Nestled at a lofty 4,300 feet with the Oquirrh Mountains as a backdrop, Utah Motorsports Campus provides the perfect high-desert playground to host the NASA 2024 Championships. Famously, UMC’s “Outer Loop” boasts a 3,500-foot-long — that’s two-thirds of a mile — front straightaway, beckoning the fastest cars to exceed 170-plus mph before smashing the brakes for Turn 1.
Going fast in a straight line is just the warmup, because successfully navigating the 3.048-mile Outer Loop requires mastery of 15 serpentine corners, each with its own secrets to unravel.
Although UMC’s Outer Loop doesn’t seem super technical at first glance, even seasoned veterans debate the ideal line and stylistic approach to each corner. Unlike most tracks, UMC’s Outer Loop rewards creativity and experimentation, and different cars might approach the same corner quite differently.
For starters, the track width extends beyond the pavement. On the inside of each corner, red and white “candy cane” curbs are abundant and variable in terms of height, width, and angle. You will learn to love them or avoid them. On the outside edges at track-out zones, UMC features a mixture of progressive rumble strips that generally get more ferocious the farther out you go. Throw in heavy doses of inside banking and abrupt elevation changes, and you end up with a riddle wrapped in asphalt.
In this tutorial, we will discuss a Time Trial/qualifying lap predominantly, with alternative techniques to try depending on your car. If you are craving more details about the line from a track-map perspective, check out the video, “How to Drive the Ideal Line” from my Full Throttle Driving Academy YouTube channel.
If you would like a truly hardcore tutorial showing in-car footage from a low-horsepower car and a high-horsepower car, with narration and annotations, check out another video: “Detailed Track Tutorial For Racing and Time Trial.”
To help diagram the corners for you, we captured screen grabs from a July 2024 NASA qualifying session of Bryan Van Noy in his Porsche 991.2 Cup Car. The first image will show the car at turn-in, the second at apex. Let’s roll.
Turn 1, Sunset
Turn 1 goes sharp left, approximately 130 degrees, but in a long, meandering sort of way. It is a midspeed corner, taken in third gear with a minimum speed of around 70 mph for most cars. It starts gradually, then tightens up at mid-corner, and then finally frees up a bit at the exit to allow a solid track-out. It’s a long corner that rewards patience.
Approaching Turn 1 in a low-horsepower car, you’ll be traveling approximately 120-125mph — on a good day. In a GTSU car, rate of travel is more like 155-165 mph. Barreling down the main straight, as soon as you pass the end of the retaining wall on your right, you’ll immediately see the blend line for the track entrance on your right, and then be greeted by the first brake marker No. 4. The corner-worker station on the left comes into view. If you’re at the No. 4 marker and imagine looking through the flag station, that’s the direction of travel at exit. At the No. 3 marker, you should be positioned hard right in a straight line, getting ready for violent deceleration. For high-horsepower cars, threshold braking starts between the No. 3 and No. 2 markers, ideally closer to the 2. For low-horsepower cars, you might start at the No. 2 marker and inch closer to the 1 as your confidence builds.
As you get past the No. 1 marker across from the flag station, start your brake release gradually and then progressively start turning in. The slight banking will help you reach the apex curbing, but be patient. It will take longer than expected for your car to finish rotation and reach the apex. The inside curbing is relatively mild and can be used, although UMC makes a habit of making the intersection of the pavement and inside curbing “V-shaped” like a steep gully. Barely kissing the curb through this corner can therefore yield high traction due to the positive camber of the pavement that abuts the curb. However, if your car is compliant over curbs, you can ride the curbing to cut the distance without sacrificing minimum speed.
At exit, you’ll meet your first set of rumble strips. There is a single-width layer of red/white rumble strips on your right, maybe 2-feet wide. You can safely use most of the width of this strip, but it will feel like running over a hundred tiny speed bumps. Run too wide and it’s off into the gravel you go, so work your way up and feel for traction.
Pro tip: If it’s raining, avoid all track-out gators. Slippery.
