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As Formula One celebrates its 75th Anniversary, today’s programme brings you magical motorcars from Ian Fleming, Jules Verne and Victor Appleton’s Tom Swift. Desperate times are abound in Kassia St. Claire’s account of the 1907 Peking to Paris Race, and Fred D’Aguiar muses starting line emotions in his poem Saloon One and Two. Chariots are ablaze in Suzanne Collin's Hunger Games as well as Vangelis’ timeless score for the classic sports drama. Franz Berward’s depicts a footrace in his piece Wettlauf, John Adam’s tells of his Short Ride in a Fast Machine and Ennio Morricone conducts his eternal classic Gabriel's Oboe, which has become the sound of Aintree racecourse. That’s not the only unusual tie between racing in classical music in this programme. Well also hear the Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme, which was the main title to racing simulation game Gran Turismo 6, and a composition by Formula One’s very own race car driver Charles Leclerc. So polish your shoes and wear your best clothes as we head off to A Day At The Races.

Readers: Alistair Petrie and Cecilia Appiah
Producer: Sam Nixon

READINGS:
Donald Walker - Walker’s Manly Exercises
Victor Appleton – Tom Swift and his Electric Runabout
Ian Fleming – Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
Nancy Simpson – Pink Pantsuit
Eleanor M. Ingram – From The Car Behind
Georg Ebers – Serapis
Suzanne Collins – The Hunger Games
Fred D’Aguiar – Saloon One and Two
Banjo Paterson – Lay of the Motorcar
Richard Williams – A Race With Love and Death
Kevin Crossley-Holland – Odin and Hrungnir, from The Penguin Book of Norse Myths
Lew Wallace – Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ
Percy MacKaye – The Automobile
Kozma Prutkov – The Heron and the Racing Rig
John Henry Goldfrap – The Motor Rangers Through the Sierras
Kassica St. Claire – A Race to the Future
Howard R. Garis – Dick Hamilton’s Touring Car
John Masefield – The Racer
Jules Verne – Master of the World
Laura Hillenbrand – Seabiscuit: The True Story of Three Men and a Racehorse
A.E. Houman – A Shropshire Lad 19