Brooklands Memorial Races

The Napier Railton thundered into the corner, sparks flying at Brooklands. No it wasn’t the 1930s, the date was August 20th 2000. It may only have been a model but the passion and enthusiasm generated were as intense as when the real thing had thundered around the banking only a few yards from where we were stood. History was being made in the Chequered Flag room with the first rail race to be held anywhere for thirty six years. The Napier Railton in question belonged to John Moxon, closely followed by another Napier Railton raced by Don Seigel. The track they were racing on was a replica of the Southport track used for the 1956 international rail race.

  The track had been constructed this year at Nevill Hall social club in South Wales by two passionate enthusiasts (Phil Barry and myself) and one conscript (my son Richard), who was enlisted to help. The project had started in January when I had the idea to construct a rail racing track after reading several interesting articles on the 1950s rail races that I had been sent through the post when researching an article I had proposed to write about Walkden Fisher. Walkden Fisher had been one of the leading members of the Southport Model & Engineering Club (SMEC) that constructed the first rail racing track and indeed it was built in his basement.

  Don Seigel very kindly sent me everything he could find about Walkden Fisher and the original Southport track, after Charlie Fitzpatrick had kindly sent me down the original information and a couple of articles written by Walkden Fisher as he was the assistant editor of Model Cars. Charlie Fitzpatrick had also kindly sent me down Walkden Fisher’s original chassis which had won the 56 sports car international. I rang Charlie and he told me how they constructed the original track by screwing screws into sheets of hardboard (we used Beech faced ply) and soldering the rail to them. Brass tacks were then hammered in and single core earth cable soldered to them. It sounded so simple. How wrong I was...

  The first person I mentioned this project to was Phil Barry. Without Phil Barry this track simply could not have been built as he was the mainstay behind an awful lot of the building and a lot of the ideas. My original idea had been to construct a 4’ by 8’ demonstration track with a simple loop, just so that I could run a car around to show how they worked. Phil immediately said that this wasn’t really a good idea, and if we were going to do it at all we should build a full size circuit.

  Looking at the drawings of the original circuit I realised I really liked the design and it was decided we’d build a replica of the original circuit, even though the size wasn’t the same, the circuit being about a 3/4 scale reproduction. The original circuit had a lap length of 58 feet, whereas ours had a lap length of around 45 feet. As it turned out in practice, the speeds we were achieving were just about identical to those achieved on the original track, with three laps of the original track plus the six feet run in taking something like 24 seconds and a lap of our track taking around 6.5 seconds.

  Charlie had been kind enough to send me down a piece of the original rail. Phil Barry managed to match this fairly closely with a piece of Pico O gauge rail. We duly ordered a considerable amount of this rail, which turned out to be extremely expensive, and was one of the major costs of building the track. When the first sections arrived we had a interesting evening screwing screws in and soldering the rail to them. It was really exciting. If I’d have known then just how many hours we would have to spend soldering I would have pulled the plug there and then!

  The next three or four months went by in a blur as we tried to spend every available hour building the track. Several days we would arrive at 10am in the morning and leave at 1 am. It didn’t help that I lived a considerable distance away from where we built the track as this involved at least an hour to an hour and a half of travel every time we went. Once we had a considerable amount of rail laid out thoughts turned to the wire to carry the positive current. First we obtained a roll of steel wire of exactly the right diameter after trying to buy a roll of the right size copper wire and failing miserably, only to find that we couldn’t solder it. In the end we bought cooker cable and stripping the insulation off. This in itself took a considerable amount of time, as well as the fact that it had to be run through a vice to straighten it before we could solder it down.

  Right at the start we had decided we would build the track using exactly what they would have built it with in 1956. We laid out the track using a nail, a piece of string and a pen when we could have easily done it on a computer. It took a whole evening to get the curves right on the hairpin using the nail and string so that all the corners lined up as we wanted them to. We screwed in every screw by hand when we had a power screwdriver with us so that the track was built exactly as theirs was using the same tools and materials.

  Another thing that added considerably to the amount of time it took to build the track was that this track had to be portable, whereas all the original rail racing tracks were permanent fixtures. This at least doubled the amount of work it was to build the track, as each section had to be wired separately. We used steel dowels and brass sockets to fit each section together, as well as steel plates to keep the sections level. The track took hundreds of man hours to build, and there were time I could quite happily have set fire to the whole thing.

