Oulton Park

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Course of the circuit, Oulton Park

Oulton Park is both the name of a landscape park in Tarporley , Cheshire , England , as well as one of the most prestigious invitation races on British soil.

history

Start of the 1957 Easter race

Originally housed idyllic location parkland the medieval buildings of Oulton Hall , which up to the 1926 foundation walls burned.

During the Second World War , the site housed one of the headquarters of the United States Army . General George S. Patton made preparations for the Normandy landing here, and a prominent soldier, reigning heavyweight champion Joe Louis , did a few rounds of training.

After the war, the site lay fallow until the Mid-Cheshire Car Club developed a plan for a race track that was based on the natural features of the lovely landscape. When, at the first race weekend in 1953, an enormous crowd of 40,000 spectators streamed onto the facility, the future of Oulton Parks as a race track seemed secure.

After that, not only national but also international competitions were held in all possible motor sport classes. The most prominent race was soon to become the so-called "Gold Cup Event", which in its earlier days regularly attracted renowned Formula 1 teams and drivers, as the track was considered demanding and picturesque.

The most prominent and at the same time first winner of the Gold Cup was Stirling Moss , who achieved his first of five victories in a Maserati 250F in 1954, which had just been delivered from the factory. He also celebrated his last triumph in 1961 with a rarity, the all-wheel-drive Ferguson P99 - by the way, the only victory of such a concept according to Formula 1 regulations.

When the Formula 1 monopostos were increasingly banned from the old street circuits for safety reasons from the mid-1970s, the importance of the Gold Cup declined somewhat.

Current condition

Today the Gold Cup is primarily a race for historic racing cars, which annually attracts hundreds of participants in all classes. In August 2004, the 50th anniversary event was designed with two days of racing and a total of 17 races with a large ceremony, at which the guest of honor, Sir Stirling Moss, could not take part in the valance of a car as usual , as he was temporarily open due to a disc operation was dependent on a wheelchair and had to stay at home. To compensate for this, Jack Brabham, a three-time world champion, and Roy Salvadori , another British survivor of the wild first decade of the highest motorsport class, who once had the famous words when asked about Mike after a bad accident caused by Mike Hawthorn in 1956, was present Being exclaimed, "He's dead!".

The 4.46-kilometer racetrack also houses a branch of the Formula Audi racing school of the former Formula 1 driver Jonathan Palmer . In addition to the historic racing cars already mentioned, races of the British Superbike Championship (BSB), the British Touring Car Championship (BTCC) and the national Formula 3 Championship are held here on a regular basis .

address

Oulton Park Circuit
Little Budworth,
Tarporley,
Cheshire CW6 9BW

Web links

Coordinates: 53 ° 10 ′ 39.3 "  N , 2 ° 36 ′ 51.8"  W.