Vieffe Circuit: a safe-driving track on the former road 305

The ribbon-cutting in front of the new driving centre on via Manzoni in Mariano del Friuli was scheduled for Saturday 10 October 2020, at eleven in the morning. The programme included a blessing by the local parish priest, a child's run in a go-kart and a demonstration by drivers and instructors: safe driving, sports driving and drifting on a wet surface. That day Vieffe Circuit opened, a short, twisty asphalt loop that can be flooded with water from hidden sprinklers. Four years later the venue became the first Centro Tecnico Federale in Friuli Venezia Giulia, that is a technical centre of ACI Sport, the sporting federation of the Automobile Club d'Italia.

Location	via A. Manzoni 159/A, Mariano del Friuli (Friuli Venezia Giulia, Gorizia), a little over a kilometre from the motorway exit marked Gradisca
Type	driving technique training centre (centro di guida sicura) with an asphalt loop that can be flooded in full or in part
Length	“stradale” loop about 1 km; basic technical route 450 m, extended with variants to about a kilometre
Width	about 8 m (project data)
Direction	clockwise
Site	about 12,000 m², of which the track itself takes up about 4,000 m² (project data)
Design and construction	engineer Mauro Latino; contractor Adriastrade of Monfalcone
Opening	10 October 2020
Owner and operator	built by the Trieste company Vieffe GmbH; today the regulations and the operator's website name the company Vieffedrifting S.r.l.
ACI Sport	Centro Tecnico Federale since 25 October 2024
Status	active, open Friday to Sunday

The street where people drove too fast

Via Manzoni is a stretch of the former regional road 305 at the entrance to and exit from Mariano. Since 2013 most of the traffic has been taken over by a new bypass. In February 2018 the Trieste daily “Il Piccolo” wrote about angry residents of this street: despite the 50 km/h limit, cars drove through at high speed at all hours. The municipal police measured speed there with a laser at least twice a week. Less than two years later the same street made the paper for an entirely different reason.

In autumn 2019 the daily described a plan by the company Vieffe GmbH from Trieste. A safe-driving centre was to be built on a commercial plot on via Manzoni, at the edge of the artisan and industrial zone. The plot had been waiting to be developed since a project to build a shopping centre there had collapsed a few years earlier. Mayor Luca Sartori told the paper that the municipality had welcomed the investment. The first step was the repeal of the detailed land use plan (PRPC) for zone H2, decided by the municipal executive at a public meeting on 19 September. According to the daily, a similar venue, though with different parameters, was then operating in the area only in Tolmezzo.

Vieffe was already running driving courses in other parts of Italy and in Austria, where it used a track for driving on snow and ice. The website of its school, Vieffe Drifting, in summer 2020 gave Bad Kleinkirchheim in Austria as the course location and announced its own track in Italy, called there a “pista da corsa”, that is a racing track, then still under construction.

Binder, pipes and wooden cabins

The 2019 project envisaged an asphalt loop about a kilometre long and 8 m wide, surrounded by a 3 m wide gravel strip, although the regulations required half that. It provided for 5,000 m² of greenery, noise-reducing embankments, wooden buildings, a limited number of cars on the track and a speed of at most 50–60 km/h. The centre was to operate during normal working hours, never at night. In December 2019, after the procedures were completed and a new executive plan was prepared, earthworks began. A long noise barrier embankment was built to separate the track from the houses. The design was prepared by engineer Mauro Latino, and the construction was carried out by the firm Adriastrade of Monfalcone.

At the beginning of 2020 the binder course of asphalt was laid on the route, which allowed the first test runs. In February Cristina Pagliara, president of the Automobile Club in Gorizia and of the regional committee of automobile clubs, declared her cooperation and also offered, if needed, the expertise of the company ACI Vallelunga. Then came the pandemic. Construction stood still for more than two months, and after work resumed in May more than 600 m of sprinkler pipes were buried along the track. In July three wooden buildings were being assembled: an office, a garage for the cars and a clubhouse for the instructors. The material for them was bought in France, and the biggest problem of the construction turned out to be the electricity connection by Enel.

In September a surface of deliberately non-draining asphalt was laid, so that driving on a slippery, wet track could also be practised. The paper described the route as a track of variable geometry: the corners were connected so that different variants could be laid out from them, and the surface could be flooded in full or only in half, leaving the rest dry. The operator adds that the loop around the outer perimeter is less demanding than the twisty route through the central corners, hairpins and roundabouts.

