Brooklands

[Craig]

Anyone interested in Brooklands circuit and what it's like there nowadays ? (ie TimD ) Get this months Motorsport magazine as there's a great little article in there about the track...

One can only wonder at what would have happened with the place had it not been for WWII... would I be living next to one of the country's major circuits, or would it have gone the way of Goodwood ?

[SL]

Plus it has a pull out list of ALL the historic / Veteren / Vintage racing this year. Not only UK but most of Europe and USA. £3.75 well spent.

SL

[TimD]

If the powers that be hadn't flogged it to Vickers (thank you Sir Malcolm Campbell) directly after the war, I think there would have been a chance for Brooklands.

However, there was no money in the coffers, and just to reconstruct the track they had seemed like an impossible task. If the money had been there, though, I have very little doubt that new plans for an all-road course on the infield would have been developed. I have to say that the banking itself wouldn't have been raced on much longer though. The final lap record of 143mph was frankly pretty much as high as anyone could take it. John Cobb said that the Napier Railton on the top of the banking felt as though it was leaning too far out of an open window.


Motor Sport this month certainly has lots to excite the Brooklands fanatic. Not just Bill Boddy's recollection of the great personalities he met, but also his examination of the Vauxhalls which entered at the track. That alone has helped me clear up some anomalies in my research.

Don't tell the Vauxhall Register, but I can't get excited about a 30/98. It's the model of car that Grandfather part-exchanged to get his first Bentley in 1936!

[TimD]

Whoops!

Now I understand the bit about Brooklands as it is now in Craig's original post.

I just received my second edition of Motor Sport in the space of a fortnight, and there is indeed a lovely article with a (recent) Bentley being taken onto the remaining portions of the track.

I could take major issue with some of the detail reporting in the text, but the photography is quite superb.