Circuit tracks such as Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca and Road Atlanta were made famous by their multi-story drops however there are many other loops of tarmac in the United States that you can drive on any given weekend that have the same or more elevation change.
Surprisingly, Summit Point in West Virginia was a total standout in this game, boasting 400 feet of total elevation change. This figure sounds a little high to me but it’s documented on their site so that’s what we’ll honor. We now present a list of the race tracks and circuit tracks in the United States with the greatest amount of total elevation change.
Summit Point Circuit
400 feet of elevation change. Source: summitpoint-raceway.com
Valley Motorsports Park
390 feet of elevation change. Source: clubmotorsports.com
INDE Motorsports Ranch
200 feet of elevation change. Source: narraonline.com
Palmer Motorsports Park
191 feet of elevation change. Source: palmermotorsportspark.com
Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca
180 feet of elevation change. Source: wikipedia.org
Sonoma Raceway
160 feet of elevation change. Source: racesonoma.com
Watkins Glen
141 feet of elevation change. Source: sportcompactcarweb.com
Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course
136 feet of elevation change. Source: midohio.com
Circuit of The Americas
133 feet of elevation change. Source: wikipedia.org
Virginia International Raceway
130 feet of elevation change. Source: virnow.com
Spring Mountain Motorsports Ranch
125 feet of elevation change. Source: springmountainmotorsports.com
Willow Springs International Raceway
120 feet of elevation change. Source: yelp.com
Road Atlanta
105 feet of elevation change. Source: google.com
Pittsburgh International Race Complex
85 feet of elevation change. Source: pvgp.org
Limerock Park
75 feet (approximately) of elevation change. Source: wikipedia.org
Dominion Raceway
70 feet of elevation change. Source: dominionraceway.com
Road America
45 feet of elevation change. Source: imsa.com
Carolina Motorsports Park
30 feet of elevation change.
Summit Point Main has ~40′ of elevation change. The 400′ of change stated on their track information page is likely a typographical error.
This list should include worldwide tracks. Mt Panorama at Bathurst, NSW Australia tops all of these with its 571 feet of elevation change.
According to this, Road America has 176′ of elevation change from Turn 1 to Canada Corner, Turn 12, eleven place higher up on your list.
http://badgerbimmers.org/cms/wp-content/themes/Builder-Badger-Bimmer/BadgerBimmers/PDFs/Forms/Lap-of-RA.pdf
Ed is correct. I came here to say there is no way on God’s green earth that Summit Point Main has 400′ of elevation change. 40′ seems right from my experience and there is probably not much more than that amongst all three circuits there.