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PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 11:52 am 
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Location: Camberley, Surrey
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Morning folks,

Believe it not this Summer/Autumn will be the 10th Anniversary of the GT4 Drivers Club!

Thinking that we should commemorate this somehow I thought we should start an ideas thread early so we can get a plan together.

My initial thoughts are some sort of meet, October 13th 2005 was the inaugural meet at Brooklands where the below photo was taken :D

Image

My initial thoughts are we should try to repeat this visit sometime in October followed by pub food, but also perhaps we should do something in the summer, maybe a camping/B&B trip?

Any thoughts gratefully received.

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 12:27 pm 
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That looks pretty epic, is that an abandoned/derelict track? like pripyat for race cars.

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 12:48 pm 
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It's a section of the Historic Brooklands Circuit in Weybridge. The first purpose built track in the world. Sadly now in disrepair but this section is part of the museum who were kind enough to let us drive on a section of it. :)

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PostPosted: Tue Feb 24, 2015 11:25 pm 
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Brooklands has just received Heritage Lottery Funding to move and restore the World War 2 era aircraft hanger and do lots of other work
https://www.hlf.org.uk/about-us/media-c ... ng-circuit

Found a really interesting history of the circuit and photos of the construction in 1906 which I've posted below:

Brooklands Circuit

Image

Length: 4.453 km / 2.767 Miles (Circle)
1.883 km / 1.170 Miles (Mountain)
3.648 km / 2.267 Miles (Campbell)
Location: Brooklands estate near Weybridge, Surrey, 32 km SW of London
Used: 1907 - 1939

Image

Image

The Brooklands circuit was the first purpose built circuit in Europe. It came about from an idea of Hugh Fortesque Locke King who himself invested £150,000 and it was designed by Colonel Holden and opened on 17th June 1907.

Because there were no earlier tracks as a model, the design was based on horse racing. The track thus became oval shaped with a special finishing straight. The track was 100 ft (30.4m) wide and the surface consisted of a flimsy 6´ (15 cm) layer of concrete. Even with extensive repairs the track eventually became very bumpy.

The Byfleet Banking had a mean radius of 1,550 feet and had a super elevation of 17' (5.2m) giving a mean inclination of 9.5° and an inclination of 25.2° at the top. The curve fell away before crossing the river Way on a ferro-concrete bridge (revolutionary in its day) and reached the Fork, where the left branch led to the Finishing Straight and the right branch passed the Italia works (Later Vickers) in a reverse curve before climbing to the Home or Members banking. The Members Banking had a mean radius of 1000 feet and had a super elevation of 32' giving it a mean inclination of 17.7° and an inclination of 26.5° at the top. The Finishing Straight went upward in an angle of about 5° to connect to the Members banking. The Members Banking was continued by the half mile Railway Straight that followed the railway embankment. Total length including Finishing Straight was 3 1/4 Miles. A lap on the 50-ft line measured 2 Miles 1,349.7 yards (4452.9 m).

The Brooklands remained a world of its own, separated from other kinds of motor racing. It was extensively used for testing and record attempts as well as handicap racing. Without going too far into details the races were divided into Long Handicaps (3 laps + finishing straight, ca. 8.5 mi) and Short Handicaps (2 laps + finishing straight, ca. 5.75 mi). In 1930 five laps Mountain handicap races were added to the list. Before 1930 there were 75 mph, 90 mph, 100 mph and Lightning classes of handicap races and after that Junior, Senior and Lightning classes. So races could be "Lightning Long Handicap", "90 mph Short Handicap" etc., each race individually numbered. After 1930 races got individual names instead of running numbers.

There were several finish lines on the Finishing Straight. There was a "Long" finishing line at the Judges box, 50 yards before that line there was a "Short" finishing line indicated by two red discs, 200 yards further back there was a "Special Short" line and finally another 100 yards towards the Fork there was a "Lightning" finishing line. In 1924 as speeds increased and it became difficult for cars to pull up in the Finishing Straight the Lightning class finish line was moved to the Railway Straight.

In the first years identification was supposed to be by colors worn by the drivers. Soon the organizers were reluctantly forced to change it to car numbers instead but driver colors partly remained in use until the First World War. In the 1930s a system was introduced for some races in which instead of sending away the cars according to handicap all cars were divided into four classes which had to race through chicanes of different nature and length in the Fork Bend, depending on class. Cars were color coded in tail showing which chicane it should use. In 1937 in an effort to compete with the new British racing circuits the more GP like Campbell Circuit was added.

In 1926 and 1927 the track (with extra straw bale chicanes) held the British GPs. Brooklands also became famous for its monster car speed attempts like Count Zborowski's Chitty-Bang-Bang and John Cobb's Napier-Railton. At the outbreak of the Second World War the track was taken over by Vickers-Armstrong and in 1946 the track was sold to the company for £ 300,000.

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PostPosted: Thu May 07, 2015 10:25 pm 
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Definitely up for an anniversary meet, is it worth advertising the meet on other forums?
It would be great to get a good turnout of GT4s for photos.

As for summer, it would be nice to do a meet that also involved some additional driving .... maybe a treasure hunt or Geo trail?

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