Book Review: Brands Hatch by Chas Parker
If you’ve ever watched cars plunge down from Paddock Hill Bend, trying hard not to run wide as the track drops away, before climbing steeply to the pinch-point of Druids Hairpin, then you’ve experienced the magic of Brands Hatch. The Kent, UK circuit’s topography and well-honed layout make it a fantastic place to drive or spectate.
Chas Parker’s history of Brands earns the right to call itself definitive, at least up to the point it was published in 2008. Parker, a prolific author and former Motorsport News subeditor (we worked a few days together many years ago), begins with the first cycle races on the fields of Brands Hatch Farm in the 1920s and charts the evolution of the site to its current status: laying the first pavement, the reversal of racing from anticlockwise to clockwise, the addition of grandstands and the Grand Prix loop, the political and commercial maneuverings of the 1990s and 2000s, and more.
It’s hard to imagine how the addition of anyone else’s voice would have improved the story. All the key players are here, including the track’s most famous custodians: John Webb, Nicola Foulston and Jonathan Palmer. Also contributing are countless car and motorcycle racers who competed around Brands’s natural amphitheatre – Moss, Clark, Surtees, Fittipaldi and Scheckter among them.
Among the expected plaudits and rose-tinted recollections, I couldn’t help but laugh at Jackie Stewart’s unfiltered assessment, which begins: “I never liked it.”
The stories are accompanied throughout by fabulous archive photos, including many from the 1970s and 80s from Parker’s own collection.
My own memories of Brands are split between pre-journalism (notably, attending the 1,000km World Sportscar race in 1986) and covering various events and races there during my first decade as a writer. It’s also where I gained my briefly held ARDS race licence, on a streaming wet day in 2010. Despite thinking I had reasonable knowledge of the circuit’s history, I found an awful lot of new-to-me information in Parker’s narrative. For me, his accounts of the main developments in each decade are the heart of the book, but he also provides year-by-year reports on the racing activity.
Brands hasn’t hosted an F1 grand prix since 1986, nor will it likely again. But a glance at the calendar shows it remains in rude health as it approaches its centenary in 2026, with high track utilization and marquee race meetings like British Touring Cars, British Superbikes, Masters Historic Festival and GT World Challenge Europe on the schedule. If you haven’t been, go!
Brands Hatch
by Chas Parker
Haynes, 2008. ISBN 978 1 84425 334 0
Find it on eBay
Chas Parker’s history of Brands earns the right to call itself definitive, at least up to the point it was published in 2008. Parker, a prolific author and former Motorsport News subeditor (we worked a few days together many years ago), begins with the first cycle races on the fields of Brands Hatch Farm in the 1920s and charts the evolution of the site to its current status: laying the first pavement, the reversal of racing from anticlockwise to clockwise, the addition of grandstands and the Grand Prix loop, the political and commercial maneuverings of the 1990s and 2000s, and more.
It’s hard to imagine how the addition of anyone else’s voice would have improved the story. All the key players are here, including the track’s most famous custodians: John Webb, Nicola Foulston and Jonathan Palmer. Also contributing are countless car and motorcycle racers who competed around Brands’s natural amphitheatre – Moss, Clark, Surtees, Fittipaldi and Scheckter among them.
Among the expected plaudits and rose-tinted recollections, I couldn’t help but laugh at Jackie Stewart’s unfiltered assessment, which begins: “I never liked it.”
The stories are accompanied throughout by fabulous archive photos, including many from the 1970s and 80s from Parker’s own collection.
My own memories of Brands are split between pre-journalism (notably, attending the 1,000km World Sportscar race in 1986) and covering various events and races there during my first decade as a writer. It’s also where I gained my briefly held ARDS race licence, on a streaming wet day in 2010. Despite thinking I had reasonable knowledge of the circuit’s history, I found an awful lot of new-to-me information in Parker’s narrative. For me, his accounts of the main developments in each decade are the heart of the book, but he also provides year-by-year reports on the racing activity.
Brands hasn’t hosted an F1 grand prix since 1986, nor will it likely again. But a glance at the calendar shows it remains in rude health as it approaches its centenary in 2026, with high track utilization and marquee race meetings like British Touring Cars, British Superbikes, Masters Historic Festival and GT World Challenge Europe on the schedule. If you haven’t been, go!
Brands Hatch
by Chas Parker
Haynes, 2008. ISBN 978 1 84425 334 0
Find it on eBay