Oliver's Mount Racing

The roar of motorbikes echoing across the Yorkshire coast is your first clue that Oliver's Mount is something different. This natural amphitheatre of land just outside Scarborough has been hosting motorcycle racing since 1946, and on race weekends the whole place crackles with genuine petrol-head energy. You're standing on a proper racing circuit carved into the hillside, where riders tackle a series of challenging bends at proper speeds - it's thrilling stuff even if you're not a bike enthusiast.

Race days are the thing to catch here. The calendar fills with British championship meetings and amateur events, and watching from the hillside vantage points costs far less than you'd pay at a circuit with stands. The atmosphere is wonderfully unpretentious - families, groups of mates, old hands who've been coming for decades. Non-race days you can walk the perimeter and get a sense of the terrain, though frankly it's the racing that makes it worth your time.

If you're staying at one of the caravan parks nearby - Parkdean Resorts Cayton Bay is just two miles away, or Scarborough Camping Club a bit further - checking the race calendar is worth doing before you book. It's the sort of place that transforms an ordinary seaside holiday into something memorable. The whole thing feels authentically British, properly old-school, and refreshingly free from the corporate polish of bigger venues. Even if you arrive not expecting much, the sheer commitment of riders and crowd usually wins you over.