Nazareth - World's Fastest (Talking) One-Mile Oval
By Jim Murphy
©1996
SpeedCenter Internet Publishing, Inc.
With Paul Tracy's "record-breaking" qualification at Nazareth, claims of
the "World's Fastest One-Mile Oval" bring to a head something that has
been festering for a number of years.
Nazareth isn't a 1.0 mile track. In fact, it's much less. How much?
Well, that has been a topic of some discussion for quite a while. I
spoke with a team at Nazareth this weekend who shared with me that their
data acquisition systems reports a lap at Nazareth as 4,900 feet
long....in the groove. This would indicate a track length of slightly
less. Doing the math, it comes in at around 0.92 miles.
Now, there's no shame in the course being shorter or longer than a mile.
NHIS is 1.058 miles. The difference is that at NHIS, the speeds are
calculated based on a track length of 1.058. At Nazareth, they use 1.0,
which is about 8% off.
Just to put it all in perspective, Paul Tracy's record run of 18.824 mph
would not actually be 190.737, but in fact is more likely 177.480 mph.
To be fair, some have tried to link this to a publicity war between CART
and the IRL, but Phoenix and Nazareth have been swapping this
distinction for years, well before there was even thought of the IRL.
It's not that sinister.
Teams have been known to go some obscene distances without refueling at
Nazareth. Last year, Jacques carried his car for the first 92 laps.
One well-respected national motorsports journalist noticed this weekend
that straightaway trap speeds at Nazareth were actually SLOWER than the
average lap speed reports. If Nazareth is a mile, I have some land I'm
willing to give you a deal on.
Distance measuring seems to be a black art. IndyCar claims to measure
10-feet up from the inside white line. NASCAR measures down from the
outside wall (6 or 15 feet, I can't recall which). But BOTH series
agree that Indianapolis is 2.5 miles and NHIS is 1.058 miles. Go
figger.
I guess what really gets my dander up about this isn't that the distance
is wrong. I'm sure many tracks are wrong. It's just that's it's WAY
wrong, and that they have the nerve to run around making a huge PR deal
out of the speeds.
Someone observed this weekend that they should take an Indy car down to
Dover and turn a few laps. That should shut everyone up about this
"Fastest One Mile Oval" nonesense.
Note from the Editor: Jim Murphy is the Assistant Indy Car Series
Editor for the Compuserve Motor Sports Forum. Jim also is the Producer of the
Indy Racing Report.
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