The Last Lap at PittRace
By Chris Booth, @edgeofadhesion
Photography By Chris Booth @edgeofadhesion
Car Owner: Kyle Hoyer, GTB1 Porsche Cayman
Camera Car Operator + Asst: Eleanor Silva
Alive Then Gone
Tracks aren’t supposed to disappear.
Not ones that still feel alive.
A Track That Leans Back
When the news broke that Pittsburgh International Race Complex was closing, it didn’t ripple—it snapped us all.
Kyle reached out soon after. Like everyone else, he chased that one last session. One final chance to lean on the bright white and red curbing and see what the track would give—or take—on the way out.
I wanted the same. One more shoot. Not for proof. For residue.
PittRace never sat still. The boomerang layout hides its backside and forces commitment before it ever offers reward. Elevation does the talking here—trees climbing into sky, corners falling away, the horizon never quite level. Every visit I’ve had came with weather that mattered. Fog that erased depth. Clouds that pressed low and fast. The kind of conditions that don’t decorate a track—they interfere. This weekend leaned hard into that identity.
The plan wasn’t hero shots. It was documentation with teeth. Preservation before subtraction. The place wasn’t decaying. The timing tower still cut a clean silhouette. The paddock felt intact. Functional. Confident. Nothing about it looked finished. Which made the finality feel sharper.
Where It Bites
Certain features burn themselves in. The violent compression through Turns 3–4–5—dropping fast, then pulling skyward again. The hilltop water tower standing watch from miles away. The red-and-white curbing at Turn 5—uneven, aggressive, waiting. Carry too much speed and it answers immediately.
Forecast: No Mercy
We arrived the night before. Kyle’s Cayman GTB1 sat silent beside the RV, stripes cutting through the dark—cream broken by yellow, red, black. The pavement was soaked, reflective, restless. Two days of rain had already rewritten the surface.
Morning came cold. Frost on the car. Coffee in hand. Slicks only. Bad forecasts. No margin. After the drivers’ meeting, hesitation showed itself in posture and pacing. Wet track. DE traffic. Sessions counted like remaining daylight.
The Rhythm Broke
A strange mechanical rumbling chatter noted by Kyle after one run stopped everything. The rhythm out there was wrong. Surface too loose. Too slow. A clutch press brought a sigh of relief - it wasn’t engine, it was a tired throw-out bearing. Weather rolled in again. Silence. Relief arrived quietly, cars queued up in grid again. Fog lifting just enough to see the next corner.
Late Saturday, light cut through the cloud cover in narrow windows. Surgical. Unforgiving. We took the media car out and worked inside those gaps. Late rollers, graced pockets of diffused sun through the clouds. No choreography. Just reaction.
The Track Breathes
Sunday opened wrapped in mist and light rain. Long delays. We leaned into stillness instead—shooting the landscape, the water tower fading in and out, the track breathing between sessions. A few went out anyway. PittRace in the wet has never offered forgiveness.
Then the sky broke. Fog lifted. Pavement dried. Reflections stretched across the surface like oil on glass. Friends took their final runs. Daniel Jr. and Daniel Sr. A father and son trading laps in a yellow Corvette, calling this their home track because of what it held, not where it sat. A brief spin near Turn 5 resolved into drifted control. Commitment rewarded.
Flags Down
By late afternoon, the track began to come back in patches. Just enough. The paddock was full. Sold out weekend.
Across the lot, the farewell drift event added smoke and noise—tires screaming while grip cars hunted traction. Two interpretations of loss, happening in parallel.
At the end of the day, we rolled for a final parade lap. Flaggers waved with tears, hands forming hearts against the gray. We waved back. Entered pit lane - changed mind went back out - why not! Staying out. One more.
The stands were empty. Flags down. The circuit quieting itself. We may have been the last car on track at PittRace during an event ever again.
The drifting finale closed it properly—everyone out at once, engines overlapping, smoke erasing edges. No vests. No credentials. Just bodies pressed along fences, watching something dissolve.
PittRace wasn’t just asphalt.
It was weight. Angle. Weather.
And for one last weekend, it pushed until the very end.
