Motopark Raceway

Overview

Motopark is a motorsport venue at Virtasalmi, part of Pieksämäki in the Southern Savonia region of eastern Finland, about 35 km from the centre of Pieksämäki and 55 km from Mikkeli. The site combines an asphalt road circuit, a gravel rally track and a full-length drag strip, and it is operated by ZWO Oy. Outside race weekends the circuit opens to the public for practice days, when anyone with an insured car or motorcycle in safe condition can drive without a racing licence. Cars, motorcycles and sidecars run in separate sessions. The national calendar brings rounds of the Finnish drag racing championship, Finnish championship circuit racing for motorcycles and a Micra Endurance race.

Technical Specifications and Track Features

The asphalt circuit is 3,516 metres long and 11 metres wide, with changes of elevation. A Finnish motoring site describes a long main straight where speeds well above 200 km/h are reached despite a gentle bend halfway along it. A 3,000-metre gravel rally track runs around the outside of the asphalt circuit, and a full-size 402.33-metre drag strip lies inside it. On most practice days drive-by noise is capped at 96.9 dB, measured for every car and motorcycle by an electronic system on the start straight that reports to the environmental authorities. The environmental permit, confirmed by the Vaasa Administrative Court in 2010, allows eight unrestricted noise days a month, only three in July, and requires eight consecutive silent days each month, with at least twenty in a row around Midsummer.

Facilities and Specialized Areas

The track office is on the second floor of the paddock building, where drivers register and pay; it also sells snacks, drinks and lunch, and the paddock has showers and toilets. During race events the circuit restaurant and two café kiosks serve food. Organisers who hire the track can rent 15 LED flag panels at the marshal posts, operated remotely from the paddock, a camera system that covers almost the whole lap, and MYLAPS timing equipment with ten transponders. Accommodation is offered by Motomajat, a little over a kilometre from the circuit on the shore of Lake Etelä-Virmas, where the campsite has cabins, rooms and space for tents and vehicles.

History

Planning and construction began in the winter of 1986-87, and the venue opened in June 1987 as a drag strip, the first motor stadium in Finland built purely for drag racing. The project grew out of the Pieksämäki Hot Rod Association, founded in October 1986. The land belonged to Pasi Häkkinen, whose gravel company carried out the construction, and the original track was designed by Antti Puranen's firm. In the 1990s the area was enlarged with the asphalt road circuit, opened in 1993, and the gravel rally track. The road circuit hosted the Finnish Formula Three Championship in 2002 and 2003, when Aki Rask set the lap record of 1:22.139 in a Dallara and rounds of the Finnish Touring Car Championship, and it has been part of the Finnish road racing championship for motorcycles since 1998. Noise complaints from neighbours led to a permit with limits on operating hours and noise levels, and the operator's appeals against those conditions were rejected up to the Supreme Administrative Court.