Dragon Rally Wales

6 Febuary

Originally founded as a "British" (or Welsh!) equivalent of the then well-established Elephant Rallies at the Nurburgring in Germany, the first Dragon was held in 1962 at Bryn Bras Castle, near Llanberis in North Wales, by the Conway & District M.C.C. To allow Elephant rally-goers a couple of weeks to thaw out a little after the January snows of deepest Germany, the Dragon was set for the second weekend in February and, with the odd exception, has held to that date ever since. It is believed that only about 200 riders attended the first Dragon, and the "badge" was a fabric patch. (see Jan's update!)

Shortly afterwards, the Dragon moved to Gwrych Castle (a Victorian "replica") at Abergele, and the attendant numbers grew, promoted by extensive articles in the "Motor Cycle" magazine.

By 1965, the Dragon needed a bigger venue, and so it moved back to the Llanberis valley, to a site now known as the Glyn Rhonwy business park, but then more commonly known as Glyn Padarn. Sited between the mountains and Padarn lake, Glyn Padarn had started life as a series of slate quarries, following the exposure of the slate seam up the hillside. Abandoned between the wars, the old quarries were adopted for a munitions factory during W.W.II, when a system of tarmac road was laid around the site to give access to the bomb storage sites. There was even a huge underground factory, which partially collapsed during the war years, burying quite a tonnage of explosives. When the disused munitions site was used by rallyists in the late 1960s, very few realised that much of the site still contained pieces of live ordinance. Such places are, of course, a wonderful playground for children, and I have spoken to some locals (now grown up to better sense) who remember throwing live shells over a cliff to see if they would explode (some did!) The site was cleared of all dangerous remains in the '70s, and the only oddments to be found beneath the trees now are old beer bottles – dating back to the late '60s or so….