Originally published at: In 1982, Double Decker Bus racing was a thing | Boing Boing
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Aaah those were the days – we’d do anything to get out of the house rather than have Dickie Davies inflict another checked sports jacket on us.
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They should have had some obstacles, like pop-up “pedestrians” or sudden stoplights along the course.
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The 70’s were full of interesting “sports that are not quite actually professional sports but are weirdly cool and will get highlighted on some esoteric sporting program.” I’d add this to that long list. I miss the days when television had to fill the hours with this instead of spending billions to air boring baseball and football games.
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I know this is such a cliché European perspective but I really feel that sport would be improved if it had left turns as well as right.
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I lived in the UK a few years after this and would swear that I saw some double-decker racing on the beeb. I wonder how long it went on or if I was just seeing reruns?
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You might have seen one of the many (in my fevered memory) times a Blue Peter presenter did the Chiswick skid test. Unfortunately google didn’t throw that up so
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I was thinking exactly the same - even more so because the circuit was so short.
Also, I am used to old footage from 4:3 days being stretched horizontally (shudders) to fit 16:9 screens but this looked like it had been ever so slightly compressed horizontally. I have no idea what sort of aspect ratio correction process was used there, but something was definitely a little bit off.
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You wait for a bus for hours, then three… four… five… six turn up at once…
Ah, Grandstand. The memories of '70s and '80s Saturday afternoon TV flood back.
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Ice speedway is the nearest thing there is in the real world to rollerball. It’s insane.
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My dad was in London in the 70s and came across a spot where they were training drivers to handle skids in the double-decker buses. It was impressive: they’d get up to speed and pitch the thing sideways; you wouldn’t think it would stay upright doing that.
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As the former owner of a bus (though, regrettably, I never drifted it) they are astonishingly robust. Not as much fun as a fire engine though. Those things can move.
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I like the onboard camera work.
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In one of the motorhome or bus magazines I used to get they had a test of a fire truck with a 550hp Detroit Diesel engine. Why I don’t know, but they did. They had pics of the thing doing wheelies off the line.
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