Turn 2, Dreamboat
Turn 2 is a 90-degree right-hander, but smooth and gradual. It’s faster than Turn 1, with a minimum speed in the 80s or even low 90s for most cars. It flows and heads slightly uphill, offering abundant traction. It’s also slightly banked to your benefit, further reinforcing stickiness.
The key to Turn 2 involves your entry. Upon exiting 1, you need to hustle back all the way to the left and get parallel to the outside rumble strips. Turn 2, for many cars can be taken in fourth gear, although third gear is right on the cusp for many. The trick is to keep a “flat car” by not over-braking before turn-in. In high-horsepower cars, you’ll want a medium brake with a smooth release, just to set the ideal turn-in speed and keep a smidge of weight on the front tires. For low-horsepower cars, you might brush the brakes or just lift slightly. Miatas might be able to take it at full throttle.
You can apex about 50 percent of the way along the inside curb, because there is high grip plus a wide exit, so you can push hard here. Although you can run over this curb, it can be a bit upsetting to some cars, so try both ways. In a race, it’s nice to know whether you can hold your line while fully on the curb.
However, do not be tempted to track all the way out to the outside rumble strip at exit. The red/white strip is extremely wide and looks enticing, but; A) You simply don’t have time to go all the way out there and get back to the right in time for Turn 3 and; B) It’s an inhospitable rumble strip with low traction. On your out lap, experiment with running over it and feel the sensation.
Now, move quickly to the right and get your car in a straight line to prepare for Turn 3.
Turn 3, Workout
Important: This is a “top three” corner in terms of priority. Turn 3 is an approximately 90-degree left, and it is even faster than Turn 2. The theme? Whatever your speeds in Turn 1, Turn 2 will be a little faster. Whatever your speeds in Turn 2, Turn 3 will be a little faster still. Plan on a minimum speed in the low-to-high 80 mph range for Workout.
To set up for turn-in, most cars will either lift or use a light-to-medium braking to set optimal speed. You want to bleed just enough speed to scoot into the banking and enjoy the ride through this steady-state corner. You can run over a bit of inside curb, but I recommend starting with pavement only at first, use the banking and feel for traction. Later, see how the inside curb treats your car and your nerves.
As you exit, you can feed in throttle as you begin straightening your hands. You will encounter a double-wide set of rumble strips on the outside edge. If you are new to the track, first try running over the first rumble strip and feel the chatter. Then, experiment with extending your track-out to the second layer, which can startle first-timers with higher-intensity chatter bumps than the first layer.
If your hands are almost straight as you enter the rumble strips, and you’re progressive with throttle, these strips can extend the width of the track and maximize your exit speed down the ensuing straightaway, which yields your second-highest speed on the track! Because the exit of Turn 3 leads onto the second-fastest section of track. That’s why it’s a top three corner in terms of importance.
Turn 4, Scream
Turn 4 is a kink masquerading as a named corner. It can be taken flat-out in almost every car, and simply aims slightly left after you’ve safely exited Turn 3. There’s a relatively steep curb on the inside, so most drivers will want to avoid running over it, and just get cozy to it. Use smooth progressive hands on the entry to this kink, and let your car run free at the exit, which is a fast straightaway leading up to the infamous Blackrock Hairpin.
On the exit of Scream, you can run over the outside rumble strips to make sure you’re using all the track. If you get pushed to the edge of the track, you were fast enough.
Turn 5, Blackrock Hairpin
The initially perplexing Blackrock Hairpin need not be so confusing. It is a hard-left hairpin, but not quite 180 degrees, and it opens up, and then opens up again, allowing your car to run free as you get past the first section of curbing and start to feed in throttle.
As you approach Blackrock, you’ll be headed slightly downhill for a longer-than-expected braking phase. Add to this your high speeds before hammering on the binders, and the braking zone for Blackrock is one of the trickiest on the track. On the right, you’ll first see the No. 3 brake marker, which also signals the start of red/white rumble strips on the right.
