Giant's history featured in Febuary issue of Sports Car

[svann]

Once again I've been pleased to see mention of hillclimbing in SCCA's Sports Car. It's part of Pete Hylton's great series on Ghost Tracks on page 44. It involves his search for Brynfan Tyddyn, a track I had also wondered about and forgot to ask some of you about. This was a actual road course just west of Wilkes-Barre, PA. It was run on a 3.5 mile road around a state senator's estate. It ran there from 1952 until 1956. His name was T. Newell Wood. I had read about that track in the great Burt Levy book "The Last Open Road" a few years ago and had intended to ask some of the hillclimb vets about it. It seems the races there where run on the same weekend as the Giant's Despair Hillclimb. I found it interesting that Pete seemed not to know that the hillclimb was still being run, at first. He does mention that it is still active, later in the article. I may have just misunderstood. Anyway, do any of you know anything about that race and exactly where that old road course was. It is a set of public roads just west of town. Pete found it and has a couple of photos in the article.

[Rich Sweigart]

Stan,

My Mom was at Brynfan Tyddyn as a very, young lady but, she doesn't remember much about it. Giant's was run on Friday and Saturday due to the Church and the small-bore races were on Sunday. Later on Drag races replaced the Brynfan on Sunday at Forty Fort Airport.

Rich

[Matt Rowe]

It looks like it was a combination of School House Rd, Church Rd and Outlet-Loyalville Rd just west of Harvey's lake. As a hint, the course map in the article is rotated so that north is towards the right of the map. Also, if you go here http://www.racingcircuits.net/UnitedSta ... yddyn.html you can pull up a map of the course.

It is nice to see Giant's getting a little press.

[Mel Horn]

Didn't they also have a track event at Berwick PA, I think it was SE of town on a tank factory proving ground...?

[Sue Salsburg]

I have old crinkly edged photos( of my MGA) which are labeled "Berwick Road Races 1958". One of the shots features Carl Mugford & John Noble in striped Offical shirts. Naturally my piece of junk is the one with the big ugly roll bar. Sue

[Tim Royer]

HI,

I think you are talking about the Giants Despair track that was in that that area near Tank Rd. I have been there looking for this track this year but haven't found it yet. It was called Giants Despair for some reason.

[Ron Mann]

in the research I've been doing for my book...I have come across some info on Brynfan Tyddyn...

Tech and practice for both events were held on Thursdays, Giant's would run all day Friday and a Concourse D'Elegane was held from West End of Market ST. Bridge and a "Giant show of antique, classic, sport and modern cars" was held at the rear of Cresko Motors.

Saturday was the road race. 5 races; first race was 10 laps for stock MG's. second race was 10 laps for class G (750 - 100cc) & H (500-750 cc). third race was another 10 lapper for formula III cars. Fourth race was 10 laps for Porsches and Mark II MG's and the fifth race was a 15 lap for modified cars in class E (1500-2000 cc) and F (1100-1500 cc). each lap was about 3.5 miles long.

grand finale for the weekend was held at Wat-A-Hunee Park!! somewhere close to the road track near Sandy Beach Road.

Dick Irish of Cleveland was the track's first winner in a Kiefft auto.

1953 Fritz Koster of Sayville Long Island had the fastest time of 34:13.6 which was a new record.
first race winner Harry Dager of Hatboro in an MGTD
second race winner William Flemming of Westport CT in a Porsche
third race winner R. L. Moodie of Ottawa, Canada in a Cooper
fourth race winner Albert Garthwaite jr. in a Osca
and Koster in the last race with a Maserati

the Brynfan Tyddyn Challange Trophy awarded for the highest average of speed achieved by the winner of a scheduled race.