A race track (or 'racetrack', 'racing track' or 'racing circuit') is a purpose-built facility for racing of animals (e.g. horse racing or greyhound racing), automobiles, motorcycles or athletes. A race track may also feature grandstands or concourses. 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, Australia, Hong Kong and the United Arab Emirates. Race tracks built for bicycles are known as velodromes. Circuit is a common abbreviation for racetrack, given the usual circuitous configuration of most race tracks, allowing races to occur over several laps.

A race course, as opposed to a ''racecourse'', is a term for non-permanent tracks for sports, particularly road running, water sports, road racing or rallying. Many sports usually held on racetracks can also occur on temporary but purpose built tracks, such as the Monaco Grand Prix in Formula One.

History

There is some evidence of racetracks being developed in several ancient civilizations, but the most impressive ancient racetracks were certainly the hippodromes of the Ancient Greeks and the circuses of the Roman Empire. Both of these structures were designed for horse and chariot racing. The stadium of the Circus Maximus in Rome, Italy, is an example that could hold 200,000 spectators.

Racing facilities existed during the Middle Ages and there are records 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.

With the advent of the automobile in the late 19th/early 20th century, racetracks were designed to suit the nature of powered machines. The earliest tracks were modified horse racing courses, and racing automobiles in these facilities began in September, 1896, at Narragansett Park in Cranston, RI. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway was opened in August 1909.

During the 1920s, many of the races on the AAA Championship were on high banked wooden race tracks called board tracks.

Modern racetracks are designed with spectator safety paramount, following incidents of spectator and track marshals fatalities. These often involve run off areas, barriers and high fencing.

Sports

Racetracks are used for:

Animal sports

horse racing

harness racing

greyhound racing

camel racing

Human sports

bobsleigh

cycling

speed skating

track and field

Motor sports

auto racing

motorcycle racing

track racing (motorcycles)

stock car racing

drag racing

Surfaces

Surfaces include:

Concrete (motorsport)

Asphalt (motorsport, athletics)

Grass (horses, amateur motorsport)

Dirt (automobiles, motorbike (track racing), stock car, horses, greyhound)

Sand (horse, camel, greyhound)

Wood (cycling) (board track racing – now defunct)

Ice (Ice racing – when on dirt tracks, Bobsleigh, speed skating)

Configurations

Some racetracks offer little in the way of permanent infrastructure bar the actual track, others incorporate spectator facilities such as grandstands, hospitality or facilities for competitors, such as pit lanes and garages, paddocks and stables. Several racetracks are incorporated into larger venues or complexes, incorporating golf courses, museums, hotels and conference centres. Some racetracks are small enough to be contained indoors, for sports such as motocross, cycling and athletics.

Many racetracks are multi-use, allowing different types of sport on the same track, or incorporating many tracks in one venue. Commonly running tracks are incorporated within general use or soccer stadiums, either permanently visible or covered by stands/pitches.

Many horse and motorsport tracks are configurable, allowing different routes or sections. Some venues contain smaller tracks inside larger ones, with access tunnels and bridges for spectators. Some racetracks incorporate a short course and a longer course which uses part of the shorter one, usually the main straight, such as Brands Hatch. The Le Mans road race venue is centred on a smaller permanent circuit within its complex.

Motorsport

Racetracks are primarily designed for competition through speed, featuring defined start/finish lines/posts, and sometimes even defined timing points. Some sports merely measure endurance, or how long a competitor can race. Racetracks can host individual or team sports. Racetracks can feature rolling starts, or fixed starts, with associated equipment (starting blocks, cages, wheel traps etc.) They invariably feature a pitlane, and usually timing equipment.

Track Layout

Some racetracks are of an oval shape, often banked, which allows almost universal spectator views or high speed racing (cycling, stock cars), but are often criticised for lack of excitement; these predominate in North America. A famous one is Nardo where high-speed manufacturer testing often takes place, and of course Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Some oval tracks are variations on an oval shape, for practical reasons or to introduce varying difficulties. Most racetracks have meandering circuits with many curves, chicanes and changes in height, to allow for a challenge in skill to the competitors, notably motocross and touring car racing - these tend to predominate throughout most of the world, but especially in Europe.

