The reimagined One Raceway burst back into life last week, with cars and bikes sampling the nearly rebuilt bidirectional circuit for the first time. Running a track both ways appears to be an obvious way to expand the utility and options for circuit operations, however, it is a concept that has been seldom utilised in world motorsport to this point. Here, we take a deep dive into the issues at play to make a track work both ways.

Clockwise and Anti-Clockwise, What’s the Difference Anyways?

From the outset, it is clear that rebuilding Wakefield Park into One Raceway has been a significant undertaking.

Firstly, there were the acoustic considerations – figuring out how to mitigate the sounds emanating from the facility, and frankly, it was something that should have happened a long time ago.

However, there is a lot of science that goes into configuring the surrounds of a circuit to minimise sound issues, especially in the Goulburn case, where there have been past complaints.

Obviously, the massive 10-metre-high noise abatement walls at either end of the venue took a huge amount of cash and manpower to construct, while, at the same time, they provide fans of the future with some fresh vantage points.

Then there have been unglamorous yet important features, like reinvigorating the paddock area, sorting out drainage, resurfacing the reconfigured circuit, and introducing new tech into the circuit’s operations.

All of the above takes an awful lot of homework, and considering the timeline of events to get to this point, that drawing board effort happened without much mucking around.

When the plans for One Raceway were dropped in October last year, clearly, the biggest facet was the bombshell announcement that the track would run in both directions.

While it’s an eye-opener, the concept makes a lot of sense—the circuit has created options for its user base and potentially allows for two different layouts that race in entirely different fashions.

However, running in twin directions isn’t as easy as saying it’s so, and let rip.

When planning a typical one-directional circuit, designing all of the various requirements is a well-defined process that has been honed over the years.

Once you have a layout in mind, prospective speed plots can be applied, which can be used to determine run-off areas, wall angle of attacks, kerb positioning and more – the various assets can then be massaged into a workable final design in coordination with the input from various sanctioning bodies.

Take walls, for instance. You obviously never want vehicles to hit barriers at bad angles, and when a wall is placed at a high angle to the traffic flow, runoff areas, gravel traps and finally, tyre barriers can be employed to lessen severe impacts.

Furthermore, on straights, the preference is for solid concrete or Armco barriers to run parallel to traffic to redirect errant vehicles with a glancing blow.

Tyre barriers, on the other hand, tend to draw vehicles in and arrest speed much faster, which isn’t necessarily a premium outcome – think of some of the bygone crashes that happened with the old earth-filled tyre barriers on Phillip Island’s main straight – they were ugly.

Safer barriers, meanwhile, combine the best of both worlds in some situations – they line the outside lip of most professional-grade ovals in North America and are utilised sparingly elsewhere, with top-tier examples including Le Mans, Interlagos, Baku, Montreal, and Zandvoort.

However, this system is incredibly dollar-intensive to install and needs constant attention and upkeep when hit.

Armco barriers, on the other hand, require the overlapped raised edges to face away from oncoming traffic, making them somewhat directional in best practice.

So, you can see the quandary here—positioning walls, run-off and tyre bundles that tick all the boxes when attacked from both directions is difficult – what works from one way might not be ideal for the other.

Another issue is wall openings, which can be found on many circuits for emergency or official access and broken vehicle storage – however, designing these for twin directions presents an issue, with exposed wall endings clearly a big no-no.

However, in using the legacy Wakefield Park design as a baseline, there were precious few wall openings present that needed to be maintained.

Similarly, kerbs are their own art form.

The FIA regulations provide guidelines for kerb design, especially regarding stepped-down Melbourne Kerbs or stepped-up Vallelunga Kerbs, which are commonly found on corner exits of higher-grade circuits.

These pieces of racetrack furniture are one-directional, and their exact specifications depend on the speed profile of a given corner – so, an alternate finish will clearly need to be applied at One Raceway.

