Overview

Calcutta Motor Sports Club - First Motor Sport Club of India, Founded in 1949. "It is a fact that motorsport in India started in Calcutta , and the first motor sports club was the 'Calcutta Motor Sports Club', As early as 1949 a certain group of Englishmen raced home made Sports cars around disused airstrips around Calcutta, this was long before my time so my stories are based on tales told to me by my dad (who himself raced a front wheel drive Citroen in those days),and thegreatest of Indian motorsport, such as Kinny Lal, Mr Ferozshah, Mr Suresh Kumar, not forgetting Tarapoda Shah, who to the best of my knowledge is the only Indian to have raced at the famous 'Iles of Mann' TT races. The racing started at a track called Kancharapara, then moved to Barrackpore to a disused horse racing track, when I was a little boy I remember going to the track at Alipore, just past the Britannia biscuit factory, the sight and sounds and the smells that came from these outings with my dad are still firmly entrenched in my mind, to see those cars scream around bends, Kinny was there, Peter Adams was there in a red and white Fiat with huge spacers on the wheels, open exhausts, there were no Sennas, or Schumachers, just names that did just the same to me, like Mike Satow, gee, with a name like that, speed just had to follow! Every one used cross ply tyres and to walk around the pits and see those tyres with the outer edge completely bald, was just amazing. Castrol would make a special oil for these racing cars and it had a beautiful smell, sweet. It was around this time that someone built the 'Q'MARRI', I still don't know who built it, but it was there then, the motoring legend Kinny drove this car in Sholavaram in Madras, I was the next person to drive this car at Sholavaram." - Niaz Ali, CMSC, Hall of Fame Member.