Sort of related: autocross sites that are no more.
We used to run night events in downtown Jacksonville, Florida. The site was right on the water and about the size of a postage stamp. You paddocked across the street so, technically, some "real" race cars drove on public streets that evening.
I believe there's now a hotel on that location, but those autocrosses were just fun as they just had a very chill vibe.
David S. Wallens said:Sort of related: autocross sites that are no more.
We used to run night events in downtown Jacksonville, Florida. The site was right on the water and about the size of a postage stamp. You paddocked across the street so, technically, some "real" race cars drove on public streets that evening.
I believe there's now a hotel on that location, but those autocrosses were just fun as they just had a very chill vibe.
Yes. That was the parking lot of the old courthouse, which was actually built over the water. When big, fast cars ran you could feel the whole deck jiggle a bit. Tiny lot, but really fun to run there.
In reply to JG Pasterjak :
Grand Bahamas V8 Vintage speed week around Ranfurley Circus. Ranfurley Circus was a traffic circle around the two main streets in the downtown area. Noted by a leaking fountain and the steep curbs.
While Vintage speed weeks was held for several years only once ( 1984) did it include the fountain.
Remarkably only one car went off track there but it sure scared the bejesus out of all of us. The smart line was to apex at the leak and then sliding you could be hard on the throttle as you slid to the exit. I found that if I let my rear tire just kiss the curb it would throw the front tires just enough to straighten out and the whole main straight was full throttle.
If you apexed at what should have been the proper Apex you hit the water then you were busy catching the car at the exit. You then wasted 1/4 of that main straight trying to catch your sideways car. Some who couldn't keep up with the steering wound up spinning down the wide main straight.
Racing motorcycles F1 Bridgehampton was my favorite. Ran the old Laconia both ways. Summit Point was fun but a long drive. Finally got to run Lime Rock in my Mustang. Right in my backyard.
Went to a lot of VW. Drag races and swap meet ,
that track in North Las Vegas ,
the old Irwindale
OCIR in Orange County
Firebird outside Phoenix
Baylands
LAcounty racetrack in Palmdale
Formosa raceway near Backersfield
Ascot for oval and figure 8
and I went to a swap meet at Imola once.....
In reply to JG Pasterjak :
I would offer two tracks and comment on one. The car clubs were allowed to race on the closed Stapelton airport before it got redeveloped. I did a PCA club race there in 2001 and it was a very unique experience. They were required to paid over the old runway numbers so you had an interesting adhesion change going from the regular concrete to those painted squares. It was a unique, safe and fun experience. The most epic track I drove several times before it closed for good was Bridgehampton. Probably the most dangerous and awesome lap you could drive out in the sand hills of the Hamptons. Eventually the locals pressured it into closure and it is now a golf course. But it was epic. And my comment on others who have posted about Second Creek. Probably the worst facility and track I have ever driven. It made Nelson Ledges look good. More of an autocross track then a real track. Similar to Waterford Hills. But simply awful place.
After reading thru many but not all of the comments, I have to add mine to the list...3 years ago I fulfilled a bucket list wish to drive the Nurburgring in a bmw setup for track use. The reality almost lived up to the dream and in some ways surpassed it. The reality of closing speeds from the rear approaching or possibly exceeding 100mph in some places made keeping an eye on your mirrors paramount, which of course divides your attention from watching where you are going...but when you are sharing the track with a hundred or so of your craziest German and English friends who are not necessarily paying attention to you in your futile attempt to learn the track in a day, it becomes necessary to drive very defensively. Hence, mirror watching was a major thing. Nevertheless, it was an experience I will never forget. That track is stupidly narrow in places, most places actually, compared to tracks stateside, and the underpowered Bimmer could have easily used another 100 or so horsepower and it would have been a lot more entertaining. If you have not made the trip to drive that track once it is totally worth it. Expensive yes, memorable oh yes, I want to go back but pretty sure that it was a one time deal for me. VIR is a lot more accessible to me. If you can afford to do a true track day as opposed to touristenfahrten (i know I goofed the spelling of that word) which is the German word for track time free for all where you can run into people, lose your license, and your assets all in the same day. I chose that approach with an instructor for a lap who just happened to be the European motorcycle record holder there, he was quite British and under his instruction I went much quicker than I would have alone. He was a great asset. The roads that circumscribe the track itself are quite narrow and heavily traveled, not a great place for rude displays of horsepower or other hoonery. The roads are patroled by the German police and they have no sense of humor, so I am told. I never crossed paths with one in an official capacity so I can't speak to that from experience, and I am pretty sure I don't want to. You probably don't either.
