The Longford Circuit was a temporary motor racing course laid out on public roads at Longford, south-west of Launceston in

Tasmania ) , nickname = , image_map = Tasmania in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of Tasmania in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdi ...

, Australia. It was located on the northern edges of the town and its lap passed under a railway line viaduct, crossed the

South Esk River The South Esk River, the longest river in Tasmania, is a major perennial river located in the northern region of Tasmania, Australia. Location and features The South Esk springs from the eastern foothills of the Ben Lomond plateau near Mathinn ...

via the wooden Kings Bridge, turned hard right at the doorstep of the Longford Hotel, passed over the railway line using a level crossing and traversed the South Esk again via another wooden structure, the Long Bridge. The circuit was in use from 1953 to 1968.

History

Its first race meeting was held in 1953, the Australian Grand Prix was staged there in

1959 Events January * January 1 - Cuba: Fulgencio Batista flees Havana when the forces of Fidel Castro advance. * January 2 - Lunar probe Luna 1 was the first man-made object to attain escape velocity from Earth. It reached the vicinity of E ...

and 1965 and the track hosted a round of the

Tasman Series The Tasman Series (formally the Tasman Championship for Drivers)Tasman Championship for Drivers, CAMS Manual of Motor Sport with National Competition Rules 1974, pages 80 to 83 was a motor racing competition held annually from 1964 to 1975 ove ...

each year from 1964 to 1968. It was also the venue for the single race 1962 Australian Touring Car Championship (at , Longford is the longest circuit ever used in the ATCC), the

Australian Tourist Trophy The Australian Tourist Trophy is a Confederation of Australian Motor Sport-sanctioned national motor racing title, contested between 1956 and 1979 by Sports Cars and, since 2007, by GT cars. The trophy is currently awarded to the outright winner ...

1960 It is also known as the "Year of Africa" because of major events—particularly the independence of seventeen African nations—that focused global attention on the continent and intensified feelings of Pan-Africanism. Events January * Jan ...

1964 Events January * January 1 – The Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland is dissolved. * January 5 - In the first meeting between leaders of the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches since the fifteenth century, Pope Paul VI and Patriarc ...

& 1966 and a round of the

Australian Drivers' Championship The Australian Drivers' Championship was a motor racing championship contested annually from 1957 to 2014 by drivers of cars complying with Australia's premier open-wheeler racing category as determined by the Confederation of Australian Motor ...

each year from 1958 to 1965. Its use as a motor racing venue was curtailed due to financial issues, following the running of the 1968 Tasman Series meeting.

Drivers

Drivers who raced at Longford read as a "who's who" of 1960s Grand Prix racing. The list includes World Champions

Jack Brabham Sir John Arthur Brabham (2 April 1926 – 19 May 2014) was an Australian racing driver who was Formula One World Champion in , , and . He was a founder of the Brabham racing team and race car constructor that bore his name. Brabham was a R ...

, Jim Clark, Graham Hill, Phil Hill,

Denny Hulme Denis Clive Hulme (18 June 1936 – 4 October 1992), commonly known as Denny Hulme, was a New Zealand racing driver who won the Formula One World Drivers' Championship for the Brabham team. Between his debut at Monaco in 1965 and his f ...

and

Jackie Stewart Sir John Young Stewart (born 11 June 1939), known as Jackie Stewart, is a British former Formula One racing driver from Scotland. Nicknamed the "Flying Scot", he competed in Formula One between 1965 and 1973, winning three World Drivers' Cha ...

, as well as

Bruce McLaren Bruce Leslie McLaren (30 August 1937 – 2 June 1970) was a New Zealand racing car designer, driver, engineer, and inventor. His name lives on in the McLaren team which has been one of the most successful in Formula One championship history, ...

and

Chris Amon Christopher Arthur Amon (20 July 1943 – 3 August 2016) was a New Zealand motor racing driver. He was active in Formula One racing in the 1960s and 1970s, and is widely regarded as one of the best F1 drivers never to win a championship Grand ...

