Circle Track Racing
Going Around in Circles Takes More Work Than It Looks
Circle-track racing has one obvious advantage: if you miss something, the cars are probably coming back around.
What looks like endless left turns is really a fight over banking, grooves, stagger, tire temperature, weight transfer, traffic and the uncomfortable fact that the fastest line through a corner is usually already occupied by somebody else.
The basic oval problem stays the same, but the machines do not. NASCAR stock cars, local Late Models, Modifieds, Sprint Cars, Midgets and Supermodifieds all solve the same collection of corners with very different ideas about bodywork, weight, power and where the wheels ought to be.
Start Here
Banking, grooves, flags, cautions, drafting, stagger, pit strategy, dirt versus pavement and why one corner can ruin the next three.
Stock Cars & Local Ovals
From modified showroom iron to purpose-built Cup cars. How stock-car racing kept the name while the VIN number quietly left the building.
Quarter- and half-mile ovals, heat races, features, local heroes, Late Models and racing close enough for everybody to remember who leaned on whom.
Tube chassis, huge rear tires, wedge bodies, serious V-8 power and enough throttle steering to make the front wheels look advisory.
Specialized Oval Machines
Exposed wheels, offset engines, chopped bodies and one of stock-car racing’s oldest ideas taken to its logical conclusion.
Lightweight open-wheel cars, enormous wings, direct drive and power-to-weight ratios that make a dirt straightaway merely the setup for the next slide.
Short wheelbases, high power-to-weight and a racing tradition that trained generations of drivers to stay ahead of a very small, very quick car.
Offset engines, giant wings and asphalt cars built so completely around left turns that they look crooked while sitting still.
Bottom Line
Circle-track cars come in every shape from stock-looking Late Models to machines that appear to have been assembled after somebody lost the centerline.
The common requirement is simple: get through the corner, do it again, and keep somebody else from doing it first.
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