A race track (or 'racetrack', 'racing track' or 'racing circuit') is a purpose-built facility for racing of animals (e.g. horse racing or greyhound racing), vehicles, or athletes. A race track may also feature grandstands or concourses. Some motorsport tracks are called speedways.
A racetrack is a permanent facility or building. Racecourse is an alternate term for a horse racing track, found in countries such as the United Kingdom, Australia, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates. Race tracks built for bicycles are known as velodromes. Circuit is a common abbreviation for racetrack, given the usual circuitous configuration of most race tracks, allowing races to occur over several laps.
A race course, as opposed to a racecourse, is a term for non-permanent tracks for sports, particularly road running, water sports, road racing or rallying. Many sports usually held on racetracks can also occur on temporary but purpose built tracks, such as the Monaco Grand Prix in Formula One.
Read more about Race Track: History, Surfaces, Configurations, Motorsport
Famous quotes containing the words race and/or track:
“This race is never grateful: from the first,
One fills their cup at supper with pure wine,
Which back they give at cross-time on a sponge,
In bitter vinegar.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)
“Water. Its sunny track in the plain; its splashing in the garden canal, the sound it makes when in its course it meets the mane of the grass; the diluted reflection of the sky together with the fleeting sight of the reeds; the Negresses fill their dripping gourds and their red clay containers; the song of the washerwomen; the gorged fields the tall crops ripening.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)