Knockhill
By Dunfermline
Fife
KY12 9TF
Tel: 01383 723337
Fax: 01383 620167
Website: www.knockhill.co.uk
Lap Record: 48.474s
Lap Record Holder: Shane Byrne, Suzuki
Directions:
Knockhill, in Southern Scotland, is some five miles north of Dunfermline, just off the A823, with the M90 motorway some four miles away. Edinburgh, a 45 minute drive, is some 20 miles to the south, Glasgow 50 miles to the west of the circuit.
Track Info:
In the 1970's, Tom Kinnaird was a great motorcycle fan who owned the land at South Lethans Farm, Knockhill, near Saline by Dunfermline, Fife. At the time, various amateur race meetings were held all around Scotland on loaned land for a few events per year and typically were on ex-wartime RAF airfields or Council public parks. Tom dreamed of adapting the existing resources and creating Scotland’s first full time all year motor race venue.
By linking a narrow service road to a disused railway line and returning it to the service road, a demanding layout of twists and turns drops and climbs made it a natural road circuit style of track 1.3 miles long (2 km) and 10 metres wide. The Knockhill Circuit is 800 feet above sea level and Tom used an old mechanical digger to scrape out and shape the foundations of the track, pit lane and competitors paddock.
After more than two years the first motorcycle race event was held in the autumn of 1974- a record crowd turned out causing road chaos but a good sign for the future of Knockhill.
Over the next nine years, Tom Kinnaird leased out the venue on a year at a time basis to race fan businessmen who kept the track open and running but because they had their own businesses to run by day and Knockhill at weekends its on going development was in limbo and the overall condition deteriorated. Businessman Denis Dobbie failed in a grandiose plan to improve the facilities in this period and it was not until Derek Butcher, who had been racing motorcycles at Knockhill, purchased the track in 1983, that it became a permanent commercially run motor sports enterprise.
From 1984 onwards numerous improvements have been made to track safety buildings and services. Some several million has been spent over the years of Derek Butcher's ownership to make it Scotland's National Centre and a seven-day week operation with over forty full time staff and up to 100 part time at peak events. Two years ago, £100,000 was spent on changes in the pits area and widening of the approaches to McIntyres, Clarks and the Hairpin and the circuit now hosts 20,000 for a round of the British Superbike Championships.