Speed, greed and the M25
October 24th, 2007 by Steve Bowbrick
James May and Iain Sinclair... Together at last! When I saw the billing for this feature (MP3, Real) about the road races rumoured to have taken place in the early days of the M25 I got a bit over-excited. I think I expected a sort of existential radio road-trip. You know, something about the erotics of speed and Italian auto engineering. No such luck. Bumbling May (one of our favourite TV personalities... at least in my house) fumbles the ball.
He doesn't get Sinclair's aestheticisation of roads and car parks and all those marginal spaces. So South Mimms Services isn't a magical sodium-lit unplace but just a bit of a dump with sales reps. Movies are referenced - Vanishing Point and Two Lane Blacktop - but May's obviously forgotten about Claude Lelouche's C'Était un Rendezvous, an utterly delirious and terrifying 9-minute real-time dash through Paris that's much closer to the spirit of elicit pre-dawn road races than those flabbier American vehicles (you can buy the film on DVD now but check out this nifty Google Maps mashup).
M25 pic by Timo Newton-Sym.