What’s Your Dream Street Race Location?

Street racing’s golden era began on public roads in the 19th century, and today’s top motorsport events still rely on temporary circuits carved from urban and rural tarmac. Formula One’s crown jewel, the Monaco Grand Prix, turns the principality’s streets into a glamorous yet often dull spectacle, while the 24 Hours of Le Mans transforms quiet French two-lane highways into a brutal endurance gauntlet. Meanwhile, NASCAR is racing this weekend on a naval base in San Diego. But beyond the established classics, where would you race if you could pick any street circuit in the world? Modern F1 has raced on street tracks in several cities, though many ambitious bids have fallen short.

Italy’s Imola has hosted F1’s second Italian round for decades, but Rome once tried to bring the championship to its EUR business district in the early 2010s. According to the Guardian, then-mayor Gianni Alemanno pitched the idea, but F1 dismissed it, betting instead on more lucrative markets outside Europe. Formula E later took up the challenge and raced there. For this writer, raised in New York, the ultimate street circuit would snake around the Big Apple’s iconic skyline. F1 nearly made it happen in the early 1980s when Bernie Ecclestone, the championship’s commercial mastermind, eyed a track around the Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan.

The plan collapsed when city officials balked at shutting down the Financial District—home to an estimated 50,000 workers at the World Trade Center. The city proposed a far slicker alternative: Flushing Meadows Park in Queens. This sprawling green space hosted the 1939 and 1964 World’s Fairs and later became an unofficial sports hub, home to Shea Stadium (1964), the National Tennis Center (1978, now the US Open), and Meadow Lake. An F1 layout could have wrapped around the lake, mirroring today’s Melbourne Grand Prix setup. Imagine Ayrton Senna and Alain Prost charging down sweeping straights beneath the shadow of the Unisphere.

Logistically, it was perfect: the park sits between two international airports (LaGuardia and JFK), with direct subway and Long Island Rail Road links. But Ecclestone was stubborn—it had to be Lower Manhattan or nothing. The dream never materialized. Now it’s your turn: where would you race? Drop your dream street circuit picks in the comments.