Carfection Is On A Roadtrip, Checking Out French Racetracks! First One Up: Circuit de Charade!


Carfection Is On A Roadtrip, Checking Out French Racetracks! First One Up: Circuit de Charade!

“…it’s said that God sculped the scenery, but the Devil laid down the tarmac.” Sounds like my kind of road. Flat tracks are great if you are a kid learning to drive a five-horsepower go kart for the first time, but if you want a hell of a challenge, try a road course that has elevation changes, off-camber corners, and sections of the track where the only thing that is gripping tighter than your tires is your O-ring to the seat. These kinds of tracks are legendary…there is a reason why Jackie Stewart referred to the Nurburgring Nordschliefe as “the Green Hell”. Anyone can drive a dragstrip, but it takes some sincere determination and quite a bit of faith to wind your way around a ribbon of asphalt that is narrow, winding, and fast.

Carfection (the recently renamed XCAR YouTube channel) has a Maserati Quattroporte and a fuel card and are traveling around France, checking out all of the racetracks that dot the landscape. The home of Circuit de la Sarthe, the home of the 24 Hours of LeMans and Circuit de Pau-Villes, France has plenty of history where it concerns racing, especially pre-war and classic Formula 1. The first stop on their trip is at the Circuit de Charade, a former French Grand Prix track that at it’s height, was a five-mile long series of twists, turns, and elevation changes so tight that racers often wore open-face helmets, just in case motion sickness sent their lunches on the return trip out. Unfortunately, a series of incidents shut down the five-mile-long course: during the 1972 Grand Prix, driver Helmut Marko caught a rock in the eye; in 1980, three marshals were killed during a touring car race, and in 1984, racers protested. The track is now just about half of it’s original length, yet the viciousness and technical design of a road course carved onto the side of an extinct volcano still beckons. We can’t wait to see more of this trip!


  • Share This
  • Pinterest
  • 0

One thought on “Carfection Is On A Roadtrip, Checking Out French Racetracks! First One Up: Circuit de Charade!

Comments are closed.