Grand Prix road course · 10 turns
The Spokane Road Course
Wrapped around the drag strip and borrowing its straightaway, the road course at Spokane Raceway Park gave sports cars, motorcycles and track-day drivers something rare: a straight nearly a mile long, and then ten turns to slow down for.
The last track to open
The road course came last. The drag strip opened in 1974 and the oval in 1978. The road course followed in the mid-1990s, built to use the drag strip as part of a straight of about 0.9 miles. The old track website called it "the longest straight-away on the North American Continent" and said the layout borrowed ideas from several famous Grand Prix circuits.
In the early 2000s the track listed the course at 2.5 miles with ten turns. It's listed today at 2.3 miles, the configuration Qlispé Raceway Park runs now.
You can see the whole layout in the 1990s aerial photo: the course loops out around the drag strip, with the half-mile oval at lower right.
Who ran it
The Washington Motorcycle Road Racing Association held two races here in 2002, popular enough that the track booked four for 2003.
"Friday At The Track": monthly open lapping for production cars, with a tech inspection and coaching for newer drivers. Gates opened at 7:30 a.m.
In October 2002 the BMW Club brought drivers from as far as Los Angeles and Calgary, in everything from new Porsches to Z06 Corvettes.
The Spokane County Grand Prix and the Spokane Festival of Speed brought historic race cars in the 2010s, and a Historic Grand Prix ran in 2022.
The course also hosted motorcycle road-racing schools and championship events for the Northwest's sports car clubs.
Turn by turn
Small, but real: driver's-eye photos from the track's 2002 website.
On the road course today
The road course still runs as part of Qlispé Raceway Park, mostly for lapping days and club events. Coming up, from the track's official schedule:
Did you turn laps here?
A WMRRA race, a F.A.T.T. Friday, a club weekend: tell us about your day on the long straight.
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