In article <199801022015_MC2-2DDF-E3EF@compuserve.com>, Jeremy
Braithwaite <ATROZ@compuserve.com> writes
>John
>
>What a shame people haven't considered preserving Brooklands. Wasn't most
>of the damage done during and immediately after the war when (if my meory
>serves me well) it was under MOS control?
>
It really is a very sad sight. Much of my work is aerospace related,
and my first contact with the site was via the company British
Aerospace. No one ever seemed to realise the importance of the site,
not only in terms of the development of racing but also aviation. I
think the banking was breached for the first time shortly after the war,
although damage has continued over the years.
>Is there any talk of anybody in the UK building an american style oval?
This is an old chestnut! We have a series of "new track" annoucements
every few years (you know the habit in motorsport of "flying a kite"
before the funding/planning permission etc is in place). Not so long
ago it seemed that there was no end to the number of people planning to
build ovals. This was around the time when Nigel Mansell was running
well in Indycars and there was lots of talk about an Indycar race in the
UK.
As I remember it there was one banked Superspeedway style oval planned
for a town in the Midlands called Corby. Since this was not so far from
Silverstone, the BRDC announced plans to build a flat oval at
Silverstone, using portions of the South Circuit. Needless to say
neither seemed to get beyond the press release stage and, as "Moaning"
Mansell left Indycars, they seem unlikely to be resurrected.
This leaves us with the "Mallory Mile", an egg shaped flat on-mile oval
which forms part of the Mallory Park club circuit. In fact Indycars
have run there in the past, but long before I got involved in
motorsport. The Mallory Mile is only used by one set of formulae, the
Eurocar package, which are basically a set of one-make series (which
include the British version of Legends) which tour around trying to be a
British copy of NASCAR.
We also have lots of quarter-mile shale and tarmac ovals, but these
generally run contact formulae and run outside of the "official" RAC
sanctioned meetings.
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