Question of the Night: If you could have a copy of your own racetrack, which would it be?

"boxrocket" (boxrocket)
09/07/2015 at 22:10 • Filed to: question of the night, qotn, mazda, mazda Raceway Laguna Seca, racetrack

Pick a famous racetrack. Any track. Voilà! You have a copy of it within a short driving distance, and you’re the proud new owner!

Here’s the catch, though: YOU have to maintain it. Track surface, paint, fences, barriers, insurance, pits, etc. the whole shebang. If it’s profitable enough, of course you can hire a crew to do that for you, so now it’s an entire business enterprise.

You’re in charge of the whole operation, which means you have your dream racetrack, but you have to make it work for you, like a racehorse owner and their prize steeds, or a team owner and their franchise. On the plus side, you also get to use it whenever you want, however you want.

Which do you pick?

My choice? Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.

Apologies to anyone else who might have picked it, but there are other great tracks to choose from.

I want that Corkscrew near my home. I want to host Race What You Drove weekends. I want to see Spec Miata races in my backyard. I want to see electric go-karts whiz past the giant tire. I want to see R34 GT-Rs go head-to-head with its contemporaries and successors in a few years, but here in the Midwest, not way out in California. I want to see the best of Britain go full-out against the Italian stallions. Manufacturers testing prototypes beneath camouflage. New exotic car owners testing their limits and that of their new rides in the relative safety of a racetrack instead of the public roads.

I’d make it work. It’d be an improvement, too, since there would be grass all around, not mostly dirt, sand, and dust.

DISCUSSION (37)

Supreme Chancellor and Glorious Leader SaveTheIntegras > boxrocket
09/07/2015 at 22:16

Kinja'd!!!

go big or go home

also...since I have to maintain it, go fast and go bankrupt

XJDano > boxrocket
09/07/2015 at 22:18

Pikes peak.

TheOnelectronic > XJDano
09/07/2015 at 22:20

I mean, you could just move to Colorado Springs and have that.

BJ > boxrocket
09/07/2015 at 22:22

Viola!

Kinja'd!!!

The word you’re looking for is voila, or voilà, if you want to use fancy accents.

I’ve never driven a real race track, but I always enjoyed the full Suzuka circuit in videogame form.

Kinja'd!!!

XJDano > TheOnelectronic
09/07/2015 at 22:24

Yes & no.

Technically it's a state highway there but here it'd be a full time racetrack. The logistics to build it would be outrageous.

Nick George > boxrocket
09/07/2015 at 22:26

I did my first track day at Laguna Seca two weeks ago. What a track.

TheOnelectronic > XJDano
09/07/2015 at 22:26

I heard of this chap once who moved a mountain. Mo-something.

djmt1 > boxrocket
09/07/2015 at 22:29

Spa. Eau Rouge is worth any trouble.

Kinja'd!!!

GTRZILLAR32-Now saving for Godzilla and a condo > boxrocket
09/07/2015 at 22:29

Lime Rock or Spa

Baeromez > boxrocket
09/07/2015 at 22:29

Kinja'd!!!

Trunk Impaired 318 > boxrocket
09/07/2015 at 22:30

I live 5 minutes away from Watkins Glen and am good friends with the track president, I think thats good enough for me :P

XJDano > TheOnelectronic
09/07/2015 at 22:31

I don't want the whole mountain. Just the track.

JR1 > boxrocket
09/07/2015 at 22:31

Spa for sure

AddictedToM3s - Drives a GC > boxrocket
09/07/2015 at 22:32

Monza.

It’d be pretty nice in sunny California and I could probably rent it out for track days every weekend. I could thrash cars on it whenever I wanted. Also, it’s FIA-Certified as Grade 1 so perhaps dancing with the Devil and hosting F1 races in California would yield large amounts of money through ticket sales.

JDIGGS > boxrocket
09/07/2015 at 22:32

Anglesey

JS54881384.jpg

smobgirl > XJDano
09/07/2015 at 22:34

I stayed at a campground in Manitou Springs recently and the maintenance guy was asking if I’d put my car “through her paces on the mountain” yet. With the number of minivans going 5mph up that road I’m pretty sure I never want to drive up when it’s open to the public.

Sure enough, coming downhill the next afternoon there was a woman with a rental minivan who hadn’t gotten 2 miles up the road before the vehicle self-destructed and vomited coolant all over a scenic overlook.

Jcarr > boxrocket
09/07/2015 at 22:34

Spa would be a chore to maintain, so I'm going shorter. Brands Hatch.

Tohru > boxrocket
09/07/2015 at 22:34

Road America. So it’d be closer. I’d put it nearer to the Interstate, so it’s not in the middle of Wisconsin backroads.

Kinja'd!!!

boxrocket > BJ
09/07/2015 at 22:36

F-ing autocorrect! Changed it when I switched to italics. Thanks!

boxrocket > JDIGGS
09/07/2015 at 22:40

That looks lovely.

XJDano > BJ
09/07/2015 at 22:56

Might as well bring over tsukuba circuit too.

dogisbadob > boxrocket
09/07/2015 at 22:56

Portero de los Funes, which I learned about from an AOTD.

And I’d make it open to the public, put a toll booth up, $5 and you’re in. I’d even accept EZPass :)

Of course there’d be events and shit, but still open to the public most of the time. Year-round.

ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable) > boxrocket
09/07/2015 at 23:16

I have a couple of favorites. Both are virtual; whatever I do what I want.

The Maple Valley or Iberian circuits from Fourtza.

Maple Valley is a great track, but it is big. So it would be hard to maintain. And all the other associated costs would be quite large as well.

The Iberian course is smaller so maintenance, insurance, liability, etc should be less. And it’s a much slower track, with lots of run-off areas so it’s safer as well.

415s30 W123TSXWaggoIIIIIIo ( •_•))°) > boxrocket
09/07/2015 at 23:25

Spa or Suzuka

boxrocket > ADabOfOppo; Gone Plaid (Instructables Can Be Confusable)
09/08/2015 at 00:08

Any images for those not familiar with them?

I said famous, not necessarily real. Real is preferable, though.

Wheelerguy > AddictedToM3s - Drives a GC
09/08/2015 at 01:49

And it’s easy as fuck to maintain, and since you’re the boss, you can remove the chicanes.

Wheelerguy > boxrocket
09/08/2015 at 02:04

Assuming I am a rich Bond villain...

Kinja'd!!!

But since I’m not...

Kinja'd!!!

Hockenheimring, the old one, the best one. And to amp it up, I’ll add some tarmac to bypass the chicanes and run a 12-hour race using that configuration (take that, Le Mans!). Also, a big, long grandstand between the Clark and Ost chicanes and the entirety of that back straight, with mikes installed the whole way and Dolby surround sound so the audience can hear the cars.

Oh, and I’ll make my own, shortened course. I’m gonna show Hermann Tilke how it’s really done (that’d be a separate feature)

Also... even older Hockenheimring, the Kurpfalzring.

Kinja'd!!!

The Stadtkurve will have to be chopped and replaced with a 1 km-long steeply-banked (30 degrees) turn, and Bahrain Circuit aggregate will be used to pave it, but everything else stays the same.

TA4K > boxrocket
09/08/2015 at 06:06

The one, the only, the Mountain. Mt Panorama Circuit, better known as Bathurst. Commandeer it as a New Zealand circuit and all will be right with the world.