| When automobiles races first began, they took place | | | | providing British drivers a venue where they could |
| over public roads. The first course designed and built | | | | safely test their vehicles at high speeds without running |
| specifically for this sport was Brooklands in England. It | | | | afoul of the law. He was also heavily encouraged in his |
| was a combination motor racing track and airfield | | | | project by Selwyn Edge. Edge was an automotive |
| constructed near Weybridge in Surrey, England. The | | | | dealer handling Napier cars. However, he was also an |
| circuit was 3.25 miles or 5.23 kilometers in length. It | | | | experienced and daring race driver, as much at home |
| featured oval banking and was bisected by an | | | | on a track as in his office. Edge publicly challenged |
| approximately one half mile long finishing straight. At | | | | himself to drive the course solo for twenty-four hours |
| some points, the banking attained a height of almost | | | | at sixty miles per hour without stopping to rest. |
| thirty feet or nine meters. It was one hundred feet or | | | | Brooklands officially opened on June 17, 1907 and |
| thirty meters wide. | | | | eleven days later, Edge made good on his promise. |
| It had been constructed of uncoated concrete, which | | | | And it was eighteen years before anyone broke his |
| was an unfortunate choice as over the course of the | | | | record. However, his feat greatly aggravated the |
| years differential settlement set in. This resulted in a | | | | neighboring residents and instigated a racing innovation |
| bumpy ride for the driver. However, covering the | | | | known as the Double Twelve. The twenty-four hour |
| banking with tar macadam and laying asphalt was | | | | event would be conducted in two segments. They |
| prohibitive cost wise. A dotted black line was painted | | | | would drive from 8AM to 8PM on one day. The cars |
| along the center. This was referred to as the fifty-foot | | | | would be locked in overnight to ensure that no attempt |
| line. Supposedly a driver, who was driving over the line, | | | | was made to perform maintenance and the race |
| could round the banked corners without using his | | | | would finish from 8AM to 8PM the following day. |
| steering wheel. Three hundred red railway lamps were | | | | Other records were also set at Brooklands. On |
| employed to provide lighting at night and flares were | | | | February 15,1913 Percy Lambert set a world record as |
| used to identify the upper boundaries. The facility could | | | | the first driver to cover one hundred miles per hour |
| accommodate 287,000 spectators. | | | | when he achieved 103 miles per hour. However, some |
| Brooklands was the creative dream of Sir Hugh | | | | time later he crashed and was killed while trying to |
| Fortescue Locke-King. He had attended the Targa | | | | beat his own time. There are those who say his ghost |
| Florio in Italy and the French Grand Prix and observed | | | | still walks the track attired in full racing gear. Racing at |
| that these races were conducted over public roads | | | | Brooklands ended in 1939, as the facility became part |
| with the blessings of the governments involved. Yet | | | | of the British war effort. It never resumed following |
| British law imposed a strict twenty-mile per hour speed | | | | World War II. |
| limit on all of their roads. Locke-King envisioned | | | | |