Palm Beach International Raceway - PBIR
The Palm Beach International Raceway (PBIR) road course is a part of a motorsports complex including a drag strip, a go-kart track, and a mud racing track. It opened its doors in 1965 with a design by raceway architect Martyn Thake, featuring ten turns and several long straightaways combined in a tight layout that maximizes the available space in the field. The tropical climate of southern Florida makes it the ideal spot for racing when the rest of the USA battles against inches of snow, and several IndyCar teams use it for winter practices.
The PBIR road course has a clockwise orientation and starts in the second-longest straightaway of the circuit. Turns one, two, and three come as a left-right-left combo, ending in the second straightaway of the track. This straight ends quickly in a 160-degree turn to the left, and another equivalent turn to the right takes drivers up north again. Turns six, seven, and eight go snaking through before entering the longest straight, where a top speed of 150 mph (241 km/h) is easy to develop for high-performance vehicles. The road course ends after a 180-degree turn combination with lots of downshifting and heavy maneuvering for an average speed of 85 mph.