Noise, homologation and a guest from Rome

At a municipal council meeting, councillors from the Lega and Il Ponte groups asked the mayor whether all obligations concerning noise had been fulfilled. Luca Sartori replied that the centre had been built “in compliance with all the legal regulations on noise containment”, and that if problems arose, the municipality would order checks. He recalled that an acoustic impact forecast prepared by Ennio Tonel had been attached to the land use plan, according to which the limits were not expected to be exceeded.

The centre opened with all the required homologations. Approval was given among others by Gianluca Marotta, chairman of the ACI Sport off-road commission, who came from Rome for that purpose, and the venue also received homologation as a federal school.

“It is a beautiful facility of a new type, which in its size and multifunctionality has no equivalent in north-eastern Italy. It is a very well laid out and technical track, best suited to its purposes, that is a driver training centre and the safe practice of sports driving”.

Carabinieri, “Replica Rally” and the Drift Bar

Because of the pandemic the centre was able to resume activity only a few weeks before the end of June 2021. It then hosted a course for carabinieri from the 13th “Fvg” regiment of Gorizia; on the first of three days eight soldiers trained, on dry and wet surfaces. Fabio Reveri, the owner of the centre, told the paper that the main aim is teaching safe driving.

On 27 June a “Replica Rally” gathering was held here with about fifty participants from the region, from Veneto and from Switzerland. Subarus, Mitsubishis, Lancia Deltas, Ford Escorts, Porsches, Peugeots and BMWs resembling competition cars came. After a drive through the Collio, Cormons and Monte San Michele, the cars returned to the loop to drive on dry and wet asphalt. Elena Ganassin of the magazine “Elaborare” judged that the track is an opportunity for the area, “because there are no facilities of this kind”. At that time the Drift Bar opened on the centre's grounds, a food outlet where several young women found work, and at the beginning of July the base of the Triveneto section of the Mustang Club of Italy.

After the summer holidays about ten Guardia di Finanza soldiers belonging to the SILF trade union came for a course. In autumn 2022 “Il Piccolo” described the blind Michele Brignani, who drove a sports car, a Subaru among others, on the Vieffe loop. In March 2024 the centre was visited by Pierpaolo Roberti, the regional assessor for local government and security, together with the commander of the Trieste local police, Walter Milocchi. Roberti argued that the track could become a training ground for officers from the whole north-eastern corner of Italy.

On 25 October 2024 the region's first ACI Sport Centro Tecnico Federale opened here. The guests included the deputy mayor of Mariano Roberto Spizzo, regional councillor Antonio Calligaris, federal instructors Alex Pregnolato, Fabrizio Crestani and Denis Lupo, and the multiple Italian rally champion Piero Longhi. Reports of the opening also mentioned Michele Procaccianti, a disabled young man who trains on the track in his own Mercedes with hand controls at the steering wheel.

Your own car on the loop

The venue's regulations explicitly provide that private cars may drive on the track, with restrictions on type and number set by the management. The driver must be of age and carry the original of a valid driving licence, and during free driving helmets and fastened seat belts are mandatory. Driving is clockwise, a declaration of acceptance of responsibility must be signed before going out, and the management may exclude cars that are too loud or have an exhaust that does not comply with road traffic regulations. Under the agreement with the municipality, activities other than competitions may take place between 9:00 and 17:30, with a break of at least two hours between 12:30 and 14:30, and from 21:00 to 8:00 the regulations prohibit motorsport activity altogether. The centre itself is today open Friday to Sunday, 8:30–18:00.

According to the price list of October 2026, track hire costs 60 euros for 30 minutes and 600 euros for five hours; dates are set according to the loop's availability. An Open Drift Day is scheduled for 18 October, for 60 euros. The basic sports driving course on 8 November costs 399 euros and covers among other things trail braking, that is braking carried deep into the corner, and fast laps with video and telemetry analysis. On the rally course, according to the school's description, participants drive their own cars. Drift courses, on the other hand, are held in the school's Mustangs with traction control switched off, and the track is then sprayed with water. The technical and rally department is run by Alessandro Pregnolato, and on its list of instructors the school presents Alex Pregnolato as a twelve-time Italian ice rally champion.

The centre's regulations were approved by the company's board on 10 October 2020, the day of the ribbon-cutting. Among its points is a ban on betting and unauthorised races, and in the section on track hire a sentence stating that all those using the loop are “strictly forbidden to race against each other”.