Esso Bend

This is a photograph I took during the AMOC '50s Sports Car Race at the Aston Martin Owners Club's meeting at Oulton Park in May 2015.

It's the far reaches of the circuit with Island Bend to the left leading to the loop of Shell Oils Corner and then off to the left again is Britten's chicane. When I went to my first meeting at Oulton Park in 1955 it wasn't possible for spectators to get to this part of the circuit and it was years before access was opened up. The original name for the loop was Esso Bend, and it's the name which it is still used by older people like myself. In the mid 1970s this part of the circuit was not used, a hairpin corner being created at Island bend  and for a shorter circuit a link between the Cascades corner and Knickerbrook. The earliest programme I have which shows the full circuit in use again is 1987 and by this time the loop was named Shell Oils Corner. The car approaching the camera in the above shot is Tom McWhirter's 1957 Tojeiro Jaguar and the three cars following him are the 1954 Austin Healey 100-4 of Martyn Corfield, the 1951 Aston Martin DB2 Lightweight of Darren Roberts and Tim Reid's 1960 Lola Mk1. On the other side of the loop is the 1952 Aston Martin DB2 of David Reed.