This isn't a race track, but its close to one so I guess that counts....its Pacific Coast Highway which I visited in fall of 2016 where I had the great joy of getting a driving lesson from a very hot german chick in a new Z28 Camaro. My miata was somewhat challenged to keep up any time the road opened up but in the corners I could just keep up. We eventually ran up on a landslide, all too common there I am told, and had to turn around. We exchanged hellos and pleasantries and mutual congratulations on driving skills...had she not had a certain german male along with her, my evening might have turned out differently. But thats another story. The next day I went to Laguna Seca and due to some construction work being done to the track surface, no one was being allowed to drive on it that day....so thats one I missed out on that I probably wont get to go back to. I really wanted to do the corkscrew just once.
Tracks I drove in my H/P Bugeye. Gone but not forgotten!
Marlboro, MD
Vineland,NJ
Bridgehampton,NY
Cumberland,MD
Reading,PA
Nelson Ledges,OH
Loudon,NH
Here are some from the "GOOD OLD DAYS":
Here are a couple from the "GOLDEN AGE". . .
Lyndale Farms, aka: Raindale Farms. Just west of Milwaukee, WI
Wilmot Hills, all 1.1 miles
Meadowdale Farms Raceway, hard to find, but remember the "Monza Wall"
Mid-America, just outside St.Louis
There are probably a couple more, but my aging memory fails me!!
Lyndale Farms, Riverside, Holtville.
lieb923 said:
Tracks I drove in my H/P Bugeye. Gone but not forgotten!
Marlboro, MD
Vineland,NJ
Bridgehampton,NY
Cumberland,MD
Reading,PA
Nelson Ledges,OH
Loudon,NH
Actually, Nelson Ledges is back up and running.
Hallett "backwards" is awesome.
Going into "The Bitch" is awesome, you can't see your braking or turn in point as you get there. And the run down to the bus stop is also great that way.
Anyone ever run at CANDLESTICK IN San Francisco or Cottati further North or San Luis Obispo, Stockton or Santa Maria Not to mention Santa Barbara? all in California and extinct! There's more that don't immediately come to mind~~
In reply to MichaelRogers :
A friends Dad raced motorcycles at Cottati back in the day.
There have been a bunch of tracks I've visited over the years that have shut down. Some of them were deserved, though, as much as I hate to admit it - they were poorly run.
Others just left you scratching your head. Beech Ridge Motor Speedway in Maine is one that comes to my mind. It typically got great crowds and car counts, but the value of the land exceeded the value of the week-to-week operations. Bummer.
I wish I could have seen tracks such as Flemington Speedway, Freeport Stadium, and Bridgehampton back in the heyday. I've heard so many stories about them, among others, and I would have loved the atmosphere of them.
War Bonnet Raceway in Mannford OK, just west of Tulsa, hosted lots of local races. SCCA used it heavily. It was on the Trans-Am circuit and big names like Mark Donohue, George Follmer, Parnelli Jones, and Peter Revson raced there.
It was born and died in the late 60's. When the Keystone Lake reservoir was built nearby, the town of Mannford was moved to higher ground near the race track. Nearby neighbors, changing safety requirements and lack of funds led to the track's closure. The property was eventually developed and the track, still intact, was turned into public streets which are still drivable today. Search for Keystone Loop in Mannford OK.
http://www.speedwayandroadracehistory.com/war-bonnet-park-raceway.html
https://www.advrider.com/f/threads/a-lap-around-the-former-war-bonnet-raceway-park.1419614/
I grew up on a farm that was four miles west of the defunct Meadowdale International Raceway in what is now suburban Chicagoland.
We could hear the cars on track while eating the Sunday dinner after church.
There was the "famous" Monza wall, but there was also kind of a smaller, descending and corkscrewing, banked little Monza wall at the end of the 4,000ft. straight. That straightaway could/did double for drag racing.