This said, several of our circuits do not comply with FIA grading.

Australia’s current Grade 1 circuit is Albert Park, on Grade 2 are Surfers Paradise, Sydney Motorsport Park, and The Bend, while Grade 3 includes the Adelaide Parklands, the former Newcastle Street Circuit, Wanneroo, the Townsville Street Circuit, Hidden Valley, Mount Panorama, Phillip Island, Queensland Raceway, Sandown Raceway, Symmons Plains, and Winton.

Circuits not currently listed include DriveIT NQ, Lakeside, Morgan Park, Luddenham Raceway, Pheasant Wood, Calder Park, Baskerville, Mallala and the Collie Motorplex.

It is also worth noting that motorcycling sanctioning bodies have different circuit design requirements compared to their four-wheeled friends.

For instance, air fences may be required if walls are within striking distance for fallen riders – providing an additional expense and setup task for operators.

It is curious to note that the positioning of exit kerbs at One Raceway is pending feedback from competitors, as this is typically coordinated in step with speed and runoff data generated in the design process.

Elsewhere, flag points or light signalling positions would have to be considered for both directions, grid markings would need to be applied both ways, while bi-directional pit entries and exits are an oddity but a non-insurmountable challenge.

Running Both Ways, A History

Who hasn’t had a crack at driving a circuit backwards on a video game?

As it transpires, twin-direction circuits, in reality, form a small subset of the entire racetrack list.

On these shores, many dirt speedways are obvious starting points, which can often flip between races, especially for slower sedan classes that don’t run staggered tyres.

As an extension of this, are our two former NASCAR/AUSCAR ovals at the Thunderdome and Adelaide International Raceway, which ran both ways, depending on the class.

With sedan oval categories, the preference is for the passenger side to run up against the wall, limiting the chances of potential side impacts for drivers, thus, Australian-derived right-hand-drive cars ran clockwise, with the drivers sitting on the inside of the bowl.

Several other road courses have various twin-direction tales to tell, too.

For instance, Wanneroo was run in reverse in 2002, although somewhat altered from the current layout – to avoid a head-on collision with the wall at the final turn, cars swung right behind the massive ripple strip that delineates the track from the old pit entry.

Additionally, cars used the short circuit shortcut at the top of the hill, with lap record holders from that sole modern backwards meet including Tony Ricciardello (Sports Sedans and outright) and Dean Fiore (Formula Ford).

However, earlier motorcycle meets are noted as utilising the entire layout in reverse.

Oran Park’s short circuit was also used for reverse track racing, reports note Winton being used backwards by motorcycles in the early 1980s, while to this day, hillclimbs at Mount Panorama are regularly contested from Forrest’s Elbow back up the hill to finish at Brock’s Skyline.

Actively, The Bend’s East Circuit turns five through eight run backwards against the flow of the International Circuit’s corners ten through 12.

Elsewhere at Queensland Raceway, much of the venue has been run in reverse for the purpose of tarmac rally sprints, with the aid of multiple temporary chicanes.

From an earlier time, Lakeside Raceway was originally planned to run anticlockwise, but the layout potentially saw vehicles wind up in the paddock area if they failed to navigate Hungry Corner, so the scheme was scrapped.

Additionally, Albert Park’s original layout from the 1950s ran counterclockwise, running an alternate layout around the lake to the modern-day Grand Prix Circuit.

In New Zealand, tracks such as Pukekohe and Manfield are noted as experimenting in the practice.

Globally, many layouts have dabbled in backward direction racing at times, either in permanent switches or as a novelty, including Silverstone, Brands Hatch, Knockhill, Aintree, Hockenheim, the original Brno public road course, Buenos Aires, Kyalami, the Daytona Road Course, Watkins Glen, the Indianapolis road course versus the oval, and the old Miami IMSA/Indycar track.

Do you know any other circuits that have swung both ways? Hit us up on the socials @theracetorque with your insight!