearing in different positions on almost every lap and often seen on the grass, were Paul Bullett and Steve Robert's Frazer Nashes. Tania Pilkington was having a great time in her 1750 Alfa Romeo dicing with the lovely Amilcars and staying ahead of the Delahaye 135s and the awful Ramouna Pettanella's replica 1750 complete with modern engine and disc brakes hidden inside false drums. Abba Kogan was black flagged for taking a passenger in his Delahaye and seemed not to know what it meant ….. Brian Gilbart-Smith was obviously enjoying himself in his fast AC Ace-Bristol. After that, 23 motorcycles ranging from a 1928 Velocette MK7 to a 1956 Manx Norton went round.

Then it was the Grand Prix cars which were the highlight of the weekend. All eyes were on Sir John Venables-Llewelyn's Alfa Romeo P3 and Ted Rollason's Aston Martin DBR4 as they gave magnificent displays of driver control whilst chasing each other round the circuit. John then lost 2 gears in the P3 leaving Ted to give Abba, driving his Maserati 250F for the first time, a guided tour before Abba spun trying to keep up. Meanwhile the Talbot Lagos of Baron François d'Huart and Richard Pilkington were having a great battle with Kirk Ryland's HWM and Peter Mann's ERA. The Cooper-Bristols of Mike Fraser and Graham Burrows were so involved in keeping each other at bay that Mike spun and stayed on the grass for a while with seized starter. Graham, watching Kirk approaching the chicane at right-angles trying to miss a rabbit which decided to commit hara-kiri, missed a gear and seized the engine. Trisha Pilkington was having a marvellous time in her Alfa Romeo Monza and finding lots of cars to 'play' with. Stephen Curtis put in some fast laps in his HWM staying ahead of Mark Hevia's rapid Brutus, and Ian Nuthall's Frazer Nash. The marshalls had plenty of opportunity for flag-waving and exercise as they tried to dodge the cars taking the short cut. Jacky Iuri found lots of people to dice with in his Cameron Miller Maserati 250F and joined everyone else in taking avoiding action to miss the mobile chicane of Gayraud's mixed parentage '250F'.

The afternoon was a repeat of the morning and good fun. John managed to repair the P3's gearbox and the organisers were so enthusiastic about the Grand Prix cars that they just left everyone going round and round the circuit - Kirk managed to run out of petrol and the others stopped eventually!

It was a good weekend thanks to René Mauries "for the pleasure of my friends and the joy of sight, sound and heart". Sadly René was to die soon afterwards.