Rennen! Races! Vitesse! Racing Circuits Netherlands Belgium Germany Austria Luxembourg Switzerland Rob Semmeling Rennen! Races! Vitesse! Page 2 Contents Foreword 3 Netherlands 5 Belgium 44 Germany 78 Austria 133 Luxembourg & Switzerland 148 Copyright © Rob Semmeling 2009-2016 / all rights reserved www.wegcircuits.nl Rennen! Races! Vitesse! Page 3 Foreword Motorsport essentially consists of three ingredients. First, you need a motor vehicle - which can be anything from a Formula 1 car to a lawn mower, or from a MotoGP motorcycle to a pocket bike. Second, you need a driver or rider to operate the vehicle, and finally, a place to go racing - a circuit. To most people this last ingredient is probably the least interesting. The number of books about famous racing drivers and cars, or great riders and their motorcycles, is far larger than the number of books about racing circuits. However, to me circuits are the most interesting aspect of motorsport, for two main reasons. First is their great diversity: in terms of shape, layout, length, difficulty, fame and many other factors, every circuit is different, and each has its own story to tell. Second, it is fascinating to see just how many circuits there are. Once you start looking, you can find them just about any- where. Finding lost circuits or discovering long-forgotten tracks is one of the most fun aspects of researching racing circuits. When looking for information about racing circuits online, I often found it frustrating that the available sources were not complete, and that they often lacked detail and accuracy. This is one of the reasons why I started my website www.wegcircuits.nl and why I made Rennen! Races! Vitesse! - a downloadable pdf-file that lists racing circuits of past and present in four European countries: the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany and Austria. An additional section describes the circuits of two other countries, Luxembourg and Switzerland. About In general, this file includes only paved, non-oval circuits - meaning permanent facilities and temporary circuits on public roads, airfields or other places. The main section(s) for each country list(s) circuits used for automobile and/or motorcycle racing. A typical entry looks something like this... Mons (Bergen) – Hainaut / Circuit de Mons / Circuit des Coteaux / 1950-1951 (3) / cars + motorcycles Location: 50°26'30.98"N / 3°59'46.60"E ...and includes the main information for quick reference. All circuits are listed alphabetically by location, so the place name is given first. This means that, for example, Germany's Avus is listed under Berlin, Austria's Österreichring under Spielberg, and so on. If you are looking for a specific circuit, you can always use Adobe Reader's search function. In some cases the place name is followed by an alternate name in brackets, especially in the Belgian section, as many places in Belgium have both a Flemish/Dutch and a Walloon/French name. Next is the region in which the circuit is located, so either the province (Netherlands and Belgium) or state (Bundesland, Germany and Austria). Note I generally use local names rather than anglicised versions. The rest of the first line gives the most essential information: the actual name(s) of the circuit - if it had any - the years it was used, and if the circuit was visited by motorcycles, cars, or both. The figure in brackets gives the total number ofrace meetings at that circuit (excluding cancelled meetings) - but note this includes only 'proper' race meetings, so races with vintage machinery are not counted, and neither are hillclimbs, sprints, rallies and so on. If the brackets are missing, it is usually because the exact number of meetings is not known or clear. For many circuits there is also a second line with GPS coordinates. These refer to a point in the centre of the circuit, but note that they are only given if both the exact location and layout are known. Tracks maps are not included in this file for a number of reasons, but the coordinates should offer some compensation. Finally, more detailed information can be found in the accompanying texts, which will also tell you about the circuit's length, race titles, fastest laps and lap records, although of course the level of detail varies. Apart from the circuits used for automobile and/or motorcycle racing, there may be additional sections that list kart tracks, moped circuits, and other courses, as well as hillclimbs and sprint venues - this varies per country. The file does not include ovals, except for bicycle tracks, or velodromes, which once upon a time were also used for motorsports, as well as a few miscellaneous ovals here and there. Please note Rennen! Races! Vitesse! is a work-in-progress, as I am continuously working on updating, expanding and enhancing the listings, so keep checking back to my website www.wegcircuits.nl regularly. Website In addition to the