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toronto indy

James Hinchcliffe of Oakville, Ont., Canada races during the practice session at the Honda Indy in Toronto July 6, 2012.MARK BLINCH/Reuters

A tightrope suspended a few centimetres above the ground is no big deal. String it between a pair of high-rise buildings with no safety net, and you have a new proposition. Only pros need apply.

So it is with the Honda Indy Toronto course, a 2.8-kilometre, 11-turn nightmare of a race that can make 300 kilometres an hour feel like 500, and make even the fastest drivers think hard about how far they're willing to go.

"It's the rodeo of car racing," says Arie Luyendyk, a two-time winner of the Indianapolis 500 who says he never mastered the demanding Toronto course. "You go straight into attack mode, and you don't let up."

To spectators, most race courses look roughly the same. But from a driver's perspective, the differences can be vast. On one end of the scale are sweeping road courses like the Mid-Ohio Sports Car Course, where the track is surrounded by wide runoff areas and green fields. Then there's Toronto, an urban street course that pushes drivers to the limit in ways that a non-racer could never imagine.

The Toronto course's challenge is based on two key features: rough pavement, and unforgiving concrete walls that line almost every metre of the course. At racing speeds, the course narrows to the width of a hallway, and the walls flash past just millimetres away.

"The wall makes it all feel really fast," driver Alex Tagliani of Lachenaie, Que., says. "You're like a jet. It's a totally different feeling. On a road course you've got a lot more options. If you get into a corner too fast, you end up driving onto the grass and it's no big deal. But on a street course like Toronto, you're going into a concrete wall. To put in a great lap around this course is something special."

Car racing is a high-speed geometry problem. For the best lap times, drivers must follow a trajectory that makes each corner as shallow as possible, clipping the inner and outer edges of the track. But Toronto's bumps and walls make that a lot harder than it looks.

"This isn't a place where you go out and say, 'Okay, I'm going to be nice and smooth,'" Luyendyk says. "You're wrestling with the car the entire time, and the wall's right there, waiting for you. It takes a special kind of driver. The street course feels a lot faster than a road course, because the wall's so close. You're in a very intense, restricted environment. It's like flying low in an F-18."

The narrowness of the Toronto track makes it hard to pass. Most overtaking is done in Turn 3 (a corner that has been described as The Bermuda Triangle of car racing because so many drivers have crashed there.) Located on Lake Shore Boulevard at the end of a straightaway where the cars reach more than 300 km/h, Turn 3 calls for cold calculation and nerves of steel. Drivers try to pass opponents by braking late, then tucking inside them before the corner in a game of high-speed chicken.

Unfortunately, the process is complicated by a road surface that changes every year, and countless drivers have been tripped up by bumps and pavement ripples that bounce their car into the air, reducing their braking and turning effectiveness.

"You can spend half your time in the air," Tagliani says. "The front end goes loose, then the back end steps out, and you have to catch the car before you go into the wall. You have to be quick. And you're doing it while you race some really good drivers. The field is deep. The top 15 guys out here are no joke."

Even the best drivers can find themselves derailed by the unique demands of the Toronto course.

"There are guys who are really good on this track, but I wasn't one of them," says Luyendyk, who raced on the Toronto track eight times and never placed higher than seventh. "It's a different deal."

Luyendyk is not the only Indy 500 champion to be humbled by the Toronto track. Consider Helio Castroneves, a three-time Indy winner who has won on nearly every course he's competed on in his long racing career. Castroneves's highest finish in Toronto was 10th, in 1998. (He's back this year.)

Rubens Barrichello, a racer who came to IndyCar this year after a distinguished career in Formula One, says he isn't surprised at how many drivers have fared poorly in Toronto: "There is no comparison between a road course and a street course like this one," he says. "It's a totally different experience. This is very, very tough. It's humbled a lot of great drivers."

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