Joe Kelly (13 March 1913 – 28 November 1993) was a racing driver and motor trader from Ireland. He was born in Dublin and was raised there, later moving to England. He died in Neston, Cheshire, England.
By profession Kelly was a motor dealer from Dublin and he used the profits from this business to indulge his interest in motorsport. He raced a Maserati 6CM on 20 August 1949, during the 1949 BRDC International Trophy meeting at Silverstone Circuit. It was the first race meeting to use the former airfield’s perimeter roadways, rather than the main runways. The event was held that day over two heats of 20 laps and one final of 30 laps of the Grand Prix circuit. The final was won by Italian Alberto Ascari driving a Ferrari; Ascari would go on to win the Formula One World Championship twice. The race meeting was marred by the death of St. John Horsfall in an accident during the final race.
In 1950, Kelly – using his own Alta GP car, the last built – participated in the 1950 and 1951 British rounds of the Formula One World Championship. He was not classified in the results of either race, scoring no championship points, and his best grid position was 18th place, but his persistence with the Alta GP car paid off in 1952 with third place in the Ulster Trophy at Dundrod. His Alta was later modified to accept a naturally aspirated Bristol straight-6 engine to become the Irish Racing Automobile.
He also owned and raced a Jaguar C-Type sports car which he raced in Ireland at “The Curragh”, known throughout the world as the home of Irish horse racing, and could also boast of having no less than two motor racing circuits in the late 1940s and early fifties. Known as the “Short” circuit and the “Big” circuit, both played host to great entries and attracted huge crowds. The Short circuit was first used in 1947 and catered for both car and motorcycle events. It was used until the late fifties, whereas the “Big” circuit was the venue for the famous International Wakefield Trophy car races which were held annually from 1949 to 1954. At a June meeting the lap record was broken by Kelly, this time driving a Maserati. This was the first purpose-built racing car to compete at the Curragh. Up until then the entries consisted mostly of MGs and home or garage built “specials”. The crowd had become a great fan of Kelly and he certainly gave them a demonstration of high speed racing that day. The record which he set that day was to remain unbroken until 1954, when he again shattered it by almost 10 mph, this time in a Ferrari sports car.
His own full-time driving career came to an end in 1955, following a serious accident at the Oulton Park circuit. However, he did compete in some hill climbs in later life driving Porsche and Ferrari sports cars, at Wicklow in Ireland. His Jaguar C-Type is still raced in historic meetings around the world, as is his Ferrari Monza. Info from Wiki
The proprietor of a flourishing car dealership, Joe Kelly made two World Championship starts, driving an Alta GP-3 in the 1950 and 1951 British Grands Prix at Silverstone and it was said he was the first Irishman to compete in F1. After retiring from racing he concentrated on his business interests, which included the Irish Ferrari concession, and owned many famous homes during his property dealing days in the 1970s and 1980’s in Ireland and England.
Joe was born on the 13th March 1913 in Dublin and after leaving school went to work at a market and later became an apprentice on the railways, learning to be a fitter on steam trains. He eventually began driving trams and buses around Dublin with an old school friend and they used to race each other at the end of the night shift, until Joe had a crash and had to leave in a hurry. He moved to England just before the War and lived and worked in London where he met his girlfriend Maureen, whom he married and the couple had four children. They returned to Ireland after the War and in 1947 he opened a garage and petrol station called The Red Cow in Clondalkin, South Dublin.
He started his racing career in the late 1940s and in 1948 was at The Curragh, in County Kildare, with his Irish Racing Automobile, which he had built at his Red Cow garage. The Curragh would have two circuits, known as the ‘Short’ circuit and the ‘Big’ circuit and both attracted huge crowds. The Short circuit was first used in 1947, and would host car and motorcycle events and was used until the late fifties, while the ‘Big’ circuit was the venue for the Wakefield Trophy car races which were held annually from 1949 to 1954.
He was back at the Curraugh the following year to contest the Wakefield Trophy with a Maserati 6CM and set a record that remained unbeaten until 1954 (which he himself would break). He was also fourth with a pre War ERA in the O’Boyle Trophy Formula Libre race at the Curraugh and was eighth at the Manx Cup with a Lea Francis powered Irish Racing Automobiles car. In late August he raced the Maserati in the International Trophy at Silverstone, the first race meeting to use the former airfield’s perimeter roadways, rather than the main runways, and it comprised two twenty lap heats and a thirty lap final. Alberto Ascari took the victory in a Ferrari, with Joe finishing nineteenth, though the race was marred by the death of St.John Horsfall.
After purchasing an Alta he contested the first ever round of the World Championship at Silverstone in May 1950 and qualified nineteenth of the twenty one starters, ahead of the Maserati of Joe Fry and the Talbot-Lago of Johnny Claes. Geoffrey Crossley also entered in an Alta and the two ran at the back of the field in their underpowered cars until Crossley retired on lap forty three with transmission problems. Although Joe managed to get the finish, clutch problems through the race had seen him thirteen laps adrift of the leaders and he was denied classification though he had set a milestone in being the first Irishman to race in the World Championship. He had a second place finish in the Wakefield Trophy handicap race at the Curragh, having looked set to win after working his way up through the field, but was passed by Duncan Hamilton’s Maserati 6CM on the very last corner and was beaten by less than a car’s length. Later in the season, he did not qualify at the International Trophy but finished fourth in the Ulster Trophy at Dundrod and eighth in the Jersey Road Race in St.Helier. There was also a seventh place finish in a Formula Libre race at the Ulster Trophy meeting with his Irish Racing Automobile and outings with a Maserati 6C saw retirement at the British Empire Trophy due to an accident and third in a Formula Libre race at Phoenix Park.
