Oulton Park
Oulton Park is a hard surfaced track used for motor racing, close to the village of Little Budworth, Cheshire, England, from Winsford, from Chester city centre, from Northwich and from Warrington, with a nearby rail connection along the Mid-Cheshire Line. It occupies much of the area which was previously known as the Oulton Estate. The racing circuit is owned and operated by Jonathan Palmer's MotorSport Vision organisation.
Circuit
The track is characterised by rapidly changing gradients, blind crests and several tight corners. The full circuit is. The highest part of the course is Hill Top. Paddock facilities are reasonable in size with large areas of hard-standing and some power points.The race track can be adapted for shorter courses. The "Foster's" Circuit, which is, comprises half of the "Cascades" corner followed by the "Hislop's" chicane, it then heads onto Knickerbrook and up the 13% gradient of Clay Hill to work its way round to the start/finish straight. The British Touring Car Championships uses all of the Cascades Corner and Lakeside but then forks off into a hairpin before Island Bend. This hairpin cuts out all of the Island section of the circuit and takes the cars straight back over Hill Top.
Beginning in 2007, all the circuit's marshalling stations were redesigned with protective cages. This was to prevent incidents similar to those seen in the 2006 season when cars had collided with marshalling posts. A cage-protected marshals station was also built at the bottom of the back straight near the chicane preceding Knickerbrook.
Knickerbrook corner
The corner is named after an event that occurred when the British demolition expert and raconteur, Blaster Bates, was removing tree stumps with dynamite close to the corner with a colleague. After the first detonation, a courting couple were seen to run off at speed and in some disarray from a nearby bush or bank. On closer investigation, the pair discovered some ladies underwear in the brook and this resulted in the naming of the corner.Despite its colourful name, it was a notorious corner on circuit because of accidents and driver fatalities. The death of Paul Warwick in 1991 led to a chicane being added at the entry to the corner. Before Warwick's death, the bend had a reputation as a "racers' corner" because it demanded a driver's full commitment and total courage. Originally it was a fifth gear, off camber right-hand bend at the end of a downhill straight called Hilltop. Deep kerbing on the inside of the corner combined with an off camber could easily affect a cars' handling causing it to veer to the outside of the circuit. As an Armco barrier on the outside of the corner eventually intersected with the grass verge, there was a significant lack of run off area for drivers forced wide on the bend.
Since 1991, a right-left chicane was installed about before Knickerbrook to reduce the speed of cars coming down Hilltop.
History
Origins – 1950s
In the early 18th century the Oulton Estate comprised a manor house and a formal garden surrounded by Cheshire farmland. By the end of the century this farmland was converted into a park, which now is the site of Oulton Park. Some buildings that were part of the estate still exist; the entrance gates, lodges and screen designed by Joseph Turner. During the Second World War, Oulton Park's grounds were used as one of the staging camps for US Army units under the command of General Patton before the Normandy landings in 1944. American World Heavyweight Champion boxer Joe Louis put on several exhibition bouts for the troops garrisoned at Oulton Park. The fights were staged within the vicinity of the Deer Leap section of the modern circuit. After the war, much of the estate remained unused. The estate's original house had been destroyed by fire in 1926 leaving vacant parkland.By the early 1950s England had a number of motor racing tracks but the northwest was not well served. The members of the Mid-Cheshire Car Club took it on themselves to rectify the situation. The circuit they developed was on the estate of the Grey-Egerton family. With Sir Philip Gray-Egerton's permission, a circuit was mapped out starting early in 1953 and by August the new track was in existence, measuring, almost rectangular in shape.
The first meeting took place on 8 August, but the RAC would not allow the public to attend, wanting an opening meeting to be run successfully before allowing paying spectators; nonetheless some 3,000 club members and their guests attended as spectators. The main event of the day was the 33-lap Formula Two race, won by Tony Rolt driving Rob Walker's Connaught A Type. The supporting Formula III event was divided into three 10-lap heats and a 17-lap final which went to Les Leston.
Oulton Park has a vast catchment area which includes Liverpool, Manchester, Chester and Crewe so it is little surprise that the second meeting and last of 1953, on 3 October, attracted a crowd of 40,000. It was a joint motorcycle and car event, the Wirral 100 Motor Club joining the Mid-Cheshire Car Club in organising it. The car side of the day was confined to three Formula III races and a final, which was won by Glaswegian Ninian Sanderson from Ken Tyrrell.
