Oval track racing

As drivers are forced to race in a confined space, overtaking is very common as vehicles may travel two and three abreast.

Should an accident occur at the front of the pack, the results could block the track in a short amount of time.

The preferred line depends on many factors including track conditions, car set-up, and traffic.

Road racing offers a variety of fast and slow corners that allow the use of rain tires.

Since their size allows them to compromise high speeds with sightlines, especially tri- and quad-ovals of 1.5-mile length have become commonplace in major racing series that use oval tracks.

The CART series however, mostly stayed away as the faster, more powerful Champ Cars were generally thought to be too fast for this type of circuit.

This became evident at the 2001 Firestone Firehawk 600, when drivers experienced vertigo-like symptoms, and the race was cancelled for safety reasons.

These tracks began to be removed from the Indy car schedule in the late-2000s and early-2010s due to low crowds and serious crashes, including the fatal accident involving Dan Wheldon at Las Vegas in 2011.

[4] Daytona and Talladega are the pinnacle of stock car superspeedway racing, where restrictor plates are mandated by the sport's ruling body to reduce the high speeds accommodated by their steep banking since 1988.

Auto Club Speedway, which joined Indianapolis, Michigan and Pocono[5] as the one of four superspeedways used in the Verizon IndyCar Series, was the site of Gil de Ferran's qualifying lap of 241.428 mph (388.541 km/h) in the CART FedEx Championship Series in 2000,[6] the fastest qualifying lap recorded at an official race meeting.

[7] Due to the low number of spectators or safety concerns by the drivers, IndyCar will no longer drive super speedways outside of Indianapolis.

The closed and partially demolished Texas World Speedway, was the original "sister track" to Michigan.

The two-mile oval, with its 22-degree banking, was the site of Mario Andretti's closed-course record of 214.158 mph (344.654 km/h) which stood for 12 years.

The 2.5 mile Ontario Motor Speedway was known as the "Indianapolis of the West", but was bought by the Chevron Land Company in 1980 and partitioned for development.

The following table shows the values that NASCAR, IndyCar and CART/CCWS used to determine the lap speeds and track records.

The triangular layout allowed fans in the grandstands an angular perspective of the cars coming towards and moving away from their vantage point.

Traditional ovals (such as Indianapolis) offered only limited linear views of the course, and required fans to look back and forth much like a tennis match.

The tri-oval shape prevents fans from having to "lean" to see oncoming cars, and creates more forward sight lines.

Additional prominent examples:There are a lot of oval tracks, which neither have a classical geometric shape nor still represent a modern tri-oval in the strict sense.

Some facilities feature several ovals track of different sizes, often sharing part of the same front straightaway.

This type of course makes for a multi-purpose track, and allows the facility to be used for both oval and road racing.

On some of the faster ovals, a chicane is present on long back-straights, to keep speeds down, and create additional braking/passing zones.

It allows road racing disciplines the unique experience of being held in the stadium style atmosphere of an oval superspeedway.

However, their use at the professional level has since diminished considerably, since most layouts lacked the desirable topography and competitive challenges of natural road courses.

In addition, most combined road course circuits offer poor sightlines for fans sitting in the grandstands.

However, some have enjoyed extended life as venues for testing, driving schools, and amateur race meets.

In some rare examples, the combined road course layout is run in the opposite direction to the oval circuit.

The Calder Park complex has a 1.119 mi (1.801 km) high-banked oval speedway called the Thunderdome as well as a separate road course.

As they are separate tracks, this creates a unique situation where different races can actually be run on both the oval and the full road course at the same time.

This configuration was used only twice (both in 1987) and has not been used for major motor racing since hosting Round 9 of the 1987 World Touring Car Championship.