For high-horsepower cars, you’ll be hitting 130-135 mph before braking, so braking right past the No. 2 marker works well. For low-hp cars, you might touch 120-125hp, almost as fast as on the main straight. Right past the No. 1 marker, you’ll spot the flag-worker station, which is a good spot to start your end-of-braking and trail-brake as you turn in toward the inside red/white curbs.
Focus on looking left, through the first part of the corner. The inside curb is hospitable and welcoming for compliant cars, and using it can help rotation. If you “kiss” the curb, you get rewarded with that ever-present banking just next to the curb, sucking you in like a tractor beam. The curb is about 3-feet wide and shaped like a meniscus if you overfill a glass of water – smooth and slightly rounded. Minimum speeds will be in the low 50-mph range, so be patient for rotation.
As you come to the end of the curbing, you’ll be entering a very short straight, allowing you to open up your hands and apply throttle. Then, suddenly, you’ll see another inside apex curb (red/white) on the left, and you might be tempted to think it’s another apex. It is not. Ignore the second apex curb, because it’s a decoy. Just keep feeding in throttle, let your hands run free, and continue accelerating to use as much exit as you need. You can hit the rumble strips on the right-hand side, which helps preserve momentum and pin the throttle in low-horsepower cars. If you are in more of a point-and-shoot, high-horsepower vehicle, you might benefit by rotating more in the first part of Blackrock and staying more to the left on your exit, turning the exit into more of a straightaway that angles to the left.
To prepare for turn 6(a), Right Hook, scoot your way all the way to the left of the track and set up for a right-hairpin.
Turn 6a, Right Hook and 6b, Knockout
Another hairpin! This time, it goes in the opposite direction, to the right. For most cars, it’s taken in third gear, but in high-horsepower cars with six gears, second gear can result in faster exits, but with increased risk of wheelspin.
The shape of this corner, when looking at a track map, has you wishing you could drive it in the opposite direction. Why? It’s more gradual for the first 50 percent and then closes down on you for the remaining 50 percent, getting tighter and slower as you go.
On entry, you’ll be far left and you have some creative choices to make. Of all corners, Right Hook and Knockout showcase how different approaches can yield fast lap times.
Option 1: If you think of 6a and 6b as a double-apex series of corners, you can angle your car to the right on entry about 20 degrees, then brake in a straight line, then turning sharply, resulting in a diamond-shaped path. This double-apex approach attempts to extend the preceding straightaway, reduce the overall length of the corner, get a ton of rotation done to prepare for the second apex, and get back to throttle quickly. This technique results in higher steering angle and a slightly lower minimum speed, but reduces the overall distance of the corner and also extends the straightaway leading into your initial braking zone.
Option 2: Single Apex. If you prefer to brake in a straight line and stay far left on the entry to 6a, this will result in a larger radius corner and allow you less steering angle and a slightly higher minimum speed. You basically ignore Turn 6a and emphasize the setup for 6b.
Whether you treat this as a double-apex or single-apex, your exit of 6b matters most. You want to ensure a lot of rotation before hitting the apex of 6b, so you can prioritize getting to throttle on exit. Why? Because it leads onto a medium-long straightaway followed by the fastest corner on the track, Witchcraft. You can use the inside curb on 6b if your car can absorb it, allowing you to widen the track. If your car doesn’t like eating bumps, avoid the curb, get a ton of rotation, aim to apex about two-thirds of the way through 6b, kiss that curb, and start unwinding the wheel as you progressively feed in throttle.
On exit, the track presents you with two rows of progressively more violent rumble strips. You can safely hit level one — feels like a vibrating chair — but if you go all the way to level two, it will chatter your teeth and possibly eject you off-track. Be careful and experiment with those outside rumble strips on out laps or slower reconnaissance laps. Upon exit, steal a glance at the beautiful Oquirrh Mountains in the distance and enjoy a straightaway that precedes the scariest corner on the track.
Turn 7, Witchcraft
Important: Turn 7 is another top three corner in terms of importance. Why? Because it’s the fastest, “scariest” corner on the track. Lots of people over-slow.