By April 1954, the track had grown to in length and within a year of the opening meeting had grown again, to. On Easter 1975, another circuit layout, measuring, came into use. Oulton Park is unique amongst the new post-World War II circuits in that it is a true road circuit whilst its contemporaries were, with one exception, converted airfields. It has something in common with Mallory Park in that it can trace its history back a very long way and is mentioned in Domesday Book as ‘Aleton’.
The British Racing Drivers' Club brought the British Empire Trophy to Oulton Park in 1954 and ran it for sports cars on the new Island Circuit. Alan Brown won the race in a Cooper-Bristol from Roy Salvadori, driving a Maserati A6GCS, who set a new lap record at.
In August, Oulton Park saw its first international meeting when the Daily Dispatch sponsored the Oulton Park Gold Cup. Apart from the 11-year period when Aintree ran international Formula One races, it fell to Oulton Park to bring the major formulae to the northwest of England and the Gold Cup was run for all the major formulae: Formula One, Formula Two, Formula 5000 and the big sport cars. Its first running over the second new circuit of the year, the 2.761 mile International circuit, and was for Formula One; the entry was entirely British with the exception of Jean Behra in his Gordini. There were 19 starters; Stirling Moss started from the back of the grid in his new Maserati 250F which had only arrived from the factory on the morning of the race. By the end of lap one, he had passed twelve of his rivals and took the lead from Reg Parnell's Ferrari 625 on the fourth lap to win by 1min 14.4sec at the end of the 36-lap race. Bob Gerard's Cooper-Bristol and Don Beauman's Connaught were the only two other cars on the same lap as Moss. This was the first of Moss's victories in the Gold Cup – he went on to win it another four times, repeating the win in 1955, 1959, 1960 and 1961.
In 1956 the Vintage Sports Car Club brought the Richard Seaman Memorial Trophy Race to Oulton Park from Silverstone, but the BRSCC's Daily Herald Trophy for sport cars was almost rained off. The race was reduced from 56 to 40 laps and the Le Mans-winning Ecurie Ecosse team was withdrawn. Moss won in his works Aston Martin DB3S from his teammate Tony Brooks.
Ahead of the 1957 season, Moss and Brooks tested the Vanwalls at Oulton and advised that the surface should be replaced at Island Bend. Their advice was acted on.
1960s
There was a new look to the Cheshire circuit for the 1961 season, the pits being rebuilt into a two-storey affair with a concrete wall to protect the pit crews when working on their charges. The Oulton Park Trophy was a televised event for GT cars which was won by Mike Parkes in the Maranello Concessionaires Ferrari 250GT from Graham Hill in a Jaguar E-Type and Tony Maggs in an Aston Martin DB4GT; Innes Ireland fought his way to fourth in another 250GT after a poor start, setting a new lap record on the way.The 1961 Gold Cup was Moss's final Cup win, in a unique car. The race was run in damp conditions and this enabled Moss to take the flag with the four-wheel drive Ferguson P99. It was the only race victory for the 4WD F1 car although the car did win the 1964 British Hill Climb Championship.
Oulton Park was bought by Grovewood Securities in 1964, to increase the Company's motor sport portfolio, and later in the year Grovewood also acquired the freehold, thereby ending nearly 500 years of ownership by the Egerton family. Grovewood's takeover coincided with the increase in required safety measures. Being set in parkland, Oulton Park was more difficult and more expensive to bring up to standard than other circuits but the decision to make motorsport first and parkland second was effected.
The spring meeting that year had a distinctly Scottish flavour, Jimmy Clark winning the sports, GT and saloon car races and Jackie Stewart, starting out in International career, winning the Formula Three race in Ken Tyrrell's Cooper-Austin. Clark was the reigning World Champion yet had time to enter a relatively minor meeting in England.
1965 saw the revival of the world's oldest motor race when the Royal Automobile Club's Tourist Trophy came to the Cheshire track. It was run for Sports and GT cars in two 2-hour heats and was won by Denny Hulme in a 2-litre Brabham BT8.
On 2 April 1966, prospective spectators at the British Automobile Racing Club's Oulton Park 200 were turned away, as the circuit was covered in snow. Good Friday 1969 saw the birth of Formula 5000 in Europe: Peter Gethin had a runaway win driving the Church Farm Racing McLaren M10A.
The last RAC Tourist Trophy to be run at Oulton Park took place on Whit Monday 1969 and ended in tragedy. Paul Hawkins lost control of his Lola T70 at Island Bend and hit a tree; he was killed instantly and the race stopped, Trevor Taylor being declared the winner.