Track Physics 101:
Oval Molecular Theory
Is Driving On The Syllabus?
I put this off for awhile but I need to educate myself. And what better way than to try to explain things to someone else right? I keep coming across terms to describe racetracks and many times they just muddy things up for me. There's a lot of gray area when it comes to track configurations so I'm going to start simple and move right on to simple. And when I'm done I will still be confused and hopefully I can spread some of it around. So grab the track configurations cheatsheet and follow along.
Click on image for a legible view
It's All About Loops
Closed loops since we're not talking about drag strips. We begin and finish at the same place. Ok that's really boring and I'm sorry I said it. But we use a lot of language to describe one action. Rovals is what got me going here; Rick Mears reportedly coined it but it's tossed around pretty loosely sometimes. One could make a case for turning just about any type of track into a roval. To me a roval describes a track that is basically an oval with a twist, usually a right-hand turn somewhere and possibly involves changing gears. It is a road-course combined with an oval. Or maybe an oval that drives more like a roadcourse. But I refuse to use it for speedways that incorporate a road course as an alternate racing version. I've heard it used for the road courses at Cup tracks like California, Daytona, Phoenix and Texas. Nope, those are speedway roadcourses. Pocono? One could make a case but no. Pocono is a triangular speedway. It just seems too long and too fast to be called a roval. Look, why don't we just just rovals to describe offbeat tracks and oddities that don't slip neatly into one of the basic configurations. And we have basic configurations to describe and cover the majority of the tracks we run.
The Common Ovals
We can't even justify this discussion. The look is either round or oblong. Round hasn't been used much since the coliseum. Actually I don't think it was round either, it just creates an illusion of round when you're watching events. Completely round just makes everyone dizzy. The oblong oval can be seen using Google Earth just outside of every city in America. Some are overgrown but keep looking--you'll see a dirt path somewhere that has been used for some form of racing. So what else is there? How about D-Ovals (California, Michigan, Richmond)? Or quad-ovals (Atlanta, Lowes's, Texas Motor Speedway)? In my opinion the quad-ovals just mentioned should be called "D" quad-ovals or something. A true quad would be a track like Indianapolis--it's big enough so that the turns don't seem abrupt but the shape is truly rectangular. For tri-ovals you have Daytona, Talledega, Kansas. You want D-shaped tri-ovals you have Chicagoland, Kentucky, Las Vegas (Note: see my cookie-cutter article for a look some of these track configurations). Question: Why are Chicago and Kansas 'tri-ovals' while Kentucky and Las Vegas are 'D-ovals'? Answer: I don't know. So far we have a lot of nuance for very little variance. I want to get to some 'character'.
(Note: I was using a little CSS technique to show little mouseover thumbs of some of the tracks listed below--not even a link, just simple pics but my HTML editor didn't like it and Internet Explorer only liked it half of the time. Firefox didn't seem to have a problem. If you'd like to try it you can check it out here--in the event that it doesn't work just use your Back button to return. Alternatively you can view a little album of 54 speedways that kind of stand away from the norm here--these thumbnails will enlarge.)
All Roads Lead To Roval
In the world of Nascar the tracks have become pretty well standardized. You have a few types that defy the norm. Martinsville is a narrow, elongated oval called a paper-clip oval. The aforementioned Pocono is triangular. Darlington might be (and frequently is) called an egg-shaped oval as is Gateway. After that you pretty well have to step out of the Nascar ranks to find unique configurations. In fact, after you get past the historical track at Trenton you almost have to leave the US. You will find a few notable short tracks: Concord Motorsports Park (CMP--billed as the world's fastest half-mile tri-oval) and Ocala (which looks to me a little bit like the world's smallest tri-oval). Canada has the Mosport oval that I liken to an "ironing board" and St. Felicien which is called a tri-oval also. England has the historical Brooklands track which may be the longest actual super speedway that I'm willing to call a roval (due to a sweeping right-hander). By the way, Trenton and Brooklands belong to a class sometimes called "kidney-ovals". I'm Ok with calling the kidney ovals "rovals". England also has two operational tracks that step outside the norm in Clarendon and Rockingham. And don't forget the Emerson Fittipaldi Speedway in Rio De Janiero which is supposedly where the term Roval was coined. Personally I would call it a trap-oval (as in Trapezoid) since it has no right-hand turn but it does give you a different look than what you're used to.
There Has To Be More
Well yeah, but you need to look to the fictionals to find them. That's where the designers are willing to step out and try something different. Note that I'm not saying these tracks race better than the 'normal' tracks--I'm strictly speaking of distinct shapes, shapes that lean toward the roval definition. Starting with short tracks you have Route 66 which is a miniature Rio Oval and RuRa which is distinctly triangular (perhaps a miniature symmetrical Pocono). I don't know what I would call Banquet--it's not quite an egg-oval, not quite a tri-oval so I guess I just have to leave it as on oval. Also in the fictional short tracks you will find a number of egg-ovals Can-Of-Spam, St. Landry, and WKRT as well as some truly "square ovals" such as Thor and Shiloh.
Where's The Meat?
Fictional Speedways gets interesting and you'll find some real creativity in this area. Want Rovals? Try ASRC Bowl, Humpty or maybe Spring Creek. I guess one could call Muskogee a D-Roval. Motor City and Red River have the ironing-board oval look. Savannah is a unique quad-oval while Primal is a D-oval in a strange sort of way. Finish with Lakeshore--I don't know, I suppose quad/tri-oval is a pretty apt description for lack of anything better to use. I left out Onalaska which is listed under speedways--in my opinion it went over the edge and became a road course with one too many right-hand turns. But the author calls it an inverted-quad oval and with a name like that you just have to go with it.
The super speedways also carry some designs that you don't see every day. There's the Bullitt oval roval. Diamond Ridge, the only track that I've brought myself to call a pent-oval, has 5 distinct straights. Then there's Thunder Bay which is technically a tri-oval but the name just doesn't quite describe it. Dual tri-oval fits well though unless you'd rather just call it an oblong diamond. And finally--Piggzport. I coined it a "variable quad oval" and I guess I'll stay with it: four straights or three straights and one long curved "near-straight".
Homework
So there you go, no shortage of variety. Your assignment? Give Daytona and Tally and the cookie-cutters a rest. Go out and drive these and when you're finished with your report we'll look at all the 'barely road courses' that need drivers.