There was also a part of the the track called "the jump" since the cars would go airborne at the crest of a hill, and another part that was almost like a two-lane highway, with cars coming straight at each other with only a guard rail separating each "lane." It reminded me of "jousting with cars."
But as such places do, it failed financially after about a decade. I recall a story of a disgruntled contractor driving a piece of heavy equipment onto the track during a race and parking it due to not being paid for construction work.
So it goes.
In reply to Coniglio Rampante :
We've raced at Meadowdale a few times in the GRM AC league, from a driving standpoint the crazy thing is that the jump doesn't feel nearly as big when you're driving as it looks from the outside, especially in historical footage, it really looks like a ski jump for cars! I think the part you're talking about where cars are separated by a guard rail is at the back of the track, where cars going toward a long 180deg right-hand turnaround section come close to cars heading toward the Monza wall. You can hear and glimpse cars on the other side as you go by, around the 1:44 mark here (I was in the #5 Shelby Daytona):
Yes that 180 degree turn was called Doane's Corner.
The corner was named after Dick "Featherfoot" Doane, a local Chevrolet dealer and gentleman racer* who had the highest Corvette sales volume in the country back in the 1950's and into the 1960's. Chevrolet used his dealership as a skunk works to develop the Corvette Grand Sport(s) at Meadowdale. My dad was a friend of Mr. Doane and he'd stop by the shop after hours to talk and look at what Chevrolet sent over. The mechanics and engineers would sometimes clear the shop and have go kart races inside.
* Mr. Doane got the nickname "featherfoot" from other racers since he tended to lift for corners earlier than the true racers would. He didn't care for it, but it stuck. 
I guess I can add PBIR/Moroso to my list, as well as Cabaniss Field, a Navy touch-and-go airfield in Corpus Christi, Tx. Cabaniss Field started hosting SCCA National events around '84 or so. There was a 3/4 mile or so triangular course that we had autocrossed on for a few years. They held a lot of karting events on that part too. The road racing event used the runways, so it was basically a dyno pull event. Really long straights connected by not quite hairpin turns. It went on for a few years, then had sporadic comebacks, the last of which I think was '02 or '03. I got to drive it a few times during the set-up and teardown days with my X-11, but never in competition.
I took my school and license at Cottati North of San Francisco it was another of the WW-II military landing sites, Ran the last race at Riverside, There were two road race courses in San Luis Obespo and one at Santa Maria and Santa Barbara, Calif. POOF! all gone!
Coniglio Rampante said:I grew up on a farm that was four miles west of the defunct Meadowdale International Raceway in what is now suburban Chicagoland.
We could hear the cars on track while eating the Sunday dinner after church.
There was the "famous" Monza wall, but there was also kind of a smaller, descending and corkscrewing, banked little Monza wall at the end of the 4,000ft. straight. That straightaway could/did double for drag racing.
There was also a part of the the track called "the jump" since the cars would go airborne at the crest of a hill, and another part that was almost like a two-lane highway, with cars coming straight at each other with only a guard rail separating each "lane." It reminded me of "jousting with cars."
But as such places do, it failed financially after about a decade. I recall a story of a disgruntled contractor driving a piece of heavy equipment onto the track during a race and parking it due to not being paid for construction work.
So it goes.
Interesting reading the history of this track on Wikipedia, looks like a much more interesting track/layout than Road America. The lack of safety provisions (even in the late 50's through the 60's!) and no desire to improve them didn't help them. It's still preserved a bit as a public park with the original layout still there as hiking trails so that's kind of cool, better than a mall parking lot!
In reply to captdownshift (Forum Supporter) :
Agree 100% multiple configurations using the oval, infield and what we called the Trans Am configuration. Best part was the track was equal distance from Houston, Dallas and Austin/San Antonio. No one could stay at home after a long day at the track. We had some great Saturday Evening Parties - a keg of Shiner and a full roast pig. And during the summer cheap hotel rooms since no college sports (Aggie FOOTBALL) to compete with. The best track in Texas!!! Then and now even with COTA.
The Nurburgring has to be my wistfully fond memory-got to do it once in a 323i prepared by ringfreaks for track duty. Gutted caged on sticky tires with full on track brakes it was a very fun car to drive at the limit- I'll surely never go back again but it was fun once.
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