Raceway Venray

Overview

Raceway Venray is an oval racing venue at Ysselsteyn in the north of Limburg, within the municipality of Venray, and is also known as Circuit de Peel. Its half-mile oval is billed as the fastest in Europe, with cars passing 200 km/h. Most of the year it hosts Autospeedway meetings for stock cars, hot rods and V8 oval cars. It belongs to the NOSP, a partnership of Dutch and Belgian oval and speedway circuits that coordinates calendars and applies common rules. Next to the ovals the venue runs an outdoor kart track with its own club. The site also serves as a driving-skills centre and a location for business and car-club events.

Technical Specifications and Track Features

The venue has two ovals: a short oval of 350 m and the half-mile oval. The large oval is 15 m wide and banked at 25 degrees in the corners. Inside them lies a kart and short-track course, ten metres wide. It mixes fast, long corners with banked turns of up to ten degrees and changes in elevation. The racing classes include Stockcar F1, F2 and F2 juniors, National Hotrods, the V8 Oval Series and Ukke Pukke. Ministox, two-litre Hot Rods, Saloon Stockcars, Heritage Stockcars and BriSCA Micro F2 compete as guest classes. A fixed measuring station in the infield records circuit noise around the clock, and its readings are open to local residents.

Facilities and Specialized Areas

The site covers 100,000 m², with a paddock of 100 by 220 metres and three grandstands, two of them covered, seating 5,000 spectators in total. Indoor rooms hold groups of 50 to 800 people. Parking is free for several thousand cars, and a campsite next to the paddock is open on race weekends. Wheelchair users have viewing platforms by the main grandstand and at turn one. Kartclub Venray runs Saturday training and a club championship that anyone with a private kart can enter without a licence. Its kart school teaches beginners with their own mini karts. A newer skid pan and a driving-skills paddock are used for anti-skid courses, lessons for young and new drivers, and Code 95 training for professional truck drivers. Car clubs have held gatherings such as the European Ford Event and Bimmerfest at the circuit, and the Truckstar Mack and Special Transport day takes place in November.

History

The original complex at the site began with a motocross track. An autocross track followed and was later removed, and finally an asphalt quarter-mile oval was built beside a kart track. Because the circuit lay in a protected ecological zone without the required zoning and permits, it closed in 2007. The new Raceway Venray opened provisionally on Easter Monday 2009 with a short oval and a kart track, and that year's planned races moved to a temporary oval in Brustem, Belgium. From 2011 to 2013 the circuit held three or four meetings a year under event permits. In 2013 it received a permit for eleven noise days a year. The long oval has since hosted the European Late Model Series and the NASCAR Whelen Euro Series. The season runs from the Easter races in April to October, with the World Cup weekend in mid-August.