Witchcraft is a sweeping right-hander that leads into an uphill braking zone. It’s the fastest corner at UMC. High-horsepower cars with lots of grip exceed 100 mph throughout, while low-horsepower cars might play in the low 90s. It’s considered the scariest corner on the track, not only due to speed, but also due to marbles that form at the exit on the far left. Few cars track out all the way to the left, because there is not ample time to move back right to set up for the first left-hander of the famed “Attitudes.” So, if you find yourself heading toward the rumble strips on the exit of Witchcraft, you tracked out too far and can expect a very low-grip scenario — not an ideal place to go off-roading.
The approach for Witchcraft can deceive the untrained eye. About two thirds of the way down the preceding straight, you’ll encounter a long curb on the left, followed by several tall cones that block off an alternate track layout. You’ll want to ease your car to the right as soon as you reach the left-side curbing, and then straighten your hands and let the car drift back to the left. Why? The straight has a kink to the right – it’s subtle, but forces you to steer slightly to the right and then straighten out again to set up for the braking into Witchcraft.
Mastery of Witchcraft involves a slight lift for low-horsepower cars or a light brake for high-horsepower cars to set your speed and get a smidge of weight on the front tires for a crisp turn-in. It’s a long corner with a reasonably accessible curb on the inside, but most cars stay on the pavement immediately adjacent to the curb. The pavement next to the curb is banked to your benefit, so get close to the inside curb.
Because your turn-in speeds are quite high, you may struggle for obedience when coaxing your car to the apex, so be patient and let it happen. You can hit the apex between 50 percent and 75 percent of the way through the corner. Many cars with high grip will push the apex earlier and earlier to reduce distance of the overall corner, yet it’s safest at first to try a fairly late apex, track out about halfway on the exit, and head uphill toward the braking zone for the first “Attitude.”
The entry to Witchcraft is all about attenuating as little speed as possible to ensure a fast, flat entry with a balanced car. Don’t bleed off too much speed or you won’t make it up. Don’t carry too much speed or you’ll get pushed out too far on the exit. This is a “Goldilocks” corner in terms of speed-management. Get it just right and get rewarded with the speediest corner at UMC.
Turn 8, The Attitudes
Turns 8, 9 and 10 are referred to as “The Attitudes.” Locals refer to them simply as Attitude 1, 2, and 3. It’s a left, right, left combo. It goes fast, faster, then fastest. You compromise your exit speed on Attitude 1 to attain a higher speed on 2, and an even higher speed on 3.
If you overcook the entry on Attitude 1, and push wide to the right, the entire section gets messy and slow. If you nail the entry to Attitude 1, you’re rewarded with a drama-reduced — but not drama-free — blast into Attitude 2. Why not drama-free? Well, the Attitudes are laden with some ultra-wide, somewhat nasty curbs of varying tenacity and turbulence.
The entry to Attitude 1 starts from midtrack to roughly two-thirds to the right. You won’t have time after exiting Witchcraft to get all the way to the right before turning into Attitude 1, so don’t fight the car. If you’re at least midtrack before entering Attitude 1, you can carry ample speed and a good approach angle. I recommend one of two approaches for Attitude 1:
Option 1: My preferred option is to turn in early and use 100 percent of the inside curb, and I mean 100 percent. If you get on the curb early and completely, it rises gradually and makes for a smooth, uneventful ride. There’s good traction, and by using the entire curb, you can stay hard left on the exit. This is counterintuitive, as typically you’d track out, right? Well, not in a three-corner sequence like this. You need to compromise the exit of Attitude 1 to set up acceleration into Attitude 2, while attempting to straighten out the track between Attitudes 2 and 3. So, you simply reduce your speed so that you can hold your car to the left on exit. For most cars, this means a minimum speed in the low-60-mph range as you hit the curb. Allow the car to track out about midtrack for a moment, and then turn decisively to the right to point downhill through Attitude 2.
