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FEATURE<br />
The country’s increasing footprint<br />
on Grand Prix began<br />
around the curves and weaves<br />
of Montjuic back in 1968<br />
thanks to Catalan Salvador<br />
Cañellas who triumphed in the<br />
125cc event – some seventeen<br />
years after the roads had first<br />
been used as a world championship<br />
venue.<br />
“I raced at Montjuic when all<br />
the races in Spain were streetbased;<br />
like annual festivals<br />
in towns and we’d all set off<br />
from the local plaza,” said the<br />
74 year old speaking from the<br />
confines of the opulent Hotel<br />
Casa Fuster in Passeig de<br />
Gracia, and at an event to celebrate<br />
50 years of petroleum<br />
giant Repsol’s involvement in<br />
motorsports from bikes to rally<br />
to F1. “Montjuic was beautiful<br />
and set in the park so there<br />
were a lot of trees and quite a<br />
bit of elevation as it went up<br />
and down the hill. It was a lot<br />
of fun.”<br />
Cañellas prospered at a time<br />
when Spain and Catalunya<br />
were burgeoned with manufacturers<br />
like Bultaco, Derbi,<br />
Ossa, Montesa and just as<br />
Angel Nieto was beginning<br />
a thirteen world championship<br />
spree that would see the<br />
diminutive racer achieve pop<br />
star status in his homeland. “At<br />
the time using the motorcycle<br />
was a way of life for many<br />
people: to get around, to go<br />
to work and it was just at the<br />
beginning the mass emergence<br />
of cars,” says Cañellas, who<br />
also won the 50cc 1970 Grand<br />
Prix on a Derbi. “Bikes were<br />
not really seen as a something<br />
for sport. I think that<br />
came about only when people<br />
replaced them with cars and<br />
they saw the bike as more of a<br />
‘play thing’.”<br />
Montjuic was very much a<br />
place of its time. Grands Prix<br />
occurred from 1951 until 1976<br />
(Cañellas: “I remember as a<br />
kid seeing the International<br />
races and watching bikes like<br />
the <strong>No</strong>rtons and Matchless,<br />
seeing riders like Flores compete<br />
with his coloured handkerchief.<br />
It made me want to<br />
race. And then there was the<br />
smell. The bikes used to run<br />
oil that gave a distinct odour<br />
of racing – it was like a special<br />
drug. You were addicted. It’s<br />
disappeared now but when<br />
you smelt it then you knew<br />
you were at a motorcycling<br />
event.”).<br />
The 1972 500cc World Championship<br />
– the premier class<br />
and the forerunner of ‘MotoGP’<br />
– also had circuits that<br />
would now strike fear into any<br />
racer: Nurburgring (Germany),<br />
Spa (Belgium), Salzburgring<br />
(Austria), Isle of Man, Imatra<br />
(Finland) and Opatija (now<br />
Croatia). That year Chas Mortimer<br />
became the eighth and<br />
last British winner at Montjuic<br />
to join a roll call of names like<br />
Read, Ivy, Graham and Hailwood.<br />
“The only 500 Grand Prix I<br />
ever won,” the 70 year old<br />
reflects today on the feat<br />
achieved with a Yamaha. “We<br />
never really thought about the<br />
safety thing in those days. It<br />
was just generally accepted<br />
that someone would get<br />
‘knocked-off’ every month. I<br />
think one of most dangerous<br />
circuits we ever raced on was<br />
Opatija in the former Yugoslavia<br />
because there was a rock<br />
face around one of the corners!<br />
<strong>No</strong>body ever battered an eyelid!<br />
It was so dangerous and<br />
two-three people were killed<br />
there.”<br />
“I used to love Montjuic but<br />
then I always used to go well<br />
at the dangerous circuits,”<br />
he adds. “I won the TT a few<br />
times and Opatija as well.
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