Macau: Guia Circuit

Guia Circuit, the home to the Macau Touring Car Race, GP & Moto GP. Background info found here.

Thoughts:

Whether you’re watching Kazuhiro (Osaka JDM), Joe (Car Make Across), Temple, the Sharks of NGR or members of Zero Fighter 555, you can see the kanjozoku spirit in their driving. With no street circuits in Japan, I can only imagine that street circuit racing like this is what the kanjozoku’s dreamed of back in the golden age of Japanese car culture. Of course they eventually made Loop 1 their street circuit.

Seeing that this circuit is in China, I feel that it was these type of races on street circuits that inspired HK movies like Off Track (1991).

When I watch races on Guia circuit, I find very similar mannerisms of a kanjozoku; the erratic and abrupt maneuvers to over take the opponent. Just watching the starting grid is like watching a bunch of fighter planes about to take off, and soon after take off is when the dog fights begin.

Disecting Guia:
The first turn on Guia

Leading onto the first straight away.

Turn 2, Mandarin Corner. Many take this turn at high speed so that they can over take at Lisboa.

The infamous Lisboa corner… Watch any race on this circuit. There will be either spinouts and/or pileups on this turn.

San Francisco Hill, an up hill stretch. I always liked the name because if you ever been to the city of San Francisco, CA, there are many steep hills such as this one (even more steeper actually).

A good exit speed and torque is your best friend here.

A down hill look of San Francisco

After San Francisco is a S-turn that leads to a 90 degree right hand turn

Then it’s a down hill stretch

Which leads to a series of turns that get narrow and as slithery as a snake.

Just wide enough for two cars… Leaving little to no room for mistakes.

Melco hairpin

Rules state, absolutely no passing at this hairpin… But I swore I seen people pass here before 🤔

Supposedly it’s only during Moto GP races that passing is allowed at this section.

Fisherman’s Bend, second to the last turn of the track which leads to a medium length straight away.

R- Bend, the last turn before the finish line.

Final Thoughts:

Even though many different divisions race here, I feel this is where Touring Car racing belong. When ever I think of this track I automatically picture cars of the touring races in the late 90′ to early 2000’s battling it out. I see the starting grid and I imagine the Kanjozoku’s lining up at the entrance of Loop 1. You don’t need crazy aero on your car when you race on this course, just skills.

It’s the swarm of noise, violent driving and the car pileups that echos nostalgia. It’s more exciting than the rat race of life and death we witness everyday in traffic and daily commutes.

You can find many videos of these older to current races online. When I watch them, I can almost picture myself there, maybe on of a high rise hotel suite watching from a birds eye view. Sipping on a martini or something haha, one day.

“There aren’t many places that make Monaco look easy, but Macau is one of them.”

[1:55 AM]