[Editor's Note: This article originally ran in the February 2013 issue of Grassroots Motorsports.]
Where every basketball court, football gridiron and soccer field is built to the same regimented standard, motorsports venues feature so much variety: Some tracks are tight and technical, others are big and thrilling. It’s those thrilling tracks that have defined our scene.
Sure, the tight circuits …
Since you asked...Corner 3 at Mosport this past August with the BMW CCA Trillium ADS
A wet Laguna Seca from the day after Thanksgiving a few years ago:
Well, if we're sharing Laguna photos. :) This was the BMWCCA event earlier this year, right before everything went nuts with Covid-19
I think Laguna will always be my favorite track... it's just such an icon here in the West. After riding the track a number of times on two wheels, I finally got there on four for the Miata weekend in '17.
Leading the pack through T4
Down the Corkscrew
We're looking forward to visiting some of the big Eastern tracks in retirement in a few years.
Road Atlanta and Sebring are amazing.
Sebring is incredible. It was my first time racing a track that I previously knew from a video game, and that somehow made it so much cooler. Going through 17 and 17a in the wet as the square concrete patches bump you about is incredible and terrifying. Also, the braking lines get really slippery when wet.
I've gotten to drive both our W123 and a friend's XJ6 at Road Atlanta. Really like the whole section from 1-5. It was cool learning just how fast I could get going through there. I'm sure I'm still leave seconds on the table. Turn 12 freaks me out with that concrete wall staring at you, especially as both times I've been the track was wet and cold(snowed).
I was hoping for more than some insight into just turns 1, 2, and 3 at Watkins Glen.
I get that high HP cars need fine control up the esses and low power cars need to carry as much speed as possible exiting turn 1 in order to maximize speed all the way up the back straight. I probably could improve my line through turn 1 a bit but I doubt I would gain huge time there even carried out to the end of the back straight.
My biggest problem has always been the toe of the boot. My low power car just seems to lose all speed as it hits the hill in that corner and every line I attempt to take on that corner just feels wrong.
Maybe I'm actually losing more time through the high speed turns but emotionally it feels like that turn is what is killing my lap times. (a bunch of almost right corners and one wrong corner)
Great article - really useful!
Only one issue - soccer fields are not 'built to the same regimented standard'.
Must be rectangular not square / length 100yds - 130yds / width 70yds - 100yds... 
Wrighty said:Great article - really useful!
Only one issue - soccer fields are not 'built to the same regimented standard'.
Must be rectangular not square / length 100yds - 130yds / width 70yds - 100yds...
Fair, but still a long ways from the almost completely freeform nature of racetracks.
Road America, apex turn 3 several years ago with the Badger Bimmer chapter of the BMWCCA.
If i remember correctly, this was my first weekend as a qualified instructor. I took advantage of all the track time available to me and went home on a flatbed.
The last session of the day, I cooked the brakes coming into Canada Corner and went straight off into the kitty litter. One bumper cover and power steering cooler later I was back at it, with a StopTech BBK :)
Moral of the story? Keep an eye on your brake pads!!
I think this is track out of the carusel, setting up for the kink
Oak Tree at VIR.
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