  Eventually we finished constructing the track and tested it. After minor modifications the track worked perfectly and it was extremely satisfying to complete a lap. This took a little while as we had to rebuild the pickups on the car to suit the track. Andy Meredith then came down and painted it. I couldn’t believe the amazing transformation in front of my eyes as it turned from several pieces of metal soldered to a wooden board into a race track.

  Meanwhile Granada had invited me to go to their Manchester studios and make a programme about slot car racing on Saturday the 12th of August. The new Ninco importers - The Hobby Company - sent down four go-karts and a complete Ninco four lane layout. On the programme I unwrapped Walkden Fisher’s restored Mercedes 300 SLR and was delighted with the car. We added the buildings to the track and the people, built a lake complete with a lifeboat, added trees. We finally finished the scenic track the day before the event. I hired a Mercedes Sprinter as I felt this was the only appropriate vehicle, considering that Walkden Fisher was a Mercedes fan.

  The great day finally arrived and we - that is to say Phil Barry, Andy Meredith, my son Richard, my daughter Jenny and myself - left at 6am for Brooklands. Hornby had produced 100 special clear Lamborghini Diablos for the event, some of which we took with us for people who had preordered them. As I got nearer Brooklands I got quite emotional as I saw the signs for the Brooklands Museum. We passed part of the original banking, now just outside Tesco’s carpark, lying there all forlorn and grass covered with a road being driven through the banking. I couldn’t help thinking what a sad end for such a magnificent track.

  We arrived at Brooklands Museum and for the first time I saw the Chequered Flag room, which was absolutely magnificent. The whole place had an incredible atmosphere to it. Looking out from the balcony you could see the original test hill and behind that lay the banking.

  We quickly unloaded the van and set up the rail racing track while Sean Fothersgill and Adrian Norman set up the Ninco four lane track. Ian Rivett set up the Stox racing circuit. After practice where just about everybody got their car to run around the track it was time for the first race. It was really hard to believe it had been 36 years since the last rail race had taken place. I took the inside lane, Don Seigel had the middle lane with his Napier Railton and Charlie Fitzpatrick had the outside line with my Alfa Romeo 12C (which Charlie had specially built for me after I supplied the running gear).

  Steve Cropley of Autocar started the first race and Nick Sismey counted the laps as we were manually counting the rail racing laps. It was a really exciting race with Charlie running home a worthy winner. Steve Cropley presented him with the first trophy and he retired to his stall a happy man. The rest of the day went in an extremely enjoyable blur with Nick Hirst winning both a rail race and the Ninco go-kart race. I won two rail races with Walkden Fisher’s restored car as I had probably spent more time racing around this track then anyone else on the planet. Chas Keeling won the Stox race and just about everybody had a good day.

  When we had finished I had a walk up the banking and was totally overawed by the immense scale this magnificent track had been built on. I couldn’t believe the sort of courage it must have taken to thunder around the top of the banking on skinny tyres in massively powerful cars, as my Grandprix heroes had always been the drivers of the 30’s cars. I also wandered around the aeroplane hangers and saw the Wellington that had been fished out of Loch Ness, along with several WWI fighter planes. If you’ve never been to Brooklands it’s somewhere you absolutely must visit.

  I was really pleased by the wonderful turnout of cars and the standard that they were built to, and would like to thank everybody who went to the trouble to build a rail car for the event. Personally, I think it won’t be too far in the future before there is at least one commercial rail racing track built. As with all events we’ve learned a considerable amount from the first one and next years event will incorporate all the lessons we have learned.   

I would like to thank the following people, without their help this event could not have taken place. Phil, Richard and Andy for helping me do the track, Shaun Fothersgill, Charlie Fitzpatrick and Chas Keeling not only for supplying me with equipment that we used and things we will for many years to come but for morally supporting the whole venture and offering encouragement and advice, Adrian Norman and Nick Sismey for helping, Brian Rogers, Don Siegel, Russel Sheldon, Mark Gussin, Dave Yarbury and all of the following sponsors:   AA Bodies, Australian Slot Car Review, Betta & Classic, Derek Cooper, Electric Dreams, Ian Rivett, Parma SCD, Pendle Slot Racing, Riverside Raceway, Slot Car Racing News, Slot Car Bulletin, T.S. Edwards & Son. And finally, the Brooklands Museum.