Council Give Track Days The Black Flag
Sevenoaks Council are currently making it impossible for motorcyclists to use Brands Hatch for track days. Track days are where motorcyclists can pay for track time and race their bikes on the track in a safe and appropriate environment rather than on the roads.
Understandably there has always been an evening cut off time but the local authority are now making life impossible by imposing unrealistic noise limits on trackside measurements at all times. This means that many motorcyclists cannot use the facilities at all without being 'black-flagged' by marshals for breaking noise limits. They are not offered their money back but simply have to abandon their enjoyment in frustration.
Getting motorcyclists off the road and onto the track to enjoy racing their machines is exactly what the police and the rest us in society want to see happening. It is much safer and does not cause anywhere near the kind of risk of death or injury to the riders or any other road users that we associate with speeding bikes on the open road. It is therefore something that should be encouraged as much as possible.
Brands Hatch has been there for a long time and is a fantastic facility for everyone, professionals and public alike. It is crucially important that this facility is not ruined and made unusable, to the detriment of everyone else, by people that perhaps shouldn't be living there in the first place. Sevenoaks Council have obviously acted thoughtlessly by allowing housing to develop more towards the circuit. Most people would have realised that this would inevitably yield a conflict of interest! However, if you don't like noise, don't live next to a race track!
Motorcyclists pay considerable amounts of money to use race tracks such as Brands Hatch. Ruining this facility for those that are considerate enough to take their bikes there in the first place, rather than racing them on the roads, is not helpful to anyone as it just encourages motorcyclists to race on the open road instead.
If not put right, the long term effects of this kind of restriction will also affect the earning ability and financial income of the circuit as track days at Brands Hatch will be seen as a waste of time and become a thing of the past!
Some History From The Brands Hatch Website
There has been a race track at Brands Hatch since 1926, when the land was first used for grass track bike racing. In those days, competitors ran anti-clockwise, but the direction of the circuit was switched in 1954.
The heritage of Brands is vast - name any famous driver from the last 50 years or so and they are bound to have cut their teeth racing here. Stirling Moss, Jim Clark, Barry Sheene, Jack Brabham, Ayrton Senna, Jenson Button and Lewis Hamilton are among the countless drivers to have raced and won at Brands over the years.
Nigel Mansell scored his first Grand Prix victory here, also winning the final F1 World Championship race at Brands Hatch in 1986. The circuit became the spiritual home of the World Superbike Championship in the 1990s and 2000s, and hosted the first A1 Grand Prix in 2005. Past winners of the Formula Ford Festival meanwhile have included Jenson Button and Mark Webber. Brands Hatch continues to make history, with the Road Cycling events at the 2012 Paralympic Games based at the Kent circuit proving a huge success, with Alex Zanardi's performances voted as the number one moment of the 2012 Paralympic Games by the International Paralympic Committee. In 2013 it became one of few circuits in the world to stage an F1, Indycar and NASCAR event, the latter making its debut at the American SpeedFest with the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series. International racing also continues to thrive with the Blancpain GT Series.
Brands Hatch's unique combination of dips, cambers, fearsome corners and hills means it is still one of the world's favourite racing circuits, and continues to go from strength to strength.