Let's take a few laps around historic Lime Rock park raceway. Lime Rock has been the home of road racing on the East Coast since the mid 1950s. At 1.53 miles around it's not the biggest track but it has some very challenging corners and a true sense of history about it. One can picture Mark Donahue charging around Big Bend in a Penske Camaro, or even local boy Paul Newman showing up the whipper snappers in one his Nissans.
The clip starts of just before the "Downhill" turn, it's a very fast right which requires quite a bit of confidence and commitment to run very fast (...I'm working up to it!). Here I'm following a Porsche GT3Cup car and as you cans see it's very fast in the straights...
After the main straight you enter the famous "Big Bend", a long 180 degrees double apex turn. I love it... Right after Big Bend you need to find a good line through the section called "the Esses" a left and a right. Usually you want to give it up a little on the first left and get a better line though the following right which is followed by what is called..."No Name Straight". As you can see from the clip, the line takes you under full acceleration over a somewhat nasty bump which momentarily unsettles the car.
Next up is the "Uphill" a turn that is both tricky and exhilarating. Get it right and you'll get some 4 wheel air at the top of the very steep climb. Get it wrong and it's going to hurt.!
After another short straight you will get to "West Bend" a very fast turn that tempts you into turning in too early. Last time I was there, I saw a pretty nasty off happen there, a car put a rear wheel off in the dirt coming out, spun and hit the right side of the bridge....on the plus side, Lime Rock has some very good tire walls...so, no injuries.
And we are back to the "Downhill", maybe one day CG will write a piece about that turn some day... :o)
Download the clip here
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