Why aren't tracks perfectly circular?

Dat turn would be cray

would make sprint races pretty awkward. Most tracks are around some kind of field as well. Football would be kind of strange on a round field.

Why are you gay?

For one, a fair waterfall or alley start would be darn near impossible. Two, no one wants a race to end on a curve. Three, passing people would be very difficult. Four, you wouldn't be able to contest javelin on the infield. Five, you wouldn't be able to host any common rectangular-field sports on the infield.

You could have Australian football on the infield.

Javelin requires a cone-shaped area which fits inside either a circle or an oval.

A waterfall just has to have all points equidistant to some point on the kerb ahead.

Ending the race on a curve and making passing more difficult would improve racing by strongly discouraging sit and kickers. It would be a great way to drive those spineless sissies out of the sport forever.

orthopaedic stress

5 OK wrote:

Why aren't tracks perfectly circular?

With circumfrence equal to pi miles (for the 5k) and a straight 1 mile track across the infield?

Texas tech has a perfectly circular 300m indoor track. It's really annoying to run on.

geometer wrote:

5 OK wrote:

Why aren't tracks perfectly circular?

With circumfrence equal to pi miles (for the 5k) and a straight 1 mile track across the infield?

That would be awesome.

the image of 800m-types cutting into the inside at the break and getting trapped into a spiral like water in a toilet bowl entered my mind

Spectators are farther away if the track is that much wider. The infield wouldn't support hammer/javelin/discus. High hurdles on a turn wouldn't work very well.

Tracks are designed to create the best course for optimal performance in a confined space. The fastest route is a straight route, but straight routes aren't confined. Tracks are a compromise between having a straight route and optimal curve (the turns) to keep them confined. Generally half the track is straight (the two straight-aways) and half is as subtle as a turn possible, within reason.

So, wouldn't a triangular track be best? = 3 straights

5 OK wrote:

So, wouldn't a triangular track be best? = 3 straights

The turns would be too dramatic and would slow you down to much. Turns are what kill you. The fastest tracks have long turns so that its more gradual. Have you ever run on a HS track that due to space had to have long straights and short turns? They are awful and times are significantly slower. However there is a limit as other have said you need straights as well. Usually Olympic and WC tracks are good examples of the perfect optimization of a 400M track.

In the 1970s Parkrose HS in Portland, Oregon had a triangular track around a baseball field. I recall being told that running the 200m was like running on a straight. I think there was one tight curve on that track.

5 OK wrote:

So, wouldn't a triangular track be best? = 3 straights

webfoot wrote:

In the 1970s Parkrose HS in Portland, Oregon had a triangular track around a baseball field. I recall being told that running the 200m was like running on a straight. I think there was one tight curve on that track.

5 OK wrote:

So, wouldn't a triangular track be best? = 3 straights

Ah, so like a snow cone? That would be great for the 400m event.

The 220 used to be run pretty routinely on a straightaway. The 440 would be run from a common start at the beginning of that straight, and whoever had the lead at the end of that 220 would take the inside lane around the curve--everyone else had to accept staying behind on the curve, or else running extra distance. Then the final 110 would be on the homestraight.

This "pothook" configuration was actually credited with aiding the U.S. domination of the 400m in international competition, because Americans had learned that, if you wanted to win a "pothook" race, you had to be willing to run the first 220 balls-to-the-wall--so they were used to treating the 400/440 as a long sprint, rather than a short middle-distance event.

[Longer events on such a track just ran laps, as usual: four laps to the mile, for instance.]

Syracuse U's Manley Field House has (had?) a nearly circular 200m track: 80m curves, 20m straights. People ran some very fast 400m and especially 200m times/splits on that track, but it wasn't great for competition--very difficult to pass someone in a close mile relay, for instance.

OTOH its near-circularity probably helped when the SU men's basketball team was running its mile-for-time at the end of preseason practices. The guys who were behind would just run farther and farther inside of lane one for most of the track; edge out to lane one on that 20m homestraight, where Jim Boeheim was standing with a stopwatch (and his back to the backstraight, carefully keeping his eyes straight ahead); then slide back inside the track for the next lap.

Every guy on the basketball team beat the required time, but the slower guys had to spend most of their time in about lane negative-six to make it work. Perhaps needless to say, no curbs were in place for this trial--but the track team *was* in place and enjoyed itself greatly, watching these fantastic athletes cheat their brains out.