page_title: Race track
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Race track / History
caption_attribution_description: Indian motorcycles en:Board Track Racing in 1911
context_page_description: A race track is a facility built for racing of vehicles, athletes, or animals. A race track also may feature grandstands or concourses. Race tracks are also used in the study of animal locomotion. Some motorsport tracks are called speedways.
  A racetrack is a permanent facility or building. Racecourse is an alternate term for a horse racing track, found in countries such as the United Kingdom, India, Australia, Hong Kong, and the United Arab Emirates. Race tracks built for bicycles are known as velodromes. Circuit is a common alternate term for race track, given the circuit configuration of most race tracks, allowing races to occur over several laps.
  A race course, as opposed to a racecourse, is a nonpermanent track for sports, particularly road running, water sports, road racing, or rallying. Many sports usually held on race tracks also can occur on temporary tracks, such as the Monaco Grand Prix in Formula One.
context_section_description: Some evidence remains of racetracks being developed in several ancient civilizations. The most developed ancient race tracks were the hippodromes of the Ancient Greeks and the circuses (circi) of the Roman Empire. Both of these structures were designed for horse and chariot racing. The stadium of the Circus Maximus in Ancient Rome could hold 200,000 spectators.
  Racing facilities existed during the Middle Ages, and records exist  of a public racecourse being opened at Newmarket in London in 1174. In 1780, the Earl of Derby created a horse-racing course on his estate at Epsom; the English Derby continues to be held there today. Racecourses in the British Isles are based on grass, known as turf tracks. In the United States, the race tracks are soil.
  With the advent of the automobile in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, race tracks were designed to suit the nature of powered machines. The earliest tracks were modified horse-racing courses. Racing automobiles in such facilities began in September 1896, at Narragansett Park in Cranston, Rhode Island. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway was opened in August 1909.
  Beginning in the early 1900s, motorcycle races were run on high, banked, wooden race tracks called board tracks. During the 1920s, many of the races on the AAA Championship circuit were run on such board tracks.
  Modern racetracks are designed with spectator safety being paramount, following incidents of spectator and track marshals fatalities. These often involve run-off areas, barriers, and high fencing.
caption: Motorcycles racing on a highly banked board track in 1911
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