Tiff Needell's column

Tiff raises a glass or two to the most prestigious motoring event on the wine-tasting calendar!

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By Tiff Needell

08th December 2007

Every year, the third Thursday of November is a very special day for the inhabitants of the little French town of Beaujeu, just north of Lyon. At one minute past midnight, the Nouveau Beaujolais wine is released and the locals can start celebrating their year of labour by drinking the results of their endeavours. It’s a very French thing, but for the last 35 years it’s also been a very British thing. Not, I hasten to add, because we tend to have a rather average appreciation of what is or isn’t a good wine, but simply because back in 1972 Sunday Times journalist Alan Hall decided that it would make a good story to find out who could get a bottle of said plonk into his office the quickest.

Once an RAF Harrier had made mincemeat of all the records, the event lost its headline status. But in various guises it has remained a popular fixture with car enthusiasts and firmly established itself as a fun way to raise money for charity.

For safety’s sake, it wasn’t long before the fast blast home, starting at midnight, was replaced by the ‘shortest route’ home. But the farmers of France soon tired of the annual crossings of their fields, so organisers took it upon themselves to create zig-zag routes with the shortest distance travelled still the winning target. Now under the official guise of the Hackett Beaujolais Run, the event has become a more civilised affair. The navigational competition is run during the day on the way down with competitors heading home the next morning with their boots full of booty.

Hunched over the wheel of a Ferrari on the Reims tarmac, you could be Mike Hawthorn heading for his first-ever grand prix win
Having survived the hangover and sleep deprivation of the old-style events on a couple of occasions in the past, this year I didn’t go the whole distance. Instead, I went down as far as Reims to greet the homecoming heroes for a dinner and prizegiving.

With narrow muddy lanes par for the course, you’d have thought the entry was all 4x4s, but that simply isn’t the spirit of the event. The 59 crews entered travelled courtesy of anything from Aston Martin’s DBS to a Morris Minor! I took the smart option – a BMW M5. It’s as fast as a ballistic missile, yet can carry a cellar full of wine.

With one half of my route on the M3, M25 and M20 of England and the other on the A26 of France, I had a stark reminder of how good the continental roads are compared to ours. With the BMW’s V10 purring away – and constant use of the flappy paddles simply for the fun of going up and down the gears – Reims was soon on the horizon. But I couldn’t resist a detour to the west of the city on to the RN31 and then the D27...

Reims, you see, is important to me for two reasons. Firstly, it’s the home of champagne, and secondly, it’s steeped in motor racing folklore. The D27 was and still is the old grand prix circuit’s finishing straight. Its narrow strip of tarmac disappears into the distance and halfway along it you can pick out the silhouette of the old grandstand on the left and the pits on the right.

Hunched over the wheel of a Ferrari, you could be Mike Hawthorn heading for his first ever grand prix victory back in 1953! The only thing that spoils my childhood dreams is that I’ve discovered it’s not pronounced ‘Reeeeeems’, which sounds romantic, but ‘Rance’ – which doesn’t!

So I had a trip down memory lane and got to meet a great bunch of petrolheads who’d been on a three-day motoring party. And at the same time, they’d raised upwards of £150,000 for this year’s charities – The Richard Burns Foundation, Winston’s Wish and the Down’s Syndrome Association. So, if you’re not doing anything on the third Thursday of next November, I might see you there!