Have Your Say: What Tracks Have You Visited In Real Life?

[Paul Jeffrey]

RaceDepartment ask our readers what tracks they have visited in real life as we look to see how many different locations we have collectively attended amongst our community.

An interesting topic came up in the chat during the recent TCR live stream that I thought worth expanding a little here, so I thought with our many thousands of readers and members from all around the world here at RaceDepartment it might be fun to see how many different tracks we've visited between us...

Quite a large proportion of our readers are already into their 30's and beyond, and are fortunate enough to have enough life experience (and financial resources) to have experienced motorsports across a wide and interesting variety of circuits, both home and abroad.

So what I would like to do is ask you all this:

What tracks have you been to as a spectator in real life?

Please make it obvious in the comments by putting the track name in bold text, and after a week or two I'll do a count up and post the final number of different tracks.. just for a bit of fun..

Leave a comment below with the tracks you've attended and maybe a nice story behind the experience too...

 

[Paul Jeffrey]

Well unfortuantly circumstances have (so far) prevented me from getting the opportunity to travel outside of the UK much for races, so mine are all pretty local.

In no particular order they are:

• Donington Park
• Brands Hatch
• Oulton Park
• Knockhill
• Cadwell Park
• Silverstone
• Mallory Park
• Barcelona
• PFI International (FIA grade kart track)

Best memory? Would have to be at Donington in 1998 (I think) for the FIA GT event. Waiting first thing in the morning at the bottom of the Old Hairpin for the cars to come round in first practice. The fog was seriously thick that day and we were unsure if practice would be allowed to go ahead. I recall hearing an almighty rumble from the pits (that amazing throttle blipping noise kick ass cars make when they are getting warmed up to go out) and we all got super excited. A few minutes later you could hear it come down the pitlane and open up into Redgate corner, bump bang grrr, it sounded wonderful but we could still see practically nothing. Then as if by some sort of black magic it just appeared out of the fog, lights ablaze and spitting flames out of the exhaust as it hurtled down Crainer Curves and turned into the Old Hairpin. It was a Mercedes-Benz CLK-GTR driven by Mark Webber. Man that was cool.

Other highlights from that weekend included sitting in the awesome Allan McNish Porsche 911 GT1 car right after the race, and driving GTR1 (or 2?) using a proper Viper as a cockpit!

Great times...

 

[Riblo]

Monza
Imola
Mugello
Adria

Yes i live in Italy

Next track i would like to visit is Vallelunga...

 

[Matthew327]

Red-Bull-Ring (back when it was called A1-Ring)
Monaco (Formula 1 Grand Prix)

 

[Daniel Trapp]

I havent been at many tracks yet, but I'll try to see some more in the future.
Nürburgring (WEC) 2x 2015 + 2016
Hockenheim (DTM/ WRX) 2x 2016 opener and finals

 

[Nick Gregory]

For tracks with major series:

• Nashville Superspeedway
• Virginia International Raceway (The only real track I've ever driven on too.)
• Daytona
• Circuit of the Americas

 

[Will Mazeo]

Does bus routes count? Those are the only ones I visited

 

[Macxyn]

2 times at the Hockenheimring DTM Final (2015 and 2016)

 

[DaVeX↯]

Targa Florio and Pergusa

 

[Jimlaad43]

Marshalled at
Silverstone
Brands Hatch
Donington Park
Knockhill
Castle Combe
Anglesey
Battersea Park

Visited
Thruxton
Crystal Palace (Obviously well after they've stopped racing there)
Circuit de la Sarthe
Hockenheimring
AVUS
Valencia Street Circuit
Albert Park
Canberra Street Circuit
Phillip Island

 

[carlos quintao]

Have been in
Estoril lots of times its just around the corner near home
and back in the days have been in circuit of Jarama when there was F1
Stil need to go to south and visit the Algarve circuit.

 

[Stig Bidstrup]

Spa F1
Monza F1
Zandvoort

 

[thatmotorfreak]

Absolutely none, I absolutely envy you all...
(Though I did go to Macau and caught a glimpse of their pit/paddock building.)

 

[Deleted member 205301]

.Pau (entire life, so everything from Historic cars to F3000, FIAF3, WTCC, French GT etc...)
.Nogaro (FIAGT3 and some F1 test days, years ago : from1989 to 1996)
.Paul-Ricard (FIA WEC, Blancpain, FIAF3)
.Le Mans (24H du Mans, and later World Series renault )
.Ledénon (French GT)
.Albi (French GT)
.Magny-Cours ( F1, French GT)
.Dijon (French GT)
.Barcelona (F1, and International GT open/ euro F3 open)
.Motorland Aragon (french GT and World Series Renault)
.Spa-Francorchamps (World Series Renault, FIA WEC, French GT, FIA F3)
.Nurburgring (FIA F3, World Series Renault)

...I've written only the tracks you're supposed to know...other one are "national"french tracks (pau arnos, val de vienne, haute saintonges, etc...), and, you'd probably understood that I run myself in some of the races quoted...(I mean in the meeting, not the "main race")
My only regret is to never gone in UK to see (and drive on) those wonderfull tracks, probably next year...
@++

 

[mancSLO]

A1-Ring, Hungaroring..

 

[Kinex]

Norisring Germany for the 2013 DTM season was an awesome race lots of action at tourn 3 i was glad to have some premium Audi employee tickets for some front row seats and a visit to the pits before the race to get some close up pictures of the Audi racecars

Hockenheimring Germany for the 2014 DTM season again an awesome race propably the best track of the DTM season

 

[Copef1]

Went to racing school at Riverside International Raceway, and Laguna Seca
Attended many Indycar/CART races at Portland International Raceway, Long Beach, Vancouver British Columbia street course, and Fontana, now called Auto Club Speedway.
Saw the first F1 race at Circuit of the Americas
Watched Trans Am races at Seattle International Raceway, now called Pacific Raceway.
Raced a spec ford racer at Willow Springs International Raceway

 

[apexGBG]

only to spa for the 2016 GP

 

[Akra]

Donington - LMS, BTCC
Knockhill - BTCC, plus local series
Silverstone - WEC, ELMS
Le Mans - 24 Hours
Long Beach - Champ Car, Grand-Am
Daytona - 24 Hours

 

[alexSchmurtz]

Nogaro
Albi
Circuit Paul Ricard
Le Mans
Spa
Nogaro and Albi are small tracks from the south west of France, not sure how much they are know elsewhere… But went there many time when I was 15 to 20, enjoyed a lot various french championships.

My parents brought me to the 24h of Le Mans when I was really young, probably 7 or 8. And probably too young, I got tired and quite a pain apparently so we left a bit earlier than they thought on Sunday morning… But to this day I still remember the cars going under the Dunlop bridge or a brief moment at the Mulsanne straight: you don't have any spectator area there but it was mid seventies… We managed to follow a small way to a marshall post, and they let us stay a few minutes with them. We could hardly see the cars go by as they were so fast! But those sounds!

The other big moment was the one you choose as a thumbnail image to highlight the article! Yep, I have been very lucky to go to Spa in 2015, watched the WTCC and GT3 with a small group of friends. This time it was funny to see "for real" the cars and a track we find in almost all our games...