His first race in 1951 came in May at Silverstone’s International Trophy but the rain which fell at the start soon turned into a torrential downpour. Drivers struggled in the difficult conditions and the organisers ended the race on the sixth lap but Joe had already retired his Alta on the third lap. He was also entered in a sports car race at the meeting with an Aston Martin but did not start the race. There was a sixth place in a Formula Libre handicap race at Phoenix Park and in June he contested the Ulster Trophy at Dundrod but the Alta seemed down on power and he was out with mechanical problems after six laps. He returned to Silverstone the following month for the British GP, where he qualified eighteenth, though after completing seventy five of the race’s ninety laps, he was not classified at the finish. Shortly after he was at Winfield Aerodrome in Berwickshire for a fifty lap Scottish Grand Prix. With the Dutch GP taking place the following day few cars were expected and, faced with such a small entry the organisers allowed sportscars to enter, which would also be at the circuit for some of the other races during the meeting. A number of drivers failed to arrive while Parnell was in trouble as the BRM and his Maserati failed to arrive but another driver offered him his HWM to drive. Only ten cars lined up on the grid but at the start the driveshaft on the borrowed HWM had broken and polesitter Parnell was out without completing a lap. During the race, Joe battled for the lead with Archie Butterworth and David Murray, before Butterworth’s engine failed on lap thirteen and Joe retired one lap later with a broken gearbox. His final Alta outing came at the Wakefield Trophy and he was hoping for a strong performance after finishing second the year before. Unfortunately he suffered a repeat of the gearbox problems experienced at Winfield, which again ended his race. His season’s final race came a week later at the Tourist Trophy at Dundrod but frustratingly he suffered problems with the Aston Martin and was again unable to start the race.
In the following year he did not qualify the Alta for May’s Daily Express International Trophy at Silverstone and retired due to valve trouble after leading in the following week’s Ulster Trophy. During this time he acquired a Jaguar C-Type (the last production-built C-Type) and in his first outing he was seventh (and second in class) in September’s Tourist Trophy at Dundrod with Jack Fairman and later in the month he was fifth in the Wakefield Trophy at the Curraugh and third at Charterhall.
1954 started with drives with the C-Type where he was twelfth in the British Empire Trophy, sixteenth in the Silverstone International and tenth in the Aintree International. He achieved several podiums, including second and third in the Leinster Trophy at Wicklow (where he also set a new lap record) and a 50 Mile Cork handicap race, third in the Wakefield Trophy and in September took victory at Cranfield. In February that year he had travelled to Maranello to meet with Enzo Ferrari and purchased a 750 Monza (supposedly the first example to be sold to a privateer) plus got the Ferrari agency for Ireland after buying the Irish Ferrari concession on Townsend Street in Dublin. His first outing with the Ferrari came alongside Desmond Titterington in the Tourist Trophy at Dundrod though they had to retire after thirteen laps due to gearbox problems. In the following week, he was third at Curragh, beating his own track record, and at one part of the course his Ferrari became airborne for several yards after hitting a bump on the road. In the week after the Curragh, he invited Mike Hawthorn to drive his Ferrari in a meeting at Goodwood and Hawthorn recorded in his autobiography that “as I drove out to the start, I thought the back axle sounded noisy. The mechanics assured me, ‘They’re all like that. We’ve only just put it together’-but I still did not like the sound of it.” Starting from the third row, he ran well and set the fastest lap of the race in pursuit of Masten Gregory and Roy Salvadori, before hearing “a horrible crunch and the rear axle broke”. At the end of the year the Royal Irish Automobile Club awarded Joe the prestigious Sexton Trophy for the best overall performance in Irish road racing events.
Unfortunately, in his first race in 1955, at Oulton Park’s British Empire Trophy in early April, he suffered a huge crash during a qualifying heat. While charging hard in his C-Type, the accident sent him into the BBC commentary box and Joe, two officials and a doctor were injured but sadly one of the marshals succumbed to his injuries in the following days. He suffered severe injuries and narrowly escaped the amputation of his badly damaged leg. Joe described how, “after a coming together with (Stirling) Moss and (Bob) Berry I went flying off the track straight through the BBC commentary box, scattering Raymond Baxter, his wife and numerous spectators in all directions and injuring a marshal. I was rushed to hospital where they decided to amputate my leg. But while they were making preparations for the operation, sharpening the knife and so forth, I was making my own preparations to fly home to Dublin to my own surgeon. Thankfully, he saved the leg. It still gets painful from time to time, but I suppose a leg with a pain is better than no leg at all.” After a long convalescence he entered the Tourist Trophy at Dundrod in September, sharing a Frazer Nash Le Mans Replica with John Maurice Tew and they finished twenty third and fourth in class.
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