How motorsport's mission to aid ex-servicemen continues to inspire

Anglesey’s Race of Remembrance celebrates its 10th anniversary this weekend, having become a staple of the national motorsport calendar. Autosport looks back with its co-founder and discovers how its important work is ongoing

“I was slightly amazed that we got to the end of the weekend when we ran the first one. I sort of jokingly said it felt like Guernsey launching a space mission in terms of overambition.”

Race of Remembrance co-founder James Cameron might have felt the task of hosting the inaugural event was a monumental challenge that even verged on impossible, but it’s one that has been tackled and overcome multiple times across the past decade as this weekend marks the 10th anniversary of the popular end-of-season event.

It’s the brainchild of Cameron and Anglesey circuit manager Jon Earp, and the Welsh venue has hosted the November meeting since its inception in 2014, minus the 2020 edition due to COVID-19 restrictions, having been created as an outlet for military personnel and their families, as well as to commemorate those who have lost their lives serving.

The event has been organised by several clubs over the years, including the 750 Motor Club, British Automobile Racing Club and, most recently, the British Racing & Sports Car Club, with the meeting itself expanding during those tenures. This weekend’s event will include the BRSCC’s 45-minute Clubsport Trophy, while the traditional 12-hour Race of Remembrance will run with a capacity grid of 56 cars, a new record and more than double the 26 vehicles that formed up for the first race 10 years ago.

“Theoretically, we could go higher, but you’ve got a mixed grid at Race of Remembrance, so you’ve got to manage the speed of the slowest things on the grid and the fastest things on the grid,” says Cameron. “But what it does, it makes amazing racing because everybody on every lap is managing traffic.

“Doing it without giving up your line, doing it in the dark, in the horizontal rain, all the rest of it, you’re just busy all the time, and it makes for wonderful racing. There’s a point at which there’s too many on the circuit and I don’t want to get to that.”

The event is unique for several reasons, not least the fact that the 12-hour race is held over three instalments, this year’s running from 1500-2200 on Saturday, resuming on Sunday morning from 0900-1030, and ending with a final stint at 1130-1500.

The break on Sunday morning has become a tradition and creates one of the most impactful sights in national motorsport, as the meeting comes to a halt and hundreds join together for a service of remembrance to honour those who have lost their lives in the military.

“It was extraordinary because what we did was we had a remembrance service, and then we draped an endurance race over the top of it,” says Cameron of the first event. “So it literally stopped, you get the safety car out, you stop them [drivers] on the grid and you bring everybody in. We initially thought we needed to leave the marshals out because we’re not going be stopped for that long, but you try stopping the marshals from coming in…

"If this would have been around when I had my accident, I’d have been all over it like a rash"
Steve Binns

“That first time we did the remembrance service I was just standing there and I had two simultaneous emotions. One was f*** me, this is amazing, this is hairs up on the back of your arm sort of thing. And then the other feeling that I had at the same time was, we’ve got to do this every year now.”

Another special aspect is that, while Anglesey often struggles to get a large enough quota of marshals for general meetings given its remote location, there are no such problems for the Race of Remembrance. Its unique appeal and importance on the national calendar means that more than 200 of them had volunteered for this year’s meeting a month in advance.

The appeal of the event means there has also been no shortage of guest drivers over the years, including 2022 British Touring Car champion Tom Ingram, six-time Olympic gold medal winner Chris Hoy and former Top Gear presenter Chris Harris, all of whom have added to its reputation. Supporting military personnel is a stance that governing body Motorsport UK has also pledged itself to in recent years, signing the Armed Forces Covenant, which commits the organisation to give its ongoing backing to the community, helped in part by the success of Race of Remembrance.

The event was created off the back of charity Mission Motorsport, which was founded two years earlier in 2012 by Cameron, the Major in the Royal Tank Regiment having returned from Afghanistan. He was looking to use motorsport as a way to help military personnel suffering from physical or mental injuries.

“Unlike rugby, cricket, swimming or anything else, there wasn’t a structure in place, to be a coach, to borrow some kit to have a first go at it,” recalls Cameron. “We saw several examples where people were doing things, often driven by great philanthropic intent, but actually causing more harm than good because it’s such a powerful thing to be able to go, ‘Do you want to go in a Ferrari?’ Nobody does any therapy that day because the lads want to see red cars and get taken around by the Ferrari Owners’ Club.

“They all go home and they’re in the pub being clapped on the back by some of their mates, telling them about the great thing they’ve done. But for the bloke who’s in the wrong headspace, you’ve just shown him what he can’t have.

“You use something really powerful, but you’ve not enriched them in the long term. And to be able to link this wonderful, uplifting adrenaline, the power of sport that genuinely benefits people on a recovery journey was why the charity was born.”

One of those to benefit from the Race of Remembrance and Mission Motorsport has been Steve Binns, who has been involved with the charity for seven years. Having served in the Falklands War, the ex-paratrooper was left paralysed following a motorcycle accident just 20 days after his return, forcing him out of the military.

“When I was first injured, the army’s idea was you’re of no use to us, here’s a pension, go away and no help whatsoever,” he says. “Luckily things have changed and continue to change.

“Looking after the military community is important because a lot of people fall by the wayside; there was nothing for me. If this [Mission Motorsport and Race of Remembrance] would have been around when I had my accident, I’d have been all over it like a rash.

“When people told me about it [Race of Remembrance], I thought, being a sceptic, that this is probably not that good,” he adds, having made his race debut in the event last year at the wheel of a Morgan. “But when you actually go and you do the remembrance service and you do the racing, it’s so emotional and it’s a cliche but the camaraderie of everybody is fantastic.”

Binns has been part of the team that has built a hand-controlled Subaru BRZ that will be driven by himself and three others in this year’s edition.

Offering ex-military personnel the chance to gain new skills is one of the key aspects of Mission Motorsport, and the success of the Race of Remembrance goes hand-in-hand with that as it enters its second decade.

“That for me feels surreal,” says Cameron when asked if he feels the Race of Remembrance is now one of the highlights of the national racing calendar. “I always tremendously looked up to the Birkett Relay, it’s such an important part of motorsport, like the Plum Pudding. It’s one of those things, it’s a real hook event, the [Goodwood] Revival and these kinds of things.

“And to have something that’s in the same sentence as things like that for me is incredible, because I’m a motorsport fan at the end of the day. I absolutely love it and to have been able to be part of the creation of something that the motorsport community loves as well as us, is something that is deeply flattering.”