QOTD: What Race Tracks Have You Driven?

by Tim Healey

Published: February 23rd, 2026

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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#QOTD #Racing #Racetracks #QuestionOfTheDay #RoadAmerica #LagunaSeca

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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4 of 24 comments

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.

Like Reply
- Stellantis Guy on Feb 26, 2026
  
  You can't do your own re-runs. TTAC will do that for you.
  
  Like
Lloyd Bonified on Feb 24, 2026

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

Like Reply
- Bd2 on Feb 25, 2026
  
  In bed with Tim Healey
  
  1

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