Knickerbrook, Oulton Park

On Monday I showed a photograph of a Bugatti near the Knickerbrook Corner at Oulton Park. I was a schoolboy of 13 when I first went to Oulton Park and was curious, as any schoolboy would be, about how the corner had come by this name.

This, courtesy of Google earth, is the Oulton Park circuit. Knickerbrook Corner is the one at the bottom of the picture in the middle. Above it is a narrow pond between Knickerbrook Corner and Cascades Corner. When the circuit was originally laid out in 1953 the loop between Cascades and Knickerbrook did not exist - the circuit carried straight on, though I'm not sure which side of the pond it ran so Knickerbrook Corner may have been some way to the left away from its current postion. The loop was added in 1954 and since then two chicanes have been introduced on the long straight from Shell Oils Corner at the extreme right to cut the speed of the cars (and motor bikes) before they get to Knickerbrook.

Here are three Lotus Elans during a race at the Gold Cup meeting in August 2012 exiting Hislop's Chicane and going towards Knickerbrook Corner. The cars are driven by Paul Tooms, Peter Shaw and Vicky Brooks.

Here, a lap or two later, are the Elans of Paul Tooms and Peter Shaw going round the Knickerbrook Corner.

This is the actual 'Knicker Brook' - the circuit is on the other side of the barrier and tyre wall you can see at the top of the photograph and it's the bottom side of the circuit as you see it in the top picture From here it flows underneath the circuit into the pond and from there underneath the circuit at Cascades and into Oulton Lake.

As to the story of how it got its name.......Well, I don't know if the story is true but it's said that it was given this name by 'Blaster' Bates, an explosives and demolition expert. He had been engaged to remove the stumps of some beech trees before the circuit was built. At the first explosion a courting couple were seen to run from the vicinity of the brook in a state of disarray and afterwards an item of ladies' underwear was found there, leading to the naming of the corner.