Road Circuits

Flatter meandering motorsport courses are sometimes called 'road circuits', originating in the fact that the earliest road racing circuits were simply closed-off public roads. True road circuits are still in use, e.g. the Australian GP has been run in Adelaide and continues to be in Melbourne on regular city streets. The most famous of these are the Monaco GP, and the Spa-Francorchamps circuit in Belgium. Some racetracks are specifically configured in a long straight, namely drag racing. Some races will be held only over the straight portion of a track (some horse racing and sprint athletics).

Converted Airfields

The boom in motorsport flared after WW2, when many airfields particularly in Great Britain were left without further use. The most famous British track - Silverstone - is one after being a WW2 Class A Airfield. The long runways were perfect for drag strips, and circuit layout usually creatively combined parts of the runways and the surrounding perimeter taxiway.

See also

Auto racing

List of auto racing tracks (UK: motor racing tracks)

List of auto racing tracks in the United States

List of horse racing venues

External links

trackpedia.com Worldwide Motor Racing track wiki

racingcircuits.net Worldwide Motor Racing track database

When the going gets rough – tyres and track surfaces

AudioTrackGuides.co.uk Audio walkthroughs of motor racing circuits, for use with games.

Trackreviewers.com Motorsport Track Reviews and Information

Category:Horse racing Category:Racing venues Category:Sports equipment

de:Rennstrecke es:Autódromo fr:Circuit automobile io:Circuito nl:Circuit (sport) ja:競馬場 pt:Autódromo simple:Race track sv:Racerbana

{|align=right |

type	monarch
name	Ferdinand III
imgw	200px
succession	King of Castile and Toledo
reign	1217–1252
predecessor	Berengaria
successor	Alfonso X
succession1	King of León and Galicia
reign1	1230–1252
predecessor1	Alfonso IX
successor1	Alfonso X
spouse	Elisabeth of HohenstaufenJoan, Countess of Ponthieu
issue	Alfonso X of CastileInfante FrederickInfante HenryInfante Juan Manuel, Lord of VillenaEleanor, Queen of England
issue-link	#Family
issue-pipe	among others...
house	House of Burgundy
father	Alfonso IX of León
mother	Berengaria of Castile
birth date	August 05, 1199
birth place	Monastery of Valparaíso
death date	May 30, 1252
death place	Seville
burial place	Seville Cathedral
religion	Roman Catholicism

|- |

Name	Saint Ferdinand III
Feast day	30 May
Venerated in	Roman Catholic Church
Canonized date	1671
Canonized place	Rome
Canonized by	Pope Clement X
Patronage	University of Salamanca; Lucena City;Lucena Cathedral; Cathedral of Burgos; Cathedral of Sevilla; of friars (Dominican, Franciscan, Trinitarian, and Mercedarian);Lucena City, Quezon; Cathedral of St. Ferdinand; City of San Fernando, Pampanga; Metropolitan Cathedral of San Fernando; (Cathedral of Resistencia, Argentina)
Major shrine	Seville Cathedral;
Prayer attrib	}}

|- |}

Saint Ferdinand III (5 August 1199 – 30 May 1252) was the King of Castile from 1217 and León from 1230. He was the son of Alfonso IX of León and Berenguela of Castile. Through his second marriage he was also Count of Aumale. He finished the work done by his maternal grandfather Alfonso VIII and consolidated the Reconquista. In 1231, he permanently united Castile and León. He was canonized in 1671 and, in Spanish, he is Fernando el Santo, San Fernando or San Fernando Rey.

Early life

Ferdinand was born at the monastery of Valparaíso (Peleas de Arriba, in what is now the province of Zamora) in 1198-99.

His parents' marriage was annulled by order of Pope Innocent III in 1204, due to consanguinity. Berenguela took their children, including Ferdinand, to the court of her father. In 1217, her younger brother Henry I died and she succeeded him to the Castilian throne, but immediately surrendered it to her son, Ferdinand, for whom she initially acted as regent. When Alfonso died in 1230, Ferdinand also inherited León, though he had to fight Alfonso's heirs, Sancha and Dulce, daughters of his first wife, for it. He thus became the first sovereign of both kingdoms following the death of Alfonso VII in 1157.

Reign

Early in his reign, Ferdinand had to deal with a rebellion of the House of Lara. He also established a permanent border with the Kingdom of Aragon by the Treaty of Almizra (1244).

