Brooklands Centenary

This weekend saw Brooklands celebrate its centenary – quite a milestone even for a race track! To the uninitiated, Brooklands is the world’s first purpose-built car racing track – or perhaps more properly called a motor circuit. Hugh Locke King, a landowner of Surrey was also a car enthusiast and with his large 330 acre estate of farm and woodland, he decided to build the track. It was a hundred feet wide oval track with banking, 2.75miles long plus a half mile finishing straight. The whole complex including a club house and other associated buildings was completed in nine months ready for the first race meeting on 17th June 1907. It had cost almost the equivalent of a million pounds in present day terms.
Throughout its history, Brooklands has been associated with speed and speed records. Latterly the names of Malcolm Campbell and Bluebird as well as John Cobb and the Railton have been synonymous with land speed records at Brooklands. It is also associated with flying; and the centre of the track became one of the earliest aerodromes in the country, with A V Roe having his base here as well as the Bristol Aeroplane Company. Today, the track has almost disappeared and visitors to Tesco hardly notice the banked track running by the car park. But this is not the only bit of the track remaining. There are several pieces by the Brooklands Museum, which also has the most interesting collection of cars, bikes and planes from the heyday of Brooklands. There is also a Concorde plane, offering the Brooklands Concorde Experience.
So we attended the celebration taking place this weekend not only at the Brooklands Museum, but also using the Mercedes Benz test track at the newly opened Mercedes Benz World situated inside the old race track. Although the weather was awful at the start, the day improved and the car drivers and owners did not let the rain dampen their spirits. We were treated to a cavalcade of vintage cars, which included many named cars e.g. the Napier Railton, Babs, Mother Gun and a rare visitor from America, The Blitzen Benz, which has been painstakingly re-built using genuine parts from the time. They paraded and raced around the test track, and even tried out the banked track on the other side of the site, which had been partially renovated for the event. We also saw an aerial diplay, but some of the older planes were unable to fly because of the poor weather conditions.
Visiting Brooklands Museum is great fun for young or old and a visit would not be complete without walking across to Mercedes Benz World, where all present day models are on display – even the out of this world Mercedes SLR McLaren, just look, don’t touch! If you’re lucky you can watch drivers trying out their skills on the track. The coffee is also excellent.