One Of The UK’s Newest Circuits Is Now Just A Big Car Park

Brace for feels if, like us, you remember the golden days of Rockingham’s fast-paced car-happy past

The former Rockingham Speedway, once the home of vast car meets, international race events and track days galore, is now just storage – and a lot of it. Just take a look at these images on Twitter.

The location, which boasted the fastest banked oval circuit in Europe as well as a multitude of infield corners that could be combined in different ways for different race series or to tweak track day difficulty, has been photographed looking extremely sad.

Crowds of 30,000+ were common
Crowds of 30,000+ were common

Back in 2001 when the track opened, Tony Kanaan set a lap record for the oval in 24.719 seconds; an average speed of 215.397mph in an Indycar. Right now, though, that 1.47-mile track is almost completely covered with parked cars.

Now billed as Rockingham Automotive Solutions since its purchase by investors in 2018, it boasts of storage space for 50,000 vehicles and 40,000sq ft of office space on the 250-acre site. Most of the grandstands were due to be torn down, as well, but from what we can see in those tweeted pictures at the top, it hasn’t happened yet.

Rockingham was also a valued photo/filming location
Rockingham was also a valued photo/filming location

The main grandstand has been converted into office space and will remain. The site’s foreign-based owners are looking to improve it with a gym, as they look to build a regional hub for vehicle fleet processing.

Instead of hosting 50,000 fans and a chorus of screaming engines, the future of Rockingham will host crowds of identical high-mileage rep-mobiles and tortured work vans, all parked glumly where there used to be so much excitement. Time to hit YouTube and remind ourselves how much fun the facility used to be.

Comments

OctyVRS

i went to the Indy cars in 2001 at rockingham when i was just a Kid it was amazing i still remember that track fondly. Such a good facility going to waste. it such a shame.
with likes of castle combe having issues due to unreasonable noise restrictions placed on it, effectively making it almost impossible for any racing series to go there. It just seems sad.

02/19/2020 - 11:46 |
24 | 0
Velstyde

At least it remains in Live For Speed

02/20/2020 - 08:11 |
0 | 0

And real racing 3

02/21/2020 - 05:05 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

Nevertheless, it is nice to see that the engineers did a great job to turn the abandoned object into a useful one. As far as I remember, the city orders a special calculation of the cost of such reconstruction in each individual case, for example, the use of electricity - https://www.esticom.com/electrical-estimating/ All this will again become popular sooner or later, and it would be reasonable to keep the part in good condition.

02/23/2020 - 08:01 |
0 | 2
Anonymous

It looks even worse from the air! Half the town of Corby is being used by BCA (British Car Auctions) who have taken over dozens of airfields around the UK shutting down flying to use them as a car park. Bruntingthorpe Proving Ground has also found it more profitable to store cars instead of testing them so they’ve turned half their facilities into a car park.

Sadly it’s a growing trend fueled by 1-3 year PCP deals, companies are being forced to store all these used cars and release them slowly to prevent 2nd hand prices collapsing

02/24/2020 - 12:42 |
0 | 0
Anonymous

Am I the only one to think it is or was a soulless place?
Never seemed to draw the massive crowds expected and just seemed a boring circuit to me
Sorry if that offends!

03/01/2020 - 12:22 |
0 | 0

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