When it comes to race courses, what in your mind are the most interesting features? The long straights? Pit lanes perhaps? No, you and I both know it’s the corners that get the party started. That’s right, it’s the twisty bits that can really get your panties in a twist.
So important, and individually unique are each course’s corners that many have been given their own iconic names. Those names, like Le Mans’ Mulsanne Kink, or the Nürburgring’s crazy Karussell have entered the pantheon of automotive racing history, and have become as famous as the cars that have plied them.
Considering all the tracks in the world, and all the corners on those tracks, which one do you think has been imbued with the coolest name?
Image: Wikipedia
Hooniverse Asks: What’s the Coolest Race Track Turn Name?
By Robert Emslie
Mar 24, 2015
Jeff Glucker
Gambon corner!
http://pics.imcdb.org/0is841/topgearsuzukiliana4.88.jpg
Eh, it’s less a corner than a feature (unless you shift your axes), but the Flugplatz definitely deserves a mention.
Yes! My first thought was also Flugplatz
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/05/Eau_Rouge_1997.jpg
In a world where “The Carousel” is a name of a corner, or “The Esses” works. I prefer Eau Rouge.
Not only is it great to say/hear/read it is a tremendously demanding portion of race course.
Rascasse in Monaco
This is an image of the Lowe’s (or whatever) Hairpin, not Rascasse.
Oops, never trust the internet… This should be it…
A fairly ordinary-sounding name, but “Sarah’s Cottage”, on the IOM’s Snaefell Mountain Course. Because it’s named after a real cottage, and a real Sarah, Sarah Corlett moved into the cottage in 1900. She passed away in the 1930s, but the cottage remains and the corner still bears her name 8 decades later. I think it perfectly captures the timelessness of the most historic motor race in the world.
Blyton Park in the UK has some crackers. ‘Bunga Bunga’ and ‘The Wiggler’ are particularly good.
Castle Coombe also has a long sweeper called ‘Hammerdown’ which is very evocative. So is the ‘Bomb Hole’ at Snetterton.
The story is that the “bomb hole” was originally the “bumhole.” The announcer had to clean it up.
Hah! Even better…
Long answer forthcoming:
I actually thing the names of the straights at Road America are pretty great: Hurry Downs, Kettle Bottoms, Thunder Valley (which is kind of a turn).
http://www.racingsportscars.com/covers/_Road_America-1977-07-24t.jpg
Mount Panorama/Bathurst has a bunch of great corner names: Hell Corner, The Cutting, The Dipper, The Chase.
http://www.nzmustang.com/bathurst/BathurstmapA.JPG
And there’s also Conrod Straight.
http://images15.fotki.com/v587/photos/4/157654/7816575/anorama250909010ConrodStraight-vi.jpg
The supermoto course in Pleven, Bulgaria has awesomely minimalist names — The Box, The Sky, The Wave, The Berm, The Bowl.
And I can’t mention Pleven without an awesome video.
I’ve always loved that there is a corner called “Maggotts” at Silverstone, too.
http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2010/04/New-Silverstone-Grand-Prix-Circuit-Image-with-Corner-Names.jpg
Oak Tree at VIR. There was a 200 year old oak tree the corner was built around until 2013, when it fell.
http://www.wset.com/story/22755995/iconic-oak-tree-at-vir-is-no-more
My fav track config of Motorsport Ranch: Ricochet. Off camber corner that if you have the n-ts, you can nail it flat out either direction.
http://motorsportranch.com/images/misc/Track_Layout_1_7.jpg
Not shown – part of the 3.1 config: Toiletbowl.
The old Road Atlanta had The Dip/Gravity Cavity a suspension bottoming dip at the end of a half mile plus straight. GTP cars would hit it at 200mph plus.
Swap buggy racing had The Sippy Hole.
Oklahoma’s Hallett Motor Racing Circuit has a couple of dandies: The Bitch and Everybody’s Favorite Turn.
http://www.racingcircuits.info/assets/components/phpthumbof/cache/HallettCW76.9bc9a004cc457692f565d27e5fe876e4298.png
They may not be the coolest names, but I gotta represent Road America. Kettle Bottoms sounds silly but the track resides in Kettle Moraine, a hill region of Wisconsin formed by glaciers, and this is the lowest portion of the track (I believe). The interesting one is Canada Corner which apparently was named after the local Boy Scout troop cleaned up the track after an event and found an unusually large number of Canadian beer cans and cigarette packs laying around.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9f/Road_America.svg/800px-Road_America.svg.png
I always thought the joke about Canada Corner was that it indicated where you would end up if you went off at speed.
If you can read a topographical map, Road America’s is pretty spectacular. The braking zone for T1 is the highest part of the track and Kettle Bottoms—which runs along a creek at the bottom of a moraine—is the lowest. Topo map also shows why it’s called Thunder Valley.
https://www.mytopo.com/locations/index.cfm?fid=1581332
When I first drove at Lakeside I wondered why Hungry Corner was called that. I promptly spun off there. Ah, so that’s why.
“S” do Senna at Interlagos São Paulo
http://static.panoramio.com/photos/large/16018396.jpg
My answer is probably the most evocative corner in Aus, Skyline:
http://www.rfactorcentral.com/drivebathurst/gfx/bathurst_skyline.jpg
turn 2 on the Phillip Island (aussie bike GP/ V8 supercars etc ) track, its called Siberia for the very good (if geographically erroneous) fact that on a good day the wind blows straight in from the Antarctic across that corner
its also an awesome corner to watch the whole MotoGP field together flat out on the first lap
Tertre Rouge, at Le Mans. Means “little red hill.” Going up over that little red hill gets you onto the Mulsanne Straight.
Eau Rouge gets all the love but that always sounded like a chemical spill to me.