One of my favorite things to write about are stories of Yorkshire’s Motorsport Heroes. Today almost every aspect of our lives are recorded by tick tock or facebook or some other social media service. Everybody knows everybody’s business, whether you want to or not. So finding out about racing drivers today is a relatively simple task.
But what about pioneering drivers before the days of social media, before the days of television. To find their details we rely on enthusiasts capturing stories and publishing them on line. Often you will need to go to several sources to uncover their story.
Cyril Arthur Snipe is one such person. Most databases list him as having only raced in one event, which he won. But he certainly raced in more.
Cyril was born at, Conisborough, Yorkshire,1888 to Arthur W Snipe, a schoolmaster, and Fanny (née Banner) though he moved to Tamworth three years later.
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Cyril’s uncle was Manchester based John Bennet of Newton and Bennett, an associate company of SCAT (Societa Cerirano Automobili Torino) of Turin. It appears that his uncles contacts secured him a job at the Turin factory as a test driver which included racing and sprinting SCAT vehicles.
In 1910 he achieved a class victory in the Modena sprint driving an Societa Piemontese Automobili , manufactured in Turin by Matteo Ceirano.
Snipe won the Targa Florio (Giro di Sicilia) on 25 and 26 May 1912 driving a SCAT 25/35 with his co-driver Pedrini. The route circumnavigated the island of Sicily, one lap of 656 miles. Snipe drove the whole thing himself with his Italian riding mechanic Pardini. Having started in the early hours of Saturday morning he found himself exhausted as the race neared its end. Unable to drive any further he practically fell from the driver’s seat into a deep slumber at the side of the road.
After two hours Pardini realised that no other competitors had passed and gently revived his pilot with a bucket of icy water. Enraged but awake, Snipe returned to the driver’s seat and won. His race took 23 hours and 37 minutes at an average of 24.3mph. Snipe drove a SCAT again in the 1913 Targa Florio race but failed to finish.
In 1911 Snipe married Blanche L Blainey but she died in 1918, aged 28. He then married married Emily Hendrey in Paddington. His died in 1944 at the age of 55.