Option 2: Avoid the curb altogether. Like other turns, the track is banked right next to the curb, so get your left tires on the white line next to it and hunker down. You’ll want to trail-brake heavily on entry to get enough rotation, because it’s nearly a 90-degree left. If the entry is over-cooked, rear ends can get quite loose, and to prevent this, getting off the brakes as you near the curb transfers enough weight to the rear to settle things down. Let the car exit to about midtrack for just a beat, then turn sharply to the right and hit the curb in Attitude 2.
For Attitude 2, just as you exit Attitude 1 you’ll turn quite sharply into the massively wide curb, with five layers of rumble strips. It is wider than the car! I’ve seen cars run completely over all five layers, with all four wheels bouncing around like mad.
I recommend running over the entire width of the first layer, which is almost half a car width. You’ll see the white line, connecting pavement to curb, in the middle of your hood, between your headlights. This is a sweet spot, but your right-side tires will take an abrupt impact, because the curb is fairly intense, so don’t be too alarmed by the upset. You’ll likely need to lift off throttle for a moment as your rear wheel settles onto the curb, so prepare to accelerate just before the curb, and then lift slightly to prevent wheel-spin as your right rear tire launches up the curb. Overcooking Attitude 2 can cause a busy moment or a spin, so work up to it.
If you got Attitude 2 correct, you’ll be positioned properly to blast down a short hill in a straight line toward Attitude 3, which is a sharp left —approximately 75 degrees. As with the other Attitudes, the inside curbing is formidable and can be used in full, partially, or not at all. I prefer to use a little curb on the exit of Attitude 3, while accelerating through the corner. You’ll know you got your speed right if you’re pushed all the way to the first set of rumble strips on the right. For many cars, you’ll benefit from a slight lift to reduce speed through the curbing of the last Attitude. It’s just a tiny lift, and then get back on throttle immediately as you exit.
The Attitudes should be fast, faster, and fastest, in sequence. If you mess up the first one, the second will be slow as will the third. Make your top priority to perfect Attitude 1 and the other two will fall into place.
Turn 11, Tooele Turn
Tooele Turn looks innocuous enough, but it creates inconsistency among the most seasoned drivers. Its approach is an uphill short straight following the Attitudes. For most cars, you upshift to fourth for a blink and then enter a hard, uphill braking zone, before downshifting back to third. The complexity arises in that your turn-in goes hard left, slightly downhill, with a lot of camber, headed toward an onerously steep curb. There’s a lot of banking in Tooele, but the elevation goes uphill in braking, slightly downhill in turn-in, to a compression at apex, to a slight uphill crown as you start to exit, followed by a track-out zone comprised of four rows of chattery gators.
Similar to options presented for Attitude 1, you can either turn in a little early and use all or most of the inside curb, or you can go for a later apex and kiss the white line next to the inside curb. Like almost every corner at UMC, there’s banking adjacent to the curb, but this curb is steep, making the track-to-curb junction shaped like a V. The inside curb is a double-wide version, and just steep enough to cause a big hit on your left-side suspension. You’ll feel it.
If you get on the curb early and stay on the whole surface of it, the ramp is gradual and smooth. If you hit the curb a little late and only use 50 percent of it, the ramp-up is much steeper. If you elect to use none of the curb, that’s perfectly fine because you can late-apex and carry a lot of speed. I’ve seen some cars, such as Spec Z’s, absolutely consume the entire curb and nearly get two wheels in the dirt, whereas prototypes generally avoid the curb entirely. If your car does well on curbs, this is one to play with.
On exit, the farther out you venture onto the rumble strips, the more violent the ride. Each level gets progressively more extreme. I recommend tracking out to the first layer and making sure your car can handle it. In my video, you’ll see a track-out almost to the edge, which produces a rough ride, but takes advantage of the entire available width.
Turn 12, Kink
For this corner, Kink is a misnomer. It’s hardly even a perceptible kink. After you safely complete your track-out from Tooele Turn, you’ll be at full throttle and can gently bend your car to the left to cut the distance on the straight toward Turn 13. You do not come anywhere near the apex of the Kink. Stay about 80 percent of the way to the right on the track — the track just bends slightly to the left and becomes a non-event at speed. After passing the kink, your car will naturally drift to the right to set up for the entry to Turn 13.
