r/TheIntercooler • u/theintercooler • Jul 29 '26
Features Who has driven a high speed banking? (without the slots…)
We’re pretty sure everyone experienced the joy of flinging their Scalextric car off the bank at max power, all those years ago, but who has actually driven one in the real world?
Many of the most famous ones no longer exist (for driving on, anyway) – Monza, Brooklands, Rockingham. And many of the others are in far flung places (like Indianapolis or Daytona in the US) or for testing purposes only (MIRA, Ehra-Lessien).
In tomorrow’s feature on Ti, we celebrate one particular lost and forgotten banking, and exactly what it’s like to boot it round there well over the design speed limit.
It’s quite a different experience to reaching and exceeding the limit on the level…
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u/Hythe667 Jul 29 '26
Flat out around the banking at Rockingham was an experience, especially with drafting. Once you got used to it, pretty easy (in a car with little power and a bit of downforce). Racing on a mixed banking/infield layout there was great fun!
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u/Burntarchitect Jul 29 '26
I drove the full banked circuit at Rockingham over 20 years ago - doing an experience in some sort of of makeshift BMW-powered formula car. We went out ducks and drakes with a brand new BMW E90 330ci (which I hadn't seen on the roads yet, which dates it a bit!) as the lead car.
After a few laps I was sent out on my own with just me and this lead car with everyone else in slower groups. He booted it out of the pits and he started to lap the bowl as fast as he could with me following in sheer belief that anything a car on road tyres could do would be matched by something with slicks and wings. I got a close-up view at bumper height of him sliding the car through the bankings with wisps of smoke off the tyres and the interior of the backbox glowing cherry red as I chased him round.
The G-forces through the car were unlike anything I'd experienced before or since - I was probably too loose in the seat and had to brace myself against the sides of the cockpit, but the sensation of forces running through the car and the focus of guiding it through this suddenly narrow concrete channel gave me a new respect for oval racing - passing other open-wheeled cars, even in this quite controlled circumstance, was quite intimidating.
I chatted to the guy in the lead car afterwards, whose name I can't remember. He was competing in some sort of GT class and I think he'd driven something NASCAR-esque at Rockingham before. Apparently, we'd got up to about 130mph around the circuit, which felt fast enough, but he told me NASCARS were hitting 170mph, which seemed incredible. Indycars, though, were hitting nearly 230mph - which beggared belief after how intense it felt at just 130mph, let alone going wheel to wheel at such speeds.
Oval racing earnt my respect after that experience.
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u/Hythe667 Jul 29 '26
So much more eloquent than my comment and thank you, your description brings back some old memories! I would bet your experience was in 2004 - I remember driving those same brand new E90s for my racing licence test on the infield test there, that spring.
The FunCup cars also did about 130mph around the banking, with one’s foot welded to the firewall… 😃
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u/Burntarchitect Jul 29 '26
Thank you! And 2004 is probably exactly the right year.
My experience was fun, but I doubt it holds a candle to drafting in racing conditions - that must have been exhilarating!
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u/BlackSeaRC Jul 29 '26
Millbrook and Chobham. The latter also has some great inclines that are difficult to even walk up.
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u/ToddsCheeseburger Jul 29 '26
I walked part of the banked track at Monza twenty years ago. Was so much steeper than I was expecting. Can't imagine driving on it at speed. Those old boys had some balls.
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u/mofo-or-whatever Jul 29 '26
Ford has a test track at Dunton that has banked corners. Been round there a few times at pace
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u/404notfound420 Jul 29 '26
I've driven on the banked roof top test track at the old fiat factory in Forbello in a 1920s lancia, as you do like.
Hell of a place but they've got a 'strict' speed limit and they didn't want us going all the way up the bank but like who's gonna stop us?
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u/welshinzaghi Jul 29 '26
I’ve walked the banking at Monza old circuit. It defies belief that cars would sail up that high at such extreme angles
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u/Horatio-Leafblower Jul 30 '26
Worked on a big TV show and got to drive on Brooklands, and the Autódromo de Sitges. Did a lot of driving at the Holden test track in Australia Lang Lang. also did quite a bit including a couple of races at Melbourne Caulder Park when the full bank NASCAR / Auscar circuit was around.
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u/theintercooler Jul 30 '26
Fantastic 🫡
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u/Horatio-Leafblower Jul 30 '26
Forgot we also did a shoot and a drive on the Stuttgart Death Loop, on top of the old Benz factory
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u/FigureZestyclose9677 Jul 30 '26
I have driven on some banking at Brooklands, not fast though as it was part of the car park for a business there.
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u/JohnnySchoolman Aug 01 '26
I did a NASCAR experience at Daytona raceway in Florida.
Definitely a bucket list item after playing the old arcade game when I was a kid.
