What Was The World’s First Motor Racing Circuit?

Over the spring and summer months, one primary use of portable shelters is to serve as robust, easy-to-build workshops and shelters for classic and exotic cars for a wide range of competitive and non-competitive events.

This is primarily possible thanks to the wide range of motor racing circuits in the UK, of which the first and amongst the most impactful was Brooklands in Weybridge, Surrey. 

Whilst other makeshift road and rally courses predate Brooklands, its development proved to be pivotal for the development of Britain’s automobile and aeronautical traditions but ultimately proved to have a global influence.

Built For A Bet

Brooklands was a remarkably central location in Britain’s engineering history, but it was invented largely as a matter of necessity.

Following the rapid development of motor cars in the early 1900s and just as sudden increase in accidents involving them, Britain had a 20 mph speed limit on all public roads.

The entrepreneur Hugh Fortescue Locke King believed that this would prove to be counterproductive if there was no location where cars could be tested extensively at high speeds. 

As half of the car industry at the time was based in France, a proving ground in Britain was necessary to avoid them falling further behind.

Inspired by the early motor racing pioneer Selwyn Edge, Mr Locke King said that if the entrepreneur created a purpose-built course for it, he would drive a car at over 60 mph for 24 hours without any breaks.

Mr Locke King funded the creation of the course and designed it specifically to host racing events. To that end, it was designed as a banked oval made from concrete that could theoretically be driven without steering at all if a driver stuck to the Fifty Foot Line.

Mr Edge drove a converted Napier car just 11 days after the opening of the track, and the development of this track inspired the further development of endurance racing, as well as the World’s longest-running race, the Indianapolis 500.

A Race Circuit Turned Aviation Hub

Brooklands has a notable bisecting straight known as the Finishing Straight that became highly influential in aviation history in an age before purpose-built airstrips, as it was one of the few places in the UK with a long enough straight road to taxi and tow aircraft.

Sir Alliot Verdon Roe, later founder of the Avro manufacturing company, would initially make early attempts at powered flight with his Roe I Biplane, the first powered aircraft designed, manufactured and that successfully took off in England.

He was given access to one of the temporary sheds at Brooklands, although this was on the condition that it was cleared in preparation for use as a refreshment and break room during race meetings.

Rather infamously, it was hurled over a fence during an early race day, and whilst it was repaired and successfully made a powered flight, he was soon evicted from the race course.

However, Louis Paulhan had far greater success at Brooklands and by 1910 it had also become the home of aviation in Great Britain, with a flying school on the grounds that same year.

As it was converted into a military airfield during the First World War, it was a target of German bombing campaigns during the Second World War, ultimately destroying a centrepiece of motoring history. The site has since been converted into a museum.