of what was at first called the ‘Mountain Course’. Unlike the later Campbell Circuit, opening this new track involved no changes to the infrastructure, just to the direction of running: it was described in the race card as ‘…down (sic) the Finishing Straight, turning right under the Members’ Bridge, and again right on reaching The Fork.’ That was a lap of 1.17-miles, with a straight of almost half a mile and a hairpin with an included angle of 150-degrees.
Closer racing Probably the main aim of the Mountain Circuit was to provide an experience closer to European- style road racing. Whereas a two-lap Outer Circuit race would entail just two or three upward gear-changes and one application of the brakes after the finish, a five-lap Mountain Circuit race of similar distance would involve some 40 gearchanges and 10 racing braking events, half of them being the very heavy braking needed to negotiate the Fork hairpin. There was the added attraction, of course, that a Mountain race took place entirely in the vicinity of the main spectator areas along the Finishing Straight and around
underlined by the lap times and speeds achieved. On the Outer Circuit, the fastest lap ever recorded by a Class H (750cc) car took 16% longer than the fastest by a Class B (up to 8000cc) car. For the Mountain Circuit, the difference between those two classes was less than 1%. Nobody ever set an official lap record for a Class A unlimited car on the Mountain Circuit and, unlike the Outer Circuit where bigger cars dominated, on the Mountain course lighter, more nimble cars with the best power to weight ratios held sway. The ultimate lap record fell to Raymond Mays with a 1500cc supercharged ERA, probably R4B which was his main ‘works’ mount in 1936, though usually with a 2.0-litre engine. That lap record was much slower than the speeds achieved on the Outer Circuit at ‘just’ an 84.31mph average. This is not to say that there weren’t
This poster from 1933 advertises the Oxford versus Cambridge Universities race that was one of the novelties held on the Mountain Circuit.
Members’ Hill. With lap times in all classes being around one minute, the slower and smaller cars in particular were in sight far more frequently. The difference between the Outer
Circuit and Mountain Circuit is graphically
some heroic lap times recorded by less- nimble machines. For six years, the Class B record was held by Sir Malcolm Campbell in his heavy, long-wheelbase though undoubtedly powerful 38/250 Mercedes- Benz, presumably the famous ‘GP10’, at a speed of 73.89mph which was slower than the records for all the other classes for most of that period.
The first time the Mountain Circuit was used in anger was at the opening meeting of the 1930 season, with a race for
Raymond Mays leads the way in his ERA ahead of Prince Bira’s number 16 Maserati in 1938 with the Clubhouse in the background. 24 BROOKLANDS BULLETIN | MAY - JUNE 2020
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52
