Circle Track - Technically the best racing magazine.

Most racing magazines cater to the casual racing fan who watches and/or attends a few Winston Cup shows but shuns the local racing arenas. Circle Track does some catering to this crowd, which is admittedly a profitable demographic. What CT does that exemplifies them as THE magazine for the serious racer is that they cover tech in much broader detail. Tech articles are numerous, very descriptive, and span the full spectrum from the newest Winston Cup and CART toys to news you can use on your Hobby Stock. Speed, safety, and style are all well-covered.

The layout of the magazine is logical and fairly standard. Letters are followed by editorials by their staff writers and guest writers that include luminaries from the Cup and Busch circuits. The cover story follows, with a spate of tech articles in tow. The technical articles cover virtually every topic relevant to racing, albeit not all topics are covered in one issue. Often there is a tech theme to each issue, such as exhaust dynamics, suspension, race car construction, etc., and several of the tech articles highlight various areas of the month's topic. The writing is at a high-school level yet is not condescending and occasionally goes into the deep end. Towards the back is a very useful tech help section where reader's questions are answered by some of the best minds in stock car racing. This is followed by a section more geared towards the fans (Richard Petty's Winston Cup review) which is flip-through land for a hardcore racer like myself, but entertaining for the casual fan.

Positives include the writing, which albeit not literary genius, is clear and concise. Photography for both entertainment and technical purposes is very good quality and colorful. The writers themselves are either seasoned reporters or veteran racers. The few errors they have made were quickly and visibly retracted.

Negatives include too much emphasis on NASCAR, a tendency to downplay less than stellar test results when a large advertiser is concerned, and a rotating staff which can be attributed to the parent company changing hands and locations numerous times. An example of the second item is when they did a comparison of spark plug wires. There was a considerable performance discrepancy between 8 different brands yet they would not name which brand ranked where as this would have alienated some of their advertisers.

Overall this magazine is worth the price, and is in fact priceless to real racers. Casual fans will find it adequate though their real tastes will likely lie with more lightweight fare like Stock Car Racing.