. Australian open wheel and touring car stars Bib Stillwell,

Lex Davison Alexander Nicholas Davison (12 February 1923 – 20 February 1965) was a racing driver who won the Australian Grand Prix four times between 1954 and 1961 and won the Australian Drivers' Championship in 1957. He drove HWM-Jaguar, Ferrari, As ...

Leo Geoghegan Leo Geoghegan (16 May 1936 - 2 March 2015) was an Australian former racing driver. He was the elder of two sons of former New South Wales car dealer Tom Geoghegan, both of whom become dominant names in Australian motor racing in the 1960s. Whi ...

Frank Matich Frank Matich (25 January 193511 May 2015) was an Australian racing car driver. A highly successful motor racing competitor in the 1960s and 1970s, Matich built his own range of Matich sports cars and open wheel cars, mainly to support his ow ...

, Frank Gardner, Spencer Martin, Kevin Bartlett,

John Harvey John Harvey may refer to: People Academics * John Harvey (astrologer) (1564–1592), English astrologer and physician * John Harvey (architectural historian) (1911–1997), British architectural historian, who wrote on English Gothic architecture ...

Ian Geoghegan Ian "Pete" Geoghegan, (26 April 1939 – 15 November 2003) was an Australian race car driver, known for a quick wit and natural driving skills. Sometimes referred to as "Pete" Geoghegan, he was one of the iconic characters of the 1960s and 197 ...

Norm Beechey Norm Beechey is a retired Australian race car driver, who was given the nickname ''"Stormin Norman"'' by his fans. To some, he was the closest thing Holden had to a star racing driver, before Peter Brock. Beechey competed in the Australian Tou ...

Bob Jane Robert Frederick Jane (18 December 1929 – 28 September 2018) was an Australian race car driver and prominent entrepreneur and business tycoon. A four-time winner of the Armstrong 500, the race that became the prestigious Bathurst 1000 and a ...

and

Allan Moffat Allan George Moffat OBE (born 10 November 1939 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada) is a Canadian-Australian racing driver known for his four championships in the Australian Touring Car Championship, six wins in the Sandown 500 and his four ...

also raced at the circuit. Tasmanian John Youl was among the leading drivers in Australia during the 1960 period.

Lap Record

The new outright lap record of 2:12.6 set by

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

’s

in a Ferrari P4 sports car at the final meeting was, with an average lap speed of , the fastest lap record for any Australian motor racing circuit and would remain so until the opening of the new

Calder Park Thunderdome Calder Park Raceway is a motor racing circuit in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The complex includes a dragstrip, a road circuit with several possible configurations, and the "Thunderdome", a high-speed banked oval equipped to race either clo ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

in 1987, though unlike Longford which is a road circuit, the Thunderdome is a high-banked (24° in the turns) quad-oval speedway. Longford would continue as Australia's fastest road racing circuit until the

Formula One Formula One (also known as Formula 1 or F1) is the highest class of international racing for open-wheel single-seater formula racing cars sanctioned by the Fédération Internationale de l'Automobile (FIA). The World Drivers' Championship, ...

series moved to the new

Albert Park Grand Prix Circuit The Albert Park Circuit is a motorsport street circuit around Albert Park Lake, three kilometres south of central Melbourne. It is used annually as a circuit for the Formula One Australian Grand Prix, the supporting Supercars Championship Melb ...

in Melbourne in 1996. The official fastest race lap records at the Longford Circuit are listed as:

Present day

There is little left of the original track as the two bridges have long been demolished and a highway now intersects the network of roads on which the circuit was laid out. Motorsport returned to Longford in 2011 with the first running of the Longford Revival Festival which takes place on Pateena Road (The Flying Mile). There drivers get to run their cars, both road cars and historic race cars, down The Flying Mile.

References

External links

Longford Venue (Tasman-Series.com via Archive.org)Australian Touring Car Championship 1962 - with map of the circuit (primotipo.com)
{{Tasman Series circuits Former Supercars Championship circuits Sports venues in Tasmania Defunct motorsport venues in Australia Australian Grand Prix Motorsport in Tasmania Motorsport venues in Tasmania