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Ever go around that one corner, or drive down that one road near your home and think, “Man, if this was a racetrack…” Well, we have, too. Evidently, so has NASCAR driver Myatt Snider. He tweeted this same question earlier today and we’re shamelessly stealing it because it’s a truly great topic to have chat about.
Giving my own two cents here and having lived in a few cities on the East Coast now, I think New York City and Boston are pretty much immediately out of the question. Yeah sure, people do records on FDR Drive in NYC, but that’s just one OK road. Boston was also designed for horses—still feels like that—so there’s not much to get excited about there, either. On the West Coast, there are likely more options. Los Angeles and surrounding areas could be a contender, for instance.
However, we’re forgetting one city on the East Coast; Philly. I lived there for four years and it’s not just that the roads are good—the road surface quality is terrible but the roads themselves are fun to drive on—but Philly is a more-or-less lawless hellscape anyway. You could probably make a Philly street circuit and do it without alerting any of the proper authorities. The cops… probably wouldn’t do anything about it. Heck, people would probably join you.
Between Kelly Drive, Lincoln Drive, MLK Jr. Drive across the Schuylkill from Kelly, that big, messed-up circle in front of the Art Museum (Eakins Oval), there are almost too many good roads to link them all together. The Benjamin Franklin Parkway is also right there, and that’s more than a quarter-mile straight. There’s also a neat little downhill S-turn off the end of West Schoolhouse Lane leading onto Ridge Avenue, which could be a nice addition. You know it’s good because every single time it rained I saw somebody crashed there.
Honestly, you guys are gonna have to bring some heat in the comments to beat out my Philly suggestion. I think most other cities—on the East Coast at least—are going to have trouble holding a candle to it. I would love to be proven wrong, though.
See you in the comments.
Got a tip or question for the author? You can reach them here: peter@thedrive.com
