Racetrack in Rio?

[Marcel ten Caat]

Recently i noticed something that looks like a circuit on a postcard from Rio de Janeiro. (It's not Jacarepaguá)

I tried to find out what it was exactly (autosport or not at all) but couldn't find anything except for some other pics of it.

Can anyone tell me if this is a racing circuit or not, and if it is what series race on there if it's still in use.

[gttouring]

good question- I knoq of emmerson Fittipaldi speedway in Rio, that was the big flat 4 turn Roval (a flat oval with two sweepers and 2 hairpins) those tracks in your picture are surely some thing those passionately manic brazillians race on.

[Speedworx]

http://www.maria-brazil.org/places.htm

Its the 2nd picture in the right hand column. With the caption:

"The Botanical Garden is the green area next to the horse-race track."

So you are right, it is a race track, but for horses and not cars.

[racerkeke]

Beat me to it, Hakkiman. When we were there for the '97 race at the roval we went up to Corcovado on a day off. We noticed this too -- in fact, one of my snapshots from that day is almost identical to this one! We were told it was the horse track where Raul Boesel's family had their horses, but that may have been a line they fed us.

The roval is a lot farther south, in a suburb called Barra. It's about a 45 minute drive (30 if the driver ignores red lights and anything smaller than a cement truck) from our hotel on the Copacabana beach.

keke

[Marcel ten Caat]

it looks so big for a horse track, and the fact that it looks like concrete or tarmac makes it even more weird. I'd expect grass or sand if it were for horses

[Muzza]

Hakkiman is right - that is the Hipódromo do Rio de Janeiro (a horse track), besides the Rodrigo de Freitas Lagoon.

For the old school guys: Rio de Janeiro had three other tracks before the current Jacarepaguá circuit. One was the famous Circuito da Gaveá, aptly nicknamed Devil’s Springboard, an 11.16 km-long road circuit running from the Leblon Beach up to the Tijuca Forest and back. One of the most challenging road tracks ever. I strongly recommend all of you visiting Rio to drive it! It is mesmerizing. Gávea was used between 1936 and 1949 (if I am not mistaken).

On the mid-1960s a road course was built approximately on the same site that today holds Jacarepaguá. It was usually called Jacarepaguá too, but the lay-out was completely different. It ran anticlockwise, and it had a curved, lefthand strart/finish “straight” (�* la Brands Hatch, but on the opposite direction). The infield was made of a sequence of sweepers, without any true straight .This track fell into desuse around 1971, and the “new” Jacarepaguá was not built before 1978.

Curiosity: the Moretti turn in the current Jacarepaguá track (the same one where Gilles Villeneuve crashed while fighting with Nelson Piquet for the lead of the 1982 Brazilian GP) is named after Ricardo Moretti, who sadly perished on a Formula Vee accident at the “old” Jacarepeguá, back in 1967.

Another track in Rio de Janeiro – not in Rio de Janeiro city, but in State of Rio de Janeiro – was the Petrópolis street track, used in the 1960. I believed it was used for the last time in 1968.

Cheers,

[Marcel ten Caat]

http://www.riomix.com/ptour/hipodromo.jpg

That color looks more like a horse track
Just move the horses, redo the turns (bank 'm) and add some seats and a paddock area...and a new Brazilian circuit is ready

[Speed Demon]

Autosport is reporting that Jacarepaguá is to be bulldozed later this year to make way for new houses. Seems a pity to me as it always seemed to produce good racing, even if it was very bumpy.

[Fish_Flake]

I heard it was closing to make way for a sports complex so Rio could make a bid for the Olympic Games.

[Lee Janotta]

[DNQ]

Awww what! No way

[Fish_Flake]

Really, it doesn't surprise me, the mayor of Rio doesn't like the circuit, and he basically sabotaged the CART race there when Emmo was trying to make it a full-blown championship event on the road course, then later tried to install lights to make it a night race.

[Muzza]

César Maia, Rio de Janeiro Mayor, is the personification of what is usually called a “crazy politician” – he is a “populist”, someone that is much more concerned about obtaining personal benefits than aiming to improve the living condition of Rio inhabitants. Indeed, he has said in the past that “motor racing is a stupid thing” (well, opinions are like armpits – everybody has them, and some do stink) and he did all he could to squeeze money – with very, say, questionable purposes - out of the organizers of the CART race in Brazil. When he found that he would not be able to do it, Maia did all he could to get rid of the race!

Autosport article is incorrect about what may happen to Jacarepaguá. Rio is bidding to be the home of the 2007 PanAmerican Games, but the city needs major infrastructure investment to consolidate its proposal (better just say to make this bid at least a little bit feasible). So César Maia foresaw the possibility of getting rid of two problems at once: building facilities for the PanAm games -–while making the track impossible to use in practical terms.

There is so much dirt on this story that recently (last March) the city officials tried the sabotage a protest organized by drivers and racing teams (ranging from karting to dragsters) – Maia’s men went through the neighborhoods surrounding the circuit with public announcement vehicles broadcasting a message that the drivers and team protest was actually against the organization of the 2007 PanAmerican Games in Rio!

The CBA (Brazilian Autoracing Confederation) is negotiating with the COB (Brazilian Olympic Committee) a peaceful end to this story. Until then, cross your fingers – and boo Maia.

The drawing below – from the Brazilian racing news website Speed on Line – depicts the main works Maia wants to carry out in Jacarepaguá, and that would render the track pretty much useless, as most run-off areas would be eliminated. The legend is:

1.) bicycle track;
2.) athletics track;
3.) swimming pool complex;
4.) multi-purpose stadium (for basketball mostly);
5.) “Estacionamento” means parking lot.

[Lee Janotta]

Bleh. Politics and racing are like oil and water.

[Speedworx]

There are rumours Rio will be saved.

[Speed Demon]

AutoRacing1.com is reporting that the discussions are continuing, but I think they have just picked up on the story I ran on e-Tracks after reading this post. They seem to have attributed their facts to Autosport, amusingly!

[Muzza]

Latest news from Rio: the city governement signed today a contact for the organization of the Moto GP, to be run on September 20th in Jacarepaguá.

The contract is estimated to reach circa 2.9 million dollars.

This means "if you pay us what we ask you can use the track; otherwise we will bulldoze it over".

[Speed Demon]

I rather naively assumed that as the race was already on the calendar, such a contract already existed. How silly of me!