I always get my California road courses confused. Is Sonoma the track they used to call Sears Point? Laguna Seca is another one I think? I remember watch Indy car races on what I think was Sonoma and what I liked about it was the elevation changes it had for a desert track. One of the major turns after the start was a left turn and then down hill right hander that was the site of a lot of exciting moments in the past, but I think there were trees in that corner, well back from the inner curb, but when I just watched parts of the recent race, I don't see any trees. As usual with alot of things these days, it's not like it used to be!
Sonoma = Sears Point. It's between 101 going up from San Francisco towards Petaluma, and Vacaville on I-80, right at the north end of the bay. The start/finish is at the low point, you have a couple of uphill left handers, a blind right hander of the top of the hill, down again with a left at the bottom, another blind right over the crest, etc. I have been around the sports car course many times in various cars including my old Lotus. I spun out into the CL circle area once in the Lotus trying to dodge some girl who spun her Eclat right ahead of me after she hit the curb too hard. It's the run-off area for the dragstrip, which holds an NHRA round every year. The Sprint Cup race for 2022 was last weekend, they use a shortened course, as does Indycar.
There is a lot of elevation change, but most of the intervening terrain was knocked down when Speedway Motorsports/Bruton Smith bought it in the mid-90s, so you could see a lot more of the track from most of the new grandstands. Of course, there is no live grass right now, we are in the middle of a drought, but normally it gets a lot of rain up there in the North Bay.
Laguna Seca is over by the coast near Monterey, not too far from the Pacific Ocean. Start finish is at the crest of a small hill, there's a two hard lefts at the bottom of the hill, two lefts. It also has the famous corkscrew, which has a hard right at the crest of the hill, and then an extremely steep downhill section. The track has changed significantly in the 80sit used to have a very long and shallow sweeping left all the way from the start finish to the top of the hill at the corkscrew, which was basically a very long straightaway for most cars. That was changed because if you did go off halfway up the hill, there is a huge drop off and people would lose it and fly off of there. I haven't run there too much, most recently as a passenger in an open-top LMP2 car, which made my neck hurt for months afterward, even at touring speeds,from the lateral G.
Riverside was in Southern California, well out I-10 east of Los Angeles, near Riverside California headed toward the desert. Its been gone a very long time, there was a shopping mall there. Fontana Superspeedway is not too far from there.
There are a number of other road courses you have probably never heard of. When Speedway Motorsports too over Sears Point the SCCA built a new track up in the central valley called Thunderhill Park, there is a track in Buttonwillow, and of course, there is Willow Springs, out in the desert near Edwards AFB, that's where a lot of Ford VS Ferarri was filmed, that is more-or-less unchanged since the 60's. It really is in the hard desert, west of Edwards, just over the San Bernadino mountains northeast of the LA Basin, on the way you leave town to get to Las Vegas on the 15.
Brett
Topic: Sonoma Raceway? (Read 1122 times)