Summit Point Track Map Poster

Summit Point lies on the state line, in the lower Shenandoah Valley of West Virginia, just over the border from Virginia. Its main circuit is a natural-terrain road course of 3.219 km (2 miles) and ten turns, run clockwise, and a single straight of 908 meters (2,980 ft) takes up more than a quarter of the lap.

It opened in October 1969, a little late to the party but with few rivals around Washington and Baltimore. The Carousel, Turns 6 and 7, was added later to stretch the lap to 2 miles, and the first professional race, in 1970, was won by a four-door sedan with some questionable modifications, for a prize of $200. From the 1980s on, racing schools took up more and more of the calendar, until teaching became the circuit’s main job.

That is the story behind the faint line beside it on the poster: the Jefferson Circuit, built in 1996 for accident-avoidance and emergency driving, in a complex where federal personnel train in defensive driving and anti-terrorism tactics. The main circuit asks for nerve of its own. The Chute, Turn 4, is a very fast downhill right with precious little room on either side, and Paddock Bend, Turn 10, tightens as you turn in, its apex out of sight. In the 1970s, a Hollywood star raced here and would not sign autographs.

The poster is drawn in miles and feet, with all ten turns numbered, Wagon Bend, the Chute, the Carousel and Paddock Bend lettered in, and the Jefferson Circuit alongside in a muted line. Heritage, the vintage clubhouse edition, suits a circuit that lives on club races, driving schools and a yearly race for classic cars, and one of the most popular online racing simulators includes it at no extra cost. Plenty of racers took their first laps on this line.