QOTD: What Race Tracks Have You Driven?

Tim Healey
by Tim Healey

NASCAR is at the Circuit Of The Americas in Texas this week, and COTA is a track that us in the media sometimes get to drive.


I actually haven't yet driven it, but I have driven Road America, Laguna Seca, Willow Springs, Sonoma, Gingerman, and a few others.

Now, you might think that's just because of what I do for a living, but a lot of tracks give the public a chance to drive them. And not just in terms of weekend-warrior amateur racing. You can get on tracks as part of a high-performance driving experience that you pay for, or as a part of a driving school. Some tracks let you run at speed if you have the right car, others will let you drive your broken-down Camry at street speeds.

Heck, we all know that travelers to Germany can lap the Nürburgring for a relatively paltry outlay of euros.

So, what tracks have you driven? Whether at race speed or in a touring lap in a clapped-out rental car, or somewhere in between?

Sound off below.

[Image: Laguna Seca]

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Tim Healey
Tim Healey

Tim Healey grew up around the auto-parts business and has always had a love for cars — his parents joke his first word was “‘Vette”. Despite this, he wanted to pursue a career in sports writing but he ended up falling semi-accidentally into the automotive-journalism industry, first at Consumer Guide Automotive and later at Web2Carz.com. He also worked as an industry analyst at Mintel Group and freelanced for About.com, CarFax, Vehix.com, High Gear Media, Torque News, FutureCar.com, Cars.com, among others, and of course Vertical Scope sites such as AutoGuide.com, Off-Road.com, and HybridCars.com. He’s an urbanite and as such, doesn’t need a daily driver, but if he had one, it would be compact, sporty, and have a manual transmission.

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  • Bd2 Bd2 on Feb 24, 2026

    I drove the TTAC International Circuit once. The track itself was an uneven amalgamation of different tracks held together haphazardly and incoherently. Different segments of the track actually had different management and as such some were in passable condition while others (Tim Healey's) were utterly deplorable and embarrasment to be on. Track sponsorship consisted of a bunch of shill influencers and few parts of the track were rented from other courses due to the disrepair of the original circuit (oh sorry, "curated"). Interestingly, Hyundai N models were able to overtake McLarens and Koenigseggs with ease specifically on the Tim Healey Straight and Chris Tonn Esses but not the Jack Baruth hairpin where a few dozen vintage 911s were parked up in pristine condition but not operable. One of them was covered in soiled butcher knives. Electric chaging stations took over an hour to charge a Tesla Model 3 Performance yet managed to charge an Ioniq 5N in under 30 seconds. The pits were the pits with legions of old naked men servicing the cars using poor usage and grammar. The starting line was managed by none other than Connie Peters who did nothing but remind everyone of her height and that every vehicle in the world was "voluminous" with the front seats pulled alll the way forward. When I finally completed the circuit in my rotary powered ND, I was told the results would not be ready for 6 months and I was not allowed to share them publicly until 2028. Thomas Kreutzer was running the concession stands, looking like his usual bizarre self.

  • Lloyd Bonified Lloyd Bonified on Feb 24, 2026

    Where are FTypeR, Freedmike and Geoff? To much car talk and not enough politics?

    • Bd2 Bd2 on Feb 25, 2026

      In bed with Tim Healey


  • Peeryog Everytime I see one I am reminded of the current Santa Fe. And vice versa.
  • Original Guy I watched that Moscow parade thing. (With the Cyrillic captions because my Russian is a little rough.) I won't give the whole thing away, but it started off with a couple of dudes riding around in stupid useless convertibles, standing up like Hitler, who I'm pretty sure was an actual Nazi. They drove around in circles and kept stopping to ask if anyone had seen all the missing military equipment, and all the guys kept moaning back, that no, they hadn't, ask the next section of guys.They looked around for someone shorter and sicker-looking than Putin but they were unsuccessful so they let him speak.The North Korean military was there, I guess the invasion has begun. The North Korean guys were skinny but their rifles were nicely polished, I guess they have plenty of time on their hands between meals.Some of the Russian military guys carried little white flags, I assume they keep those handy in case they run across any U.S. Marines.
  • Marc J Rauch EBFlexing on ur mom - Ethanol is compatible with more types of rubber, plastic, and metal than gasoline and aromatics. This means that ethanol is less corrosive. The bottom line is that long before ethanol could have any damaging effect on any engine component, gasoline and aromatics would have already damaged the components. And the addition of ethanol doesn't exacerbate the problems caused by gasoline and aromatics; it actually helps mitigate them.
  • Original Guy Today I learned that a reverse brake bleeder (and a long borescope) can be helpful if you are autistic and don't have any friends and no one wants to work with you to bleed your brakes. Also it is quick, once you figure out the process.When Canada assembled my truck back in circa 1995, they apparently used a different clip to attach the brake pedal (and switch) to the brake booster than what is technically called for. It is tough to realize this when the spring steel clip flies off to who knows where. Of course I ordered the wrong clip trying to match the style that I saw buried up in the dash before it flew away. My truck now has the 'correct' clip, everyone can relax.I ordered some more brake fluid (DOT 3, nothing fancy) but it turns out I still have two fresh bottles (my shelves aren't empty, I just have too many shelves).Went to install my fancy new Optima YellowTop battery and it turns out I need a new side post terminal bolt. (Yet another order placed, bring on THE TARIFFS.) It would be a shame to strip out the threads on a nice new battery, no?Good news: The longer it takes me to get my truck started again, the more I save on fuel. 😁
  • Normie Weekends here would be a great time for everyone to join in praise of dog dish hubcaps on body-color matched steelies!
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