The Iliffe Riley leads the Pauling Riley during the first Easter Mountain Handicap race in 1931.
The much shorter layout of the Mountain Circuit is evident, yet it required many more gearchanges and braking inputs than racing on the Outer Circuit.
‘Brooklands speed cars, ie cars the Chassis and Bodies of which are or were eligible to compete in the Brooklands Double Twelve Hour Race, the BARC. Six Hours Endurance Race or the Ulster TT Race of 1929 or 1930, in racing trim and with engines having a cubic capacity not exceeding 3000cc.’ The Autocar report of that first 25 March race was written in almost bemused tones: ‘Finally, a cheery day was brought to a close by a really debonair race around the Mountain, in which it was most noticeable, first, that Chronograph Villa Hairpin (The Fork taken the “wrong” way) is unusually puzzling because of the width of track available, and, secondly, that most
of the drivers could have done with more practice.’ The report, however, ended on a very positive note: ‘A really good show, which should be repeated for TT type cars and for racing cars, and a capital meeting overall.’ For the record, that first race was won by Earl Howe in his Type 43 Bugatti, at an average speed of 62.56mph and with a fastest lap of 64.4mph.
First permanent track
Over the following 10 seasons, the BARC would run at least 136 individual races on this, the shortest of the 17 circuit layouts used on the Brooklands estate over its 32- year life as a motor racing venue. As with the Outer Circuit, the vast majority of those races were short handicaps, although over the years there was a number of Mountain Championships, which were scratch races comprising up to three heats and a final each, with the individual races being of 10- 15 laps covering up to 17.5-miles.
For most of that time, BARC race meetings would feature a mix of Outer Circuit and Mountain Circuit races with, on a typical day, three or four of the races on the card being held ‘around the Mountain’. For its first three seasons, the Mountain Circuit was the only permanent track in the UK which offered even a semblance of road circuit racing. Even after Donington Park opened in 1933, Brooklands’ course remained a very popular venue. Indeed, the peak season for the Mountain Circuit was 1935, during which no fewer than 25 races were run on it, with 22 the following year, including a record seven races in one day at the Autumn meeting.
On only one occasion did the BARC run a race day using the Mountain Circuit without corresponding races on the Outer Circuit. That first meeting of the 1933 season was an unusual one because the southern bridge which took the Outer Circuit across the River Wey had been washed out by flooding and its replacement was still being completed. On that day, the Mountain races were augmented by sprints running from the Finishing Straight round to a finish line on the Railway Straight.
In the end, the Mountain Circuit’s biggest An Alfa Romeo heads round the Members’ Corner on the Mountain Circuit during a race on 16 October, 1937.
challenger proved to be at home, rather than Donington or the new Crystal Palace circuit opened in 1937. Faced with the demand for even more realistic road racing and the refusal of the Continental teams, especially those running full Grand Prix cars, to race on the wide and bumpy Outer Circuit, Brooklands itself embarked on a new ‘road’ circuit. The Campbell Circuit, designed by serial racer and Land Speed Record breaker Sir Malcolm himself, utilised a segment of the Outer Circuit from the back of Members Hill round to halfway down the Railway Straight. It connected to an entirely new length of track which snaked across the airfield to cross both the river via a new bridge and the existing Finishing Straight to a new parallel Pit Straight and then curve up what is now the
MAY - JUNE 2020 | BROOKLANDS BULLETIN 25
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