Rockingham circuit to close
Rockingham Motor Speedway – the UK’s only US-style oval track and a popular venue for classic events, club rallies and record attempts – will close at the end of the 2018 season. Destined to become a car storage facility, Rockingham’s management has said in a letter seen by CCW that all motor sport and retail events will cease at the site at the end of the year. In its 17 years of business, Rockingham saw the MG Owners’ Club (MGOC) set a Guinness world record there, when a cavalcade of 144 MGs paraded around the circuit in April 2015.
Jonathan Kimber, the club’s technical advisor, said: ‘It’s a huge shame.
‘We hosted our world record and race championship rounds at Rockingham’s handling circuits; it had a great deal of potential to host other classic cars shows, too.’
September’s new series of Fifth Gear will also see Rockingham featured for the last time on screen; many links for the new season were filmed there.
Co-host Tiff Needell said: ‘Rockingham was a great track to play on – and the staff were wonderful.
‘We’ll miss having it – but we’ve known things weren’t quite right for a while. It was a great track day venue and was ideal for Fifth Gear’s budget. We’ll have to look elsewhere for a venue in the future.’
A company statement released on 15 August by Peter Hardman, Rockingham’s chief executive officer, stated: ‘We would reassure all customers that these changes will not impact any aspect of events scheduled to run during 2018, nor the opportunity to stage further events this year.’ ❚ rockingham.co.uk