Scandinavian Raceway, Racing Circuit

Anderstorp Raceway, long known as the Scandinavian Raceway, sits amid rural marshland in Anderstorp, in Sweden's Gislaved Municipality, and is an unusual hybrid of motor circuit and working airfield. It grew out of a 1965 idea by local Team Mosarp drivers, with entrepreneur Sven 'Smokey' Asberg persuading village industrialists to fund a four-kilometre track whose long back straight doubles as a 1,000-metre aircraft runway. Designed by engineer Holger Eriksson with input from Formula One driver Joakim Bonnier, the layout pairs that flat-out straight with a twistier, technical infield of long, slightly banked constant-radius corners that make finding a good setup both difficult and decisive. It was inaugurated in June 1968, and in a quirk that defines the place the pits sit roughly halfway around the lap rather than on the start-finish straight. Asberg's pledge to host a Formula One race within five years was fulfilled when the circuit became the only Nordic venue ever to stage a World Championship Grand Prix, holding the Swedish Grand Prix six times from 1973 to 1978. Those races coincided with the peak of home hero Ronnie Peterson and produced famous oddities, including the only wins for the six-wheeled Tyrrell P34 in 1976 and Niki Lauda's controversial Brabham 'fan car' in 1978. Public support faded after Peterson and Gunnar Nilsson both died in 1978, and the Grand Prix was dropped, but the track went on to host the Swedish motorcycle Grand Prix, the European and World Touring Car Championships, World Superbikes and the FIA GT Championship. Beset by noise restrictions and a 1993 bankruptcy following a troubled 24-hour motorcycle race, it was upgraded to FIA standards in the 2000s, briefly welcoming the WTCC back in 2007. Today its calendar is largely domestic, with the Scandinavian Touring Car Championship and its TCR-based successor the headline draw.

Operated by: SRW Anderstorp AB