File talk:Circuit Watkins Glen.png

I was a photojournalist who covered every U.S. Grand Prix from 1970 through 1980.

This map of the Watkins Glen circuit is that of the present-day course layout, which is not exactly the way the course was configured for the U.S. Grand Prix from 1971 through 1980. After substantial modifications in 1970-71, that layout remained the same through the end of the Grand Prix era.

The one significant difference from the present day is that there was no chicane (known nowadays as the "inner loop" and numbered "turn 5") at the end of the front straight. The chicane was added in the 1980s after a driver was killed when he went straight on at the end of the front straight, the highest speed section of the track.

During the Grand Prix years, the curve at the end of the front straight and the short downhill straight leading to the next curve after it were known collectively as the "loop and chute".

The reason I mention this is that the number of turns during the Grand Prix years was 11, not 12, because the "inner loop" did not exist yet.

Cjngraphic (talk) 22:47, 24 June 2008 (UTC)