This is the historic circuit of Cumberland River Raceway, the modern version will be up later.
Story:
The Cumberland River Raceway was first proposed in 1961 as a purpose built course for European style Formula racing. The proposal gained its name when it was approved for a site near the Cumberland River in Clarksville, Tennessee. Construction began in 1962 and was completed near the end of the following year.
The circuit's most famous point was the Parabolica, and massive right hander which was designed to be incredibly difficult for the (wingless, skinny tired) F1 cars of the time. While the top tier formula never came to the circuit, lesser formulae did and the difficulty of the course proved fatal. Sandtraps were added around T1, Parabolica, both of the kinked west corners, and the final corner sequence.
The circuit added a short 'corkscrew' layout for local series, bypassing the Parabolica to add to a confusing plethora of short circuit layouts. As wings began to appear on more formula cars, the late model F1 cars and lower formula cars that ran the course became incredibly fast into the Parabolica. However, there was only one line through Parabolica, resulting in single file trains which chaotically dispersed on corner exit. To help alleviate the problem, a chicane was added to cut up Parabolica; unfortunately, the chicane tight entry resulted in only one effective line through it, and only increased the danger by forcing cars to brake from high speed mid-corner.
The track would fade into obscurity, despite many attempts to make it more modern in the 1980's and 90's, including paving over some of the gravel traps, widening, new (less harsh) kerbs, etc.
However, in the late 90's the course would be bought and renovated heavily...
GP (longest) is 4.52 mi./ 7.29 km