St Ferdinand spent much of his reign fighting the Moors. Through diplomacy and war, exploiting the internal dissensions in the Moorish kingdoms, he triumphed in expanding Castilian power over the southern Iberian peninsula. He captured the towns of Úbeda in 1233, Córdoba in 1236, Jaén in 1246, and Seville in 1248, and occupied Murcia in 1243, thereby reconquering all Andalusia save Granada, whose king nevertheless did homage as a tributary state to Ferdinand in 1238. Ferdinand divided the conquered territories between the Knights, the Church, and the nobility, whom he endowed with great latifundias. When he took Córdoba, he ordered the ''Liber Iudiciorum'' to be adopted and observed by its citizens, and caused it to be rendered, albeit inaccurately, into Castilian.

The capture of Córdoba was the result of a well-planned and executed process whereby parts of the city (the Ajarquía) first fell to the independent almogavars of the Sierra Morena to the north, which Ferdinand had not at the time subjugated. Only in 1236 did Ferdinand arrive with a royal army to take Medina, the religious and administrative centre of the city. Ferdinand set up a council of ''partidores'' to divide the conquests and between 1237 and 1244 a great deal of land was parcelled out to private individuals and members of the royal family as well as to the Church. On 10 March 1241, Ferdinand established seven outposts to define the boundary of the province of Córdoba.

On the domestic front, he strengthened the University of Salamanca and founded the current cathedral of Burgos. He was a patron of the newest movement in the Church, that of the friars. Whereas the Benedictines and then the Cistercians and Cluniacs had taken a major part in the Reconquista up until then, Ferdinand founded Dominican, Franciscan, Trinitarian, and Mercedarian houses in Andalusia, thus determining the religious future of that region. Ferdinand has also been credited with sustaining the ''convivencia'' in Andalusia.

The ''Primera Crónica General de España'' asserts that, on his death bed, Ferdinand said to his son "you are rich in lands and in many good vassals — more so than any other king in Christendom," probably in recognition of his expansive conquests. He was buried in the cathedral of Seville by his son Alfonso X. His tomb is inscribed in four languages: Arabic, Hebrew, Latin, and an early incarnation of Castilian. St Ferdinand was canonized by Pope Clement X in 1671. Several places named San Fernando were founded across the Spanish Empire.

The symbol of his power as a king was his sword Lobera.

Family

First marriage

In 1219, Ferdinand married Elisabeth of Hohenstaufen (1203–1235), daughter of the German king Philip of Swabia and Irene Angelina. Elisabeth was called Beatriz in Spain. Their children were: # Alfonso X, his successor # Fadrique # Ferdinand (1225–1243/1248) # Eleanor (born 1227), died young # Berenguela (1228–1288/89), a nun at Las Huelgas # Henry # Philip (1231–1274). He was promised to the Church, but was so taken by the beauty of Princess Kristina of Norway, daughter of Haakon IV of Norway, who had been intended as a bride for one of his brothers, that he abandoned his holy vows and married her. She died in 1262, childless. # Sancho, Archbishop of Toledo and Seville (1233–1261) # Juan Manuel, Lord of Villena # Maria, died an infant in November 1235

Second marriage

After he was widowed, he married Joan, Countess of Ponthieu, before August 1237. They had four sons and one daughter: # Ferdinand (1239–1260), Count of Aumale # Eleanor (c.1241–1290), married Edward I of England # Louis (1243–1269) # Simon (1244), died young and buried in a monastery in Toledo # John (1245), died young and buried at the cathedral in Córdoba

Ancestry

Notes

References

González, Julio. ''Reinado y Diplomas de Fernando III, i: Estudio''. 1980.

Menocal, María Rosa. ''The Ornament of the World''. Little, Brown and Company: Boston, 2002. ISBN 0316168718

Edwards, John. ''Christian Córdoba: The City and its Region in the Late Middle Ages.'' Cambridge University Press: 1982.

External links

Catholic Encyclopedia: ''St. Ferdinand III''

Ferdinand at ''Patron Saints Index''

Category:1199 births Category:1252 deaths Category:People from Zamora (province) Category:House of Burgundy (Spain) Category:Roman Catholic monarchs Category:Leonese infantes Category:Castilian monarchs Category:Leonese monarchs Category:Galician monarchs Category:Spanish Roman Catholic saints Category:13th-century Spanish people Category:People of the Reconquista Category:13th-century Christian saints

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