Top Gear test track
From FinalGear.com Wiki
Top Gear Test Track is a racing circuit created for the BBC motoring show Top Gear in the grounds of Dunsfold Park airport in Surrey, England, fourteen kilometres south of Guildford. Most of the cars on the programme are tested on/driven around the track by the presenters. Also, the Stig usually drives the faster cars around it, and the lap time is put on the Lap Board.
The track was designed by Lotus engineers and features 8 corners. First it was intended to always keep it wet, so the conditions for all cars would be the same; it turned out later, that too much water was required for this, and now the cars tested have to face the weather conditions as well.
[edit] Track Layout
The track begins at the start line in the north-eastern end. First, the cars power down the straight, to arrive at the first corner. Different lines can be driven through it, with Formula 1 drivers mostly taking a different route than the Stig, who nevertheless holds the absolute track record in the Reasonably Priced Car.
Then the drivers approach at the Chicago corner, which is a long right-hand around a tire wall onto the main runway. Coming up next is the Hammerhead, a fearsome combined left- and right-hander, which is the main test for car handling on the whole course. After it, the track goes on with an accelerating section followed by the Follow Through, a very long right-hander in which on the most cars the driver can keep his foot down.
The track passes the tire wall again and goes left onto another runway. At the end of it, there is the Second-To-Last corner, in which the most Star in a Reasonably Priced Car guests go onto the grass. Following it is the Gambon corner, famous for Michael Gambon almost flipping the Suzuki Liana in it, which ends up in the finish line and ends the circuit.
[edit] Features
The track is not always used as originally intended. For example, in some episodes of Top Gear the so-called short circuit was used instead of the whole track. It consists of the lower track part, starting on the north-western straight and going Followthrough - Chicago - Hammerhead.
Also, being actually an airfield, the track features a full-scale Boeing 747 aircraft, which is often to be seen in the background. It was towed by Jeremy in the Tractor Drag Race (Top Gear 09x05). The plane has no real engines mounted on it but mock-up double engines, looking like the ones on the B-52 bomber. The airfield and the plane also featured in the famous James Bond movie Casino Royale, with the plane representing a prototype airplane the terrorists want to destroy and the airfield representing... an airfield.
