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Tallahassee Raceway


Aerobird

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Decided it should have its own discussion instead of scattering from thread to thread...

Anyway, I got to thinking. Perhaps what Tallahassee should have, for the time being, is a street race? St. Petersburg has one, Long Beach's is famous, Las Vegas, Cleveland, and the grandaddy of Grands Prix, the G.P. of Monaco, are all run on street courses.

Downtown would be the obvious spot, however the hills might cause a problem...I'd say that west of Monroe any course would have to be no further south than Gaines, and east of Monroe, Park would be the southern limit. (I just had a vision of IndyCars running up Gadsden Street... :wub: )

Another possbility would be a course around the western end of Gaines Street, the area around the Gaines-Stadium-Lake Bradford intersection seems almost tailor-made, the university might be a problem there though.

Possibilities for a street course would include CART, the Indy Racing League, the American LeMans Series, and touring cars.

If we want an oval, a possible location might be east of Publix on the south side of Capital Circle, assuming the Fairgounds are out. One thing, Tallahassee will never get a NASCAR Winston Cup Series (sorry, SprintTel, but it's always gonna be WC to me) race, we couldn't afford the type of track needed (1.5-2mile cookie-cutter oval, wouldn't want one anyway) these days and the market would be considered saturated (Talladega, Atlanta, Daytona) probably. Busch Series, where Cup goes they go, and the series is on life-support anyway.

If a 1/2 mile track was built, that would allow for weekly-during-summer local racing (Late Model, Modified, Strictly Stock, etc., Figure 8 racing might be cool :w00t: ), and touring series (what most people think of when they think of auto racing) could include NASCAR Craftman Trucks, USAR Hooters Pro Cup, the ARCA Re/MAX Series, and other "minor league" series. A 3/4 to 7/8 mile track would cost quite a bit more, but could attract an Indy Racing League race. Any more than that and you're getting too big for the local racers...

A permament road course would allow the same series as a street course without the disruption in traffic. Most ovals seem to have a RC that the track can be reconfigured into, using parts of the oval, so we could have both...

A dragstrip could be added alongside an oval track, or as part of a road course (a la Sears Point), attracting NHRA and/or IHRA events.

Thoughts?

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I dont know if Indy style racing would really work in Tallahassee. I think stock car would stand the best chance. I liked the idea you had in a picture, with a Bristol style track. I think if it were to be successful, it would have to be a half-mile, high banked track.
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There is a Drag strip in Tallahassee already. It is located out Hwy 20. It was going to open back up some years back and 1 OLD woman has held it up. Not sure what is going on with it now. It was going to open back up as a 1/8 mile track.

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Hmm, with the runway-taxiway configuration at TCA it'd basically be a flat oval...which is how the oval track in Rio was configured, IIRC it wasn't all that popular with the drivers...

They do close Cleveland's airport for one weekend a year for the GP...so if one that busy can close, ours shouldn't hurt too much. Heck , you could probably get away with only closing one of Tally's runways for the event and keep the other one open. Just as long as we can clone Cleveland's Turn One... :w00t:

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