The Brooklands Podcast

Crowds converged on Brooklands Museum as it hosted the land speed record celebration day, in partnership with the National Transport Trust and National Motor Museum Beaulieu, on Tuesday 17th May, exactly 100 years after Brooklands played host to a record-breaking run.

In the afternoon, attendees were invited to a panel discussion with Andy Green and representatives from McLaren Automotive, McMurtry Automotive and Don Wales, Grandson of Sir Malcolm Campbell. The panel discussed the importance of ambitious technical projects like the land speed record in pushing the envelope, enhancing the future of mobility and helping to tackle the climate crisis. Discussion also covered the history, engineering prowess and innovation associated with the land speed record, and how it can lay the groundwork for vehicles today and the mobility of tomorrow.

Back in 2017, Keith Futcher, a 70-year-old living in Malaysia saw an image in a glossy magazine that sent his heart racing. Determined to recreate the photograph, Keith persuaded two other seniors, quickly growing to four, that a journey on heritage motorcycles across the Sahara was a wonderfully absurd notion.

Hooking up with an ex-Special Forces operative and a combat zone photographer made them seven. Wild camping under star-spattered skies from Spain to Tangier, then riding across unforgiving terrain, fourteen dusty boots eventually touched down on the sands of the Sahara at Erg Chebbi, their final destination.

Keith talks with John Bottomley at Brooklands about his adventures

There are none more fitting than Tony Brooks, who once owned the garage just outside the Brooklands gates, to open a new season of Simon Taylor's Motoring Legends in 2017.

Simon joined us in the Brooklands Clubhouse to revisit many of those people he originally interviewed for his famous "Lunch With....." series of articles in motorsport magazine.

Tony Brooks took part in 39 F1 Grands Prix from1956, achieving six wins and 10 podium finishes. He was third in the F1 Championship in 1958 and second in 1959.

A true British Motoring Legend on stage in the Brooklands Clubhouse with Simon Taylor.

Recorded in July 2017

The Track Episode 20 - Dr Eric Gardner and Stars from Secrets of the Transport Museum by Nonesuche Media

The Track Episode 19 - Neil Trundle and Steve Clarke by Nonesuche Media

Dr Gardner was an amazing man. Not only was he the Brooklands circuit Physician but he also founded Weybridge Museum.

That was not all however, as he was also a Weybridge GP and Surgeon, rower, soldier, hospital governor, local councillor and Mayor, archaeologist, historian, expert map collector, forensic pathologist and the inventor of the safety motor cycle crash helmet!

Local historian Steve McCarthy shines a light on this remarkable man and a corner of Brooklands' history that is little known.

Reine Wisell spoke with BMtv's Robin Cordery on a Zoom call on the 3rd August 2020. Reine was in Thailand and Robin in Surrey so please excuse the quality of the recording.

In 2007 Fiona Easterby combined her passion for cars and travel by buying a VW Beetle for £99 and driving it from the UK to Gambia, via the Sahara Desert. She caught the bug, as it were, and followed that by more international driving adventures, culminating in driving a 1969 Baja Beetle from the UK to Singapore via the Middle East and the Tibetan plateau. She became the first person in the world to drive a VW Beetle to Mount Everest.

For her day job, Fiona is a broadcast camera operator. In addition to working for the BBC, Sky and Channel 4 amongst others, including filming motorsport events, she set up World Rallies Productions. Assignments have included filming the Thunder Dragon Tour of India and Bhutan, and the Samurai Challenge Rally of Japan.

Drawing from both her international motoring and filming experiences, Fiona delivers an entertaining and inspiring presentation.

Tim talks to some of the owners and drivers at the VSCC Driving Tests day at Brooklands in January, followed by the 1964 Monte Carlo rally winner and so much more celebrity Paddy Hopkirk in person talking about his life in a Mini.

Neil Trundle is a former Chief Mechanic for the McLaren F1 team. He is best known for being the chief mechanic for F1 drivers Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost but has a wealth of experience at the cutting edge of Formula 1 over many years.

He also co‐founded Rondel racing with a certain Ron Dennis and would later rejoin him for an epic stint at McLaren after running his own Formula 3 team in the early 80s. His career at the pinnacle of F1 took him around the World with the greatest drivers and he has a resulting treasure trove of memories and motor racing stories to tell.

Neil has been a long‐term member and friend of the Brooklands Members and this evening he will be in conversation with F1 fan and talks organiser, Steve Clarke.