Contact Artefacts please if you have any comments or more information regarding this record.	Menu Home Upfront Now Up Books Towns Structures People Firms Lexicon		Grand Prix Track, Control Tower KuGompo City (East London), Eastern Cape

Date: c1960 Type: Race Track Status: Extant but altered   Click to view large map Coordinates: 33°02'58.43" S 27°52'12.86" E Alt: 23m

The Control Tower of the Grand Prix Track was sited immediately opposite the Start and Finish line. The painted grid markings are clearly visible in the tarred surface. Border Motor Sport Club had presumably constructed the Control Tower, circa 1960, on a limited budget. The Control Tower comprised a simply designed, rectangular building with a reinforced concrete frame with ground, first and second floors and a shorter restricted third floor at the southern end. A feature of the first and second floors were the expansive ribbon windows set between the columns, maximising the views out to the race track. These were steel framed windows subdivided into a series of vertically proportioned casements. The windows to the third floor were timber framed cottage framed windows – suggesting a later period of construction. The window and door opening at ground floor were protected with flat steel screens to minimise vandalism during periods when the track was not being used. The second floor windows were shaded with suspended 'canopies' to minimise the ingress of sun. Access to the different floor levels was via a set of steeply inclined, open flights of 'ladder stairs' at the southern end of the building. The building was simply roofed with a mono-pitched asbestos cement 'big-six' roof. An advertising 'tyre bridge' over the track was at some point constructed immediately to the north of the Control Tower, in the form of one half of a 'supersized' Dunlop Gold Seal racing tyre. William Martinson, February 2025.