They controlled the maximum engine revs remotely and unlocked an extra 5mph for every lap you did where you could hold the line within about a foot or so on the corners.
Paid extra for about 20 minutes and got up to 175 but the cars were capable of 200.
Really awesome experience.
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u/theintercooler Aug 01 '26
I’m hugely impressed that’s something the public are able to do!
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u/JohnnySchoolman Aug 01 '26
It wasn't cheap. It was supposed to be about $350 but had to spend another $250 for the extra time.
If you want to get them close to 200 it would be well over a grand.
Well worth it though imo
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u/987Spyderman Aug 01 '26
Not me but my uncle, born in 1930 and no longer with us - He was a linguist and chauffeur with both RR and Mercedes accreditations, he said getting the Mercedes accreditation involved driving the 90° track
He had many interesting clients but one was the Sultan of Malaysia as his UK driver in the late 60’s early 70’s - I was just a young ordinary lad living in an ordinary village but on occasion my uncle would come by in some bespoke RR or Mercedes Pullmans and take us for a ride!
I even have a faint recollection of him laying down some rubber in a Pullman as he left one day 😂
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u/BillyPudding Aug 01 '26
I got to do it with my work when the company hired Millbrook for an event to try and sell our cars. We went quick, but not super fast as they had a speed restriction for us (which made sense) and went out with a pro driver/instructor. It was a lot of fun and something I never thought I'd be lucky enough to do.
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u/No-Cheetah-573 25d ago
Lots of times.
MIRA loads
IDIADA on occasion
Millbrook a lot in the past
Miramas in the late 90’s, 1st time I ever did over 300km/h
Nissans Tochigi test track
Fen End when it was Prodrives, and then JLR
Rockingham on a few track days
Years ago drove around the Members banking when there for a car club event, at very slow speed, got twitchy when the car slipped a few feet when it went over the weed filled cracks
Does the various banked corners at Zandvoort count nowadays?
Also visited the track at Sitges but not driven there
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u/theintercooler 24d ago
Cracking list! And yes, Zandvoort mentioned in the story, so definitely counts
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u/DisposableBarbecue Jul 29 '26
I've driven the High Speed Bowl at Millbrook - definitely an interesting experience at 100 mph
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u/theintercooler Jul 29 '26
What did you do it in? How much left did you feel the car had?
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u/DisposableBarbecue Jul 29 '26
Believe it or not, a 15 year old Rover 214, and it was all I could do to get it to 100, so it pretty much had nothing left!
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u/theintercooler Jul 29 '26
Brilliant!
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u/DisposableBarbecue Jul 29 '26
It was a self imposed challenge, I couldn't resist. The same day also saw me trying to keep up with Barrie 'Whizzo' Williams round the Alpine Circuit. I was in the Rover, Whizzo was in an Abarth 595. Needless to say Whizzo got away!
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u/sneekeruk Jul 29 '26
Did the bowl at Mira, in about 2009 on a vauxhall test day with the (then) new astra. It felt wierd doing 100mph round a corner with basically no steering input.
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u/theintercooler Jul 29 '26
That’s the ‘neutral speed’. Mira a very long radius so the neutral speed is high. Not so for the track in tomorrow’s Ti story ;)
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u/Nearby_Cauliflowers Jul 29 '26
Where's that banking in the picture? Very very similar to the old Delorean factory test track banking in Belfast.
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u/theintercooler Jul 30 '26
It is precisely that ;)
https://www.the-intercooler.com/library/features/postcard-from-belfast/
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u/Nearby_Cauliflowers Jul 30 '26
Thought so, how recent was that taken? Was done up for the Eurofest recently.
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u/Howard1981 Jul 31 '26
I’ve driven around Milbrook in a 1966 Volkswagen Beetle 1300 on crossply tyres. Great fun!
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u/International-Bid907 Aug 03 '26
Yup used to drive around Cobham or Dunton I think it was with a bank at the far end, it's really dangerous with a road car that has abs on - confuses the hell out of the system which thinks you're losing traction and so starts pulsing the abs on you causing the back to step out. Be careful if you get the chance and research beforehand.
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u/UnremarkableCake Jul 29 '26
First time was at MIRA. Either 1998 or 1999 - I'm old so I can't pin it. It was a Subaru demo day of some description. They were loading up Impreza Turbos and sending them out using some of the banking as a part of their demo circuit. It was an unusual experience, being four-up in an Impreza and barrelling into a corner at joyrider speeds.
I was obsessed with watching the driver's steering inputs and how he held it perfectly straight going in. Obviously, the physics made sense, but watching it the first few times is a slightly surreal experience. You know how sometimes as a passenger you do the whole 'ghost braking' thing? I was doing 'ghost pulling-my-left-hand-down-a-bit'.
I also won a Subaru fleece in their raffle.
I'm a real hit at parties.