Where in Britain can you still drive in the wheel tracks of Nuvolari, Rosemeyer and Lang? Or recapture for a fleeting moment the zing of supercharged V16s echoing among trees? Donington Park, that’s where. And you don’t have to be racing on Tom Wheatcroft’s revived track. Even as a spectator, in your car or on foot, you can still reach parts of the pre-war track where your nostalgia can let loose.

Here, in 1937 and ’38, the greatest teams in the world came to amaze British enthusiasts, thanks to Fred Craner, indefatigable secretary of Derby and District MC (headquarters: Friary Hotel, Derby). It was he who visualised the original circuit in 1931, steadily boosted the racing to grand prix level by 1935, and two years later tempted the German superteams to attend (helped by generous starting money).

Everyone knew that privateer Alfas, Maseratis and ERAs had no hope against Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union, utterly dominant in European racing (Bob Gerard said later, “We didn’t so much race them as set off at the same time!”), but it was a chance to see these fabulous machines on British soil, and huge crowds arrived to admire Caracciola, von Brauchitsch and English hero Richard Seaman in action. Both races made a lot of money. The Germans were due back in 1939, but found they had a prior engagement, and racing at Donington came to a halt.

The story of the track’s resurrection is an unlikely one. The sprawling acres of parkland and circuit were requisitioned by the army and became the largest vehicle depot in the country. Where Maseratis and Mercedes once trailed Castrol R and tyre smoke, Fodens and Willys Jeeps massed in long ranks; the once-busy pits and paddock were submerged by workshops and stores, and Rolls-Royce built two ‘shadow’ factories. Through the war and the subsequent peacetime clear-out, the previously manicured estate became an overgrown shambles, and when it reverted to private ownership in the ’50s, it had no clear future.

No-one could have possibly predicted that Leicester builder Tom Wheatcroft would, in 1971, buy the whole lot, build a fascinating museum of single-seaters, and then bulldoze endless objections to reopen the circuit. Since 1977, the new track, with its plunge-and-rise profile and superb spectator views, has seen some wonderful racing, culminating in ‘bike and F1 grands prix. Tom’s new track incorporated a good deal of the layout of those far-off years, and if you park in the infield and take in that terrific sweeping prospect over the Craner Curves, you will still see the broad form of the original, including Donington Hall and the relics of the famous bridge.

What you don’t see, unless you frequent the weekend market, is the sheer mountainous drama of the Melbourne loop. This westward extension, added for 1937 to bring the track length up to 3.12 miles ready for the arrival of the Germans, incorporates what has to be the blindest hillcrest on any grand prix circuit. Today you thread through usually locked gates from the paddock to find a large flat expanse of Tarmac where the space between the two straights has been filled in. This was where the wooden pits buildings stood up to the war. Drive to the western edge, past where, in 1934, Starkey’s Corner turned back on itself to form the circuit’s first extension, and the ground suddenly falls away to a view of the Trent valley. Below your toes the 1937 extension plunges down for another quarter-mile to a severe hairpin before surging back up to the crest.

At least, Melbourne Corner used to be a hairpin — the apex has gone now, filled in with Tarmac, so it looks more like the end of a runway. It’s quite hard trying to follow Nuvolari’s line when there’s nothing to aim for, but boy is it sharp: from a screaming 170 along Starkey’s Straight, over the drop, down to this first-gear, full-lock crawl… The smell of brakes must have been acrid.

And then The Rise. Even today it’s a daunting trip back up the slope. It starts steep and gets steeper — to an amazing 1-in-8. There are hill-climbs flatter than that. I’m doing a paltry 85mph as I come to the crest — and it’s terrifying. Completely blind. I know it was clear a minute ago, and I keep telling myself the photographer will yell if there’s an errant tractor over the brow, but I just haven’t the nerve to breast it with an open throttle. The car goes light, thumps down — and we’re heading 20deg off course. What nobody tells you is that this isn’t just a brow, it’s a bend. Look at the plan and you’ll see how the tip of the loop bends to clear the public road alongside.

So, as you gun your Mercedes W125 up the slope approaching 120mph, not only must you balance the throttle to land safely, you have to clip the left verge, otherwise you’ll land on grass, not Tarmac. And if someone else has stopped over the crest, you won’t know till you land on something crunchy. It’s a real testosterone moment.

Back to the Hairpin. It never was that tight, and today it’s much opened out, but still seems sharp because it’s at the bottom of the slope and you arrive with more inertia than you expected. Here the tracks old and new diverge again. Wheatcroft’s version turns inside to skirt the single most memorable feature of the pre-war version – the Bridge. Stay on the access road and pause under the remaining stone arch; it’s barely believable that grand prix cars raced through here. Yes, it  was a ‘no passing’ zone (and in fact much of the track was the same width as the arch), but even single file, at 100-plus it must have raised the heart-rate. Now an abutment and one sad arch stop in mid-air, going nowhere; the rest was flattened for the new circuit.

“Drivers had to aim for an unforgiving slot between the farmhouse and barn before letting rip”

It was here that the pre-war boys dived back into the woods, as they smoothed out two lefts into the square-right of McLeans. Now there’s not a tree to be seen. Coppice Wood, like Holly Wood, has vanished completely, replaced by rumble strips, gravel traps, and wire fencing. But the old and new do coincide for the run to Coppice Corner. This is the old estate road running straight to Coppice Lodge, which still marks the public entrance. Again Tom has cut the corner, making Coppice a long sweeping right with an awkward blind apex. But if you follow the line towards the lodge, you’ll find the old Coppice.

It’s visible from the museum car park, wire gates closing off a short, kerbed roadway between concrete walls, now used by maintenance vehicles and sometimes as a spectator entrance. But 63 years ago, the bark of ERA and the shriek of Auto Union engines bounced off the trees as the best-of-the-rest Brits and the dominant German aces snicked down the gears to attack this 90-degree right into the farmyard. And it really was a farmyard: the drivers had to aim for an unforgiving slot, not much wider than the bridge, between farmhouse and barn before they could let rip on the run to Melbourne.