FORUMula1.com

F1 and Motorsport Forums

Celebrate over sixty years of F1 - your memories, experiences and opinions.
#198028
A coworker has often insisted that there was once a Formula 1 street circuit that had drivers crossing railroad tracks, and he insists that he has seen video of F1 cars ramping across the railroad crossing during a race. He believes the circuit was in the United States. I have consistently been skeptical of his claims, as this is something I just don't see them doing with an F1 circuit, and I don't really trust his judgment since he used to stubbornly argue that F1 and IndyCar were the same thing. Still, I figured I'd ask if anybody knew of any old F1 circuit that ever had the drivers crossing railroad tracks.
#198031
Your co-worker must be thinking of the Champ Car San Jose GP in 2005, as its the only racetrack I can think of that someone would be dumb enough to have railroad tracks crossing a racetrack. They changed the layout the following year, but the track still sucked imo. I went there in '07 and the race was pretty good but the track had few good viewing spots. I think they were trying too hard to be like Long Beach.


Here's a video of them jumping the tracks

#198037
Rivelution wrote:Your co-worker must be thinking of the Champ Car San Jose GP in 2005, as its the only racetrack I can think of that someone would be dumb enough to have railroad tracks crossing a racetrack. They changed the layout the following year, but the track still sucked imo. I went there in '07 and the race was pretty good but the track had few good viewing spots. I think they were trying too hard to be like Long Beach.
I bet that's it there. He must have seen open-wheel cars and assumed it was F1, since he is not only unable to make a distinction between different open-wheel series but wasn't even very willing to accept that not all open-wheel series are the same. Thanks for shedding some light on this.
#198078
IceManpjn wrote:A coworker has often insisted that there was once a Formula 1 street circuit that had drivers crossing railroad tracks, and he insists that he has seen video of F1 cars ramping across the railroad crossing during a race. He believes the circuit was in the United States. I have consistently been skeptical of his claims, as this is something I just don't see them doing with an F1 circuit, and I don't really trust his judgment since he used to stubbornly argue that F1 and IndyCar were the same thing. Still, I figured I'd ask if anybody knew of any old F1 circuit that ever had the drivers crossing railroad tracks.
There was a track were F1 did cross railway tracks and it was the Circuit de Boavista in Porto used for 1958 & 1960

Image

The tracks are in the middle of the picture where the car is

But yes San Jose is what you're after in terms of jumping and all 4 wheels in the air
#201770
IceManpjn wrote: He must have seen open-wheel cars and assumed it was F1, since he is not only unable to make a distinction between different open-wheel series but wasn't even very willing to accept that not all open-wheel series are the same.

That really annoys me. So many people I know or just come across have that attitude, and even on youtube you see it, where the uploader calls something F1 when it isn't.
    Williams Support

    It has been a really disappointing season for them[…]

    Austin's F1 circuit.

    COTA is one of the best tracks on the calendar, an[…]

    Really happy to see Max Verstappen win his first r[…]

    McLaren Racing opened its new state-of-the-art Rac[…]

    Swap-in out addons, use only what you really need!