Rennen! Races! Vitesse! file you are viewing, my website www.wegcircuits.nl offers several further downloadable pdf-files: theAmerican Road Courses file details nearly 160 road courses of past and present in the United States and Canada, while the Racing Circuits Factbook is a collection of various facts and figures about circuits worldwide. These files are the most compre- hensive and accurate sources for racing circuits in said countries. My website also lists nearly 5000 dates of motorcycle road races in the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany, Austria, Luxembourg and Switzerland, allowing you to see exactly when many of the motorcycle circuits listed in the Rennen! Races! Vitesse! document were used. The Auto Races Index pdf-file lists the dates of automobile races in said countries. Note pdf-files are best viewed with the latest version of Adobe Reader, which is freely available for download from Adobe's website. Comments, corrections, additions and questions are of course welcome via e-mail. Copyright © Rob Semmeling / all rights reserved Contact: robsemmeling (at) email (dot) com Website: www.wegcircuits.nl Rennen! Races! Vitesse! Page 4 Note For anyone with a website about racing circuits of their own: please do not copy information from this file. Instead, link to my web- site where people will be able to download the original file and read about the circuits themselves from the original source. Please also do not link to this pdf-file directly, but rather please link simply to www.wegcircuits.nl - thanks. Updates Original file uploaded on 18 August 2009 Improved version uploaded on 1 November 2010 Latest update of this file: 1 January 2017 01/01/2017: several updates throughout the German pages, with thanks to Frank Mentel. Please note this file will not be actively updated anymore from today onwards. 24/09/2016: updated the Nürburgring VLN-layout lap record (page 112). 04/09/2016: updated the Nürburgring VLN-layout lap record (page 112). 27/08/2016: updated the Nürburgring VLN-layout lap record (page 112). 21/08/2016: updated the lap record for Chimay (page 50). 16/07/2016: updated the Nürburgring VLN-layout lap record (page 112). Also updated the entry for Bad Driburg (page 109). Rennen! Races! Vitesse! Racing Circuits Netherlands Rennen! Races! Vitesse! Netherlands Page 6 Dutch Motorcycle Road Racing Motorcycle road racing got off to a rather slow start in the Netherlands compared to neighbouring countries. Belgium and Germany had already seen plenty of racing by the time the first Dutch race - theNederlandsche TT - was organised near Assen in July 1925. The TT moved to a new circuit closer to Assen the following year, and it became an international event as of 1927. But despite this success, the TT remained the sole race in the country for many years, with the exception of a separate, one-off race that decided the Dutch championship in 1928, which was also held in Assen. Plans for a second race, to be held on a new circuit in the Biesbosch nature reserve near Dordrecht, briefly appeared in the early 1930s but never came to fruition. It wasn't until the end of that decade that two new road circuits became reality: the nowadays forgotten Ell-Hunsel (1938) and the Zandvoort street course (1939). As such, the number of pre-war Dutch road races was extremely low: exactly nineteen were held from 1925-1939. By comparison, in Germany there were over thirty races in 1927 alone. The first post-war race was held in Zandvoort in August 1946 - relatively late compared to other countries, but even so, Dutch road racing briefly flourished like never before, with new races in 't Zandt-Zeerijp and Tubbergen (1946), as well as Maasbracht, Etten, Amsterdam, Leeuwarden and Weert (1947). However, priorities obviously lay elsewhere during this time, so most new venues quickly disappeared again, the only exceptions being Etten, which catered mostly to junior riders, and Tubbergen, which quickly became an internationally renowned race that in fact lasted until the 1980s. Although the country's first permanent racing circuit opened in Zandvoort in 1948, replacing the earlier street course, the number of races was still limited for the better part of the next two decades. The schedule was made up of Assen, Zandvoort, Tubbergen and Etten, with a few other places, such as Tolbert (1950-1955) and Beek (1958-1959), joining only briefly. By the early 1960s, the national championship was once again down to a single race, much like it had been before the war. The situation was such in fact, that junior-riders had more opportunities to start than their senior colleagues, and so some youngsters were reluctant to graduate to senior-status! It comes as no surprise many riders were unhappy with the sole organising body of road races - the 1904-founded Koninklijke Nederlandse Motorrijders Vereniging (KNMV) or Royal Dutch Association of Motorcyclists.