Turn 13, Clubhouse Corner
Clubhouse is a fast, sweeping left with a steep curb on the inside and a unique track-out area that can be exploited to great effect. Preceding the turn-in point, stay hard right on the straightaway. Notice the three brake markers on your right. For most cars, rate of travel at the braking zone will hover near 115-120 mph. Typically, beginning braking about halfway between the No. 2 and No. 1 is a starting point — dial in your start-of-braking according to your car and technique.
The braking zone is relatively short, with light trail-braking because you’re not bleeding that much speed and you want to keep your car nice and flat on entry. The left-hand corner can be taken in the 70-mph range in most cars, so it’s speedy and fun. You can use the curb on the inside if your car is ultra-compliant, but most cars will prefer to use the amply-banked pavement adjoining the inside curb. There is a lot of traction in this corner, due to the banking and a compression as you get to the apex. You can turn in slightly earlier than typical, given the abundant entry traction and the wide track-out area.
As you track out, the ever-present red/white candy-cane gators show up. There are two layers of them. Use them liberally. In fact, if you overcook your exit on this corner, this is the only place on the track that you can venture beyond the track-out gators, because it’s paved outside of the gators. You can see black tire marks well outside the gators, illustrating how many cars track-out beyond them. Granted, at UMC they do drifting events, and this corner is a favorite place to light up the tires. For most cars, tracking out to the first layer of gators will suffice, yet going out to level 2, or even 6 to 12 inches beyond, can work. In a low-horsepower car, tracking out farther can carry high momentum and doesn’t penalize you for the upcoming right, Wind Up.
Turn 14, Wind Up
The penultimate corner, Wind Up is a lazy right-hand turn that meanders and requires gobs of patience. Approaching it, you’ll be on a very short straight following the far-right exit of Clubhouse. You won’t have time to get far left to set up this corner, and that’s OK. Just aim for about midtrack and go deep and use short, hard brakes, to set up a lot of rotation into the turn.
It keeps you wishing it was a faster turn, tempting you to get to throttle too early. Don’t succumb. If you try to overthink this corner, it won’t yield any hidden benefits. Just start from about midtrack on the left, get to the curbing on the right, and ride the rail around the bend, biding your time until this low-speed corner finally ends and you can give a short burst of full throttle to set up for the final corner. Don’t track out all the way to the left on exit. It’s most important to stay midtrack so you can set up for the final corner, a hard left, and then aim to maximize your exit speed onto the interminably long main straightaway.
Turn 15, Release
You made it to the final corner! It’s a hard, banked left that tightens up as you progress into it. The banking provides good grip, but the sharpness of the corner results in low minimum speeds. You’ll benefit from doing a late apex and getting your car heavily rotated so you can get to throttle as soon as possible. You’re setting up for the longest straight, so do everything you can to achieve a high exit speed as you track out to the gators on the right. There are two rows of gators that generate significant chatter, but for fastest exits, you’ll want to use both rows. Just make sure you’ve sufficiently unwound the wheel — almost straight hands — by the time you hit row one, and make sure you gradually apply throttle on the exit as you hurtle outward toward the gators. Some cars will exit in second gear, and some in third. I suggest trying both to see what works best for you.
The track is wide, and you’ll quickly pick up speed from your apex to the track-out point. Try to make your exit route as straight as possible by exaggerating the amount of rotation you generate before apexing. An extra 2 to 3 mph on exit will compound down the entire straight.
Now, enjoy the sensation as you row through the gears and hurtle down the main straight at possibly the highest speed you’ve attained on a track.
VIDEO
Now let’s put all the turns together in one single-lap video. Ride along with author Bryan Van Noy on a clean and fast qualifying lap in his 991.2 Porsche Cup car at Utah Motorsports Campus’ outer loop.
