Circuit Racing
From 1972 to 1988 the Adelaide International Raceway was South Australia's major motor racing circuit, due to a convent placed on Mallala preventing any motor sport activities there (the convent had been done away with by 1982). AIR regularly hosted rounds of the Australian Touring Car Championship and endurance races of the Australian Manufacturers' Championship (later known as the 'Championship of Makes'). The Adelaide track also hosted rounds of the famous Tasman Series, the Rothmans International Series, as well as other CAMS sanctioned national championships, including the Australian Drivers' Championship, Australian Formula 2 and Australian Formula Ford championships, the Australian Sports Car Championship, the Australian Sports Sedan Championship and the Australian GT Championship.
With six of the full circuits nine turns being right handers, those being turn 1, which was also the hardest braking point of the track after the fastest cars such as Formula 5000's regularly reached speeds of over 250 km/h (155 mph) on the long straight, and the sweeping turns 2 and 3, plus the high speed bowl section, gave Adelaide International a reputation for being hard on tyres, specifically the outside (left hand) tyres which generally took a hammering on the bowl. This was due to the longer periods of high speed cornering with the cars and suspensions loaded to the outside. For the longer national championship races, such as the 40 lap ATCC races and the end of year 125 lap (301.25 km or 187.5 mi) touring car endurance race, this made tyre choice and suspension settings a critical part of success at AIR.
AIR also has an unusual set up for the Pits. While the pit lane is located in a normal position on the inside of the track coming onto the main straight, the cars actually enter the track from the paddock through the pit gate on the outside of the track at the end of turn 9 (the gate is closed and forms part of the outside retaining wall during races). However, unlike most motor racing circuits where the main paddock is located directly behind pit lane, the main paddock for AIR is located on the outside of the main straight behind the officials tower and spectator mounds. This is despite there being an open and unused area of approximately 21,500m2 located within the Super Bowl behind pit lane.
The outright lap record for the full 2.41km circuit is held by Australia's 1980 Formula One World Champion Alan Jones at 49.5 seconds. Jones set the record driving a Lola T332-Chevrolet Formula 5000 in the 1977 Rothmans International Series.
Read more about this topic: Adelaide International Raceway
Famous quotes containing the words circuit and/or racing:
“The Father and His angelic hierarchy
That made the magnitude and glory there
Stood in the circuit of a needle’s eye.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“Upscale people are fixated with food simply because they are now able to eat so much of it without getting fat, and the reason they don’t get fat is that they maintain a profligate level of calorie expenditure. The very same people whose evenings begin with melted goat’s cheese ... get up at dawn to run, break for a mid-morning aerobics class, and watch the evening news while racing on a stationary bicycle.”
—Barbara Ehrenreich (b. 1941)