Brooklands Race Circuit

The Brooklands motor circuit was the brainchild of Hugh Fortescue Locke King, and was the first purpose-built banked motor race circuit in the world. Following the Motor Car Act 1903, Britain was subject to a blanket 20 mph (32 km/h) speed limit on public roads. King commissioned Colonel Capel Lofft Holden of the Royal Artillery to design the projected circuit and work began in 1906.

The Brooklands track was built as a 100 ft (30 m) wide, 2.767 mi (4.453 km) long, banked oval. The banking was nearly 30 feet (9.1 m) high in places. In addition to the oval, a bisecting "Finishing Straight" was built, increasing the track length to 3.369 mi (5.422 km), of which 1.250 mi (2.012 km) was banked. The track was built in uncoated concrete, which led to a somewhat bumpy ride in later years. Along the centre of the track ran a dotted black line, known as the Fifty Foot Line.

The track was opened on 17 June 1907 with a luncheon attended by most of Britain's motor manufacturers. Mr Locke King named Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, Messrs. Hugh Owen, Julian Walter Orde (secretary of the Automobile Club of Great Britain and Ireland) and Colonel Holden as being the main people that enabled the track to be built. This was followed by an informal inauguration of the track by a procession of 43 cars, one driven by Charles Rolls. The first competitive event was held on 28–29 June, with three cars competing to break the world record for distance covered in 24 hours, and the first race meeting was held on 6 July, attracting over 10,000 spectators. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway was built soon afterwards, holding its inaugural race in August 1909.

The Brooklands Mountain Circuit was a small section of the track giving a lap 1.168 mi (1.880 km) long, running from the Fork to the rear of Members' Hill and back. It was created in 1930 using movable barriers.

On 28–29 June 1907, the circuit played host to the world's first 24-hour motor event, with Selwyn Edge leading three specially converted Napier cars around the circuit. Edge drove his car for the full duration, covering a distance of 1,581.74 mi (2,545.56 km) at an average speed of 65.91 mph (106.07 km/h), beating the existing record set at Indianapolis in 1905. Dorothy Levitt, S. F. Edge's leading driver, was refused entry despite her achievements.

George E. Stanley broke the one-hour record at Brooklands on a Singer motorcycle in 1912, becoming the first rider of a 350 cc motorcycle to cover over 60 miles (100 km) in an hour. The world record for the first person to cover 100 miles in 1 hour was set by Percy E. Lambert at Brooklands, on 15 February 1913 when driving his 4.5 litre sidevalve Talbot. He covered 103 miles, 1470 yards (167.1 km) in 60 minutes.

In July and August 1929, Violette Cordery and her younger sister Evelyn drove her 4.5 litre four-seater Invicta for 30,000 miles in less than 30,000 minutes, averaging 61.57 mph and earning her second Dewar Trophy from the Royal Automobile Club.

Motor racing resumed in 1920 after extensive track repairs and Grand Prix motor racing was established at Brooklands in 1926 by Henry Segrave. This first British Grand Prix was won by Louis Wagner and Robert Sénéchal, sharing the drive in a Delage 155B. The second British Grand Prix was staged there in 1927.

In 1930, the Daily Herald offered a trophy for the fastest driver at an event at Brooklands. Birkin and Kaye Don competed, with Don winning in the Sunbeam 'Tigress' 4 litre. In 1932, Birkin won driving his red "Monoposto" Bentley Blower No.1, clocking 137.96 miles per hour (222.03 km/h). The track record was later beaten by John Cobb driving the 24 litre Napier-Railton, which holds the all-time lap record at 143.44 mph (230.84 km/h).

Brooklands was also one of Britain's first airfields. In 1908, Alliott Verdon-Roe was based at Brooklands and carried out the first taxiing and towed flight trials of a British full-size powered aircraft. On Friday, 29 October 1909 the first official powered flight at Brooklands was made by Frenchman Louis Paulhan and his Farman biplane. During 1910, Brooklands rapidly became a major centre of flying in Britain and that summer, Hilda Hewlett and Gustave Blondeau opened Britain's first flying school at Brooklands.

In World War II, the site was again used for military aircraft production, in particular the Vickers Wellington, Vickers Warwick and Hawker Hurricane. The Vickers factory was successfully bombed by the Luftwaffe and extensively damaged on 4 September 1940. The Hawker factory was also bombed and damaged two days later. On 21 September 1940, Lt John MacMillan Stevenson Patton of the Royal Canadian Engineers risked his life when he and five others manhandled an unexploded German bomb away from the Hawker aircraft factory at Brooklands and rolled it into an existing bomb crater where it later exploded harmlessly. His bravery was recognised by the award of the George Cross.

After the war, the circuit was in poor condition and was sold to Vickers-Armstrongs in 1946 for continued use as an aircraft factory. New aircraft types, including the Viking, Valetta, Varsity, Viscount, Vanguard, 1-11 and VC10, were subsequently, designed, manufactured and delivered from there. In 1951, construction of a new hard runway required a section of the motor circuit's Byfleet Banking to be removed to allow Vickers Valiant V bombers to be flown out to nearby Wisley Airfield.

In 1987, Brooklands Museum Trust was formed with Sir Peter G Masefield as Chairman, and began to record, research, preserving and interpret all aspects the site's heritage. The Museum project began after a highly successful temporary exhibition about Brooklands was staged in 1977 by Elmbridge Museum in Weybridge. Brooklands Museum houses historic aircraft including a Vickers Wellington bomber recovered from Loch Ness in 1985, a British Airways Concorde, G-BBDG, the UK's first production Concorde, and now also owns the 40% scale Concorde model "G-CONC".

Brooklands motor course celebrated its centenary on 16/17 June 2007. Throughout 2007, various special events were organised by Brooklands Museum to celebrate its 100th birthday. Events included use of the Byfleet Banking for the first time in nearly 70 years, a Formula One car demonstration by McLaren-Mercedes, driven by Gary Paffett in conjunction with Mercedes-Benz World and a 24-hour slot car race to commemorate S.F. Edge's achievement.

This article is based solely on the supplied corpus. No external sources were consulted; claims that could not be substantiated against the corpus were omitted under the drop-the-claim rule.