The Nardò Ring
Thursday, 21st June 2007 by Alex Turnbull
Near the top of Italy's heel, there's a mysterious-looking structure - an absolutely huge circle, 4 kilometres across! You might guess that this is a particle accelerator, but in fact it's a perfectly circular high-speed test track - The Nardò Ring.
The ring is 12.5 km in circumference (around 7.8 miles) and is banked all the way round to allow the cars to achieve their absolute maximum top speed; which in practice means that a driver often need not turn the wheel at all once they get going. Essentially, cars can drive in a continuous straight line and yet somehow always end up exactly where they started...
The official site and the Wikipedia page are a little lacking, but see our other post about the Super Secret Volkswagen Test Track if you found this interesting.
Thanks to Ben, Luca D, munehiro, wanten, Luca, Rob James, woowoowoo, Craig, Dave, nixx, Alice Rizzoli, Mark, Francesco, Patrick and finally Tom!
About the author
Alex has decided that his title will be Senior Vice President of Stuff.
I liked the test track called the “wall of death” that featured in an episode of the Amazing Race. It had a completely vertical turn! I found I was actually able to find it by searching for “wall of death” in Google earth! View Placemark (48.6932,8.98591)
I still find it amazing that people can build huge, perfectly circular tracks like these.
Also worth checking out: Opel Dundenhofen and the Pofadder Test Circuit.
Thank you, thank you, thank you.
Is there any explanation for the huge squiggly unmade circuit at the bottom left of the circle, it is much wider than main 6lane circle and the unmade tracks mentioned on the official website are further to the right.
“which in practice means that a driver often need not turn the wheel at all once they get going.”
Thats not true. All of those type circuits have a “hands off” speed where the car will continue going straight. Below that speed the car will steer towards the centre, above it and they try go up it.
That’s the M25 – You can clearly see the City of London in the middle.
Silly People 😛
Well I feel obliged, after insisting on an Italy sight, to offer more information – but I have to say Nardò is right at the other end of the country, and I know nothing about it – other than recent speed records broken there – and also I believe there are 7 different test tracks at this site.
I think i saw the XJ220 tested on this track once (on the telly i mean – i wasnt actually there). It was fastest ‘road car’ produced at the time and this was the only place they could test it. I seem to remember there was some ‘issue’ with the tyres melting or blowing up or something.
I do wonder how they managed to get it perfectly round. Did they put a stick in the middle with a long bit of string and a bit of chalk on the end?
Apparently this is a hummer test track.
https://www.googlesightseeing.com/maps?p=&c=&t=k&hl=en&ll=41.637055,-86.265006&z=17
They pick the hen nights up at the south end and then drive past a stag do in the north side…
I spoke this morning with a very kind Ms. Negrini, responsible for the structure, who said someone from their team will leave an official comment soon – but she did enlighten be with the fact that it was created in the 70’s by Fiat. No surprise there!
Seeing as it was built by Fiat i’m surprised its lasted this long. I would have thought bits would have fallen off it, it was constantly breaking down and riddled with rust.
“They pick the hen nights up at the south end and then drive past a stag do in the north side…”
Hen nights…. stag do….
James, I know the English I speak and the English you speak aren’t always the same, but… What the heck are you talking about? 🙂
@James – LOL!
@Dan – Hmm, that isn’t immediately obvious is it!? A hen night is what American’s call a Bachelorette party and a stag night is the male equivalent.
In Edinburgh in recent years we’ve been overrun with groups of people travelling from all over the UK to get drunk and fall over in our fair city, and for some reason these stumbling groups of revellers seem to think the traditional mode of Scottish transport is the monstrous Stretch Hummer Limo.
But of course! The stretch Hummer!
I don’t think we’ve called them stag parties since the fifties, over here. They’re bachelor parties (as in the Tom Hanks film of the same name) nowadays.
Please, the correct term is hummerzine.
I like the fact that farming continues inside the circle. Wonder if the farmers ever get the tractor out on the track and let her rip!.
Also as far as not needing to steer, if the track is built such that the bank angle varies, getting steeper toward the outside of the track, the car could find a no steer speed across a wide range of speeds.