My Tracks

[mac]

This is something I have been wanting to do for a long time now.

I spend a lot of my spare time designing race track layouts. I have done hundreds in the past, and now I would like to share them with my friends on this forum.

Each week I will add a new one to the thread. Please feel free to comment on the layouts, or even add your own to the thread.

Here is the first one - Observation Park.

[mac]

The 1st turn is a tight right-hand hairpin (a good passing place. Turn 2 is a similar hairpin, but a left-hander. This flows into turn 3 - an opening right-hander. The entry to turn 3 also begins an uphill climb. You reach a crest just before the braking zone for the turn 4 chicane, where the track flattens out.

Then is the flat-out run down the back stretch. The track runs slightly downhill until the slight left bend, where it flattens out again.

Turn 5 is another tight, right-hand hairpin, good for overtaking. Next is the uphill left-right turn 6 & 7.

Between turn 7 & 8 is a crest where you start going downhill. Turn 8 is a fast right-hander. As is turn 9. Turn 9 also has a dip on the apex. Immediately after 9 is the fast and slightly downhill left-hand turn 10.

The track flattens out just after 10 in preparation for the flat turn 11 chicane. The exit of this chicane leads into the uphill run through turns 12 (a slowish left) & 13 (a fastish left).

The track continues to run uphill through the 90 degree right-hand turn 14.

The track begins to go slightly downhill just after 14. It continues downhill through the high speed (left-right) turn 15 chicane. Just after the chicane is long right-hander where the track flattens out mid-turn. The final turn (17) is merely a flat-out left kink onto the main straight.

[mac]

The yellow bits are obviously the kitty litter.

The red bits are the stands.

And the grey bit is the paddock.

[DNQ]

Reminds me of Imola in a way...

...I've actually designed a few tracks as well, might scan them in some time.

[mac]

Oh yeah, it runs clockwise.

[Peter Mallett]

Originally posted by mac
.......... You reach a crest just before the braking zone for the turn 4 chicane, where the track flattens out.

..........

That's the Imola bit.

[Nicholas]

You should do a circuit made up of some of the fastest/best corners, I'd be interested to see how that would be like. (And I'm not talking ovals here!)

[Truckosaurus]

You should do a circuit made up of some of the fastest/best corners

I noticed the American 'Racer' magazine did an article (or perhaps a series?) on just this idea. I can't recall which corners they used, as I was shamelessly reading the magazine in Border's Books.

[DNQ]

I've seen that sort of thing done numerous times before, I even remember someone made a 'best of' F1 track for GP2, it was good fun to drive on, but nowadays, most of the old corners have been slaughtered or chicance, so it was hardly a brilliant track.

[Speedworx]

I remember reading an article where Coulthard and someone else (maybe Hakkinen) chose their fav corners to make a track. Can't remember where I saw it.

mac: Thats would make a good CART/ALMS track, seems nice and exciting.

[rdjones]

I for one have spent many hours sat board in lectures drawing race tracks instead of make notes............

[Raven]

Great topic mac! That looks like quite a unique and challenging track. 2 questions:

a) What's it's length?
&
b)What did you use to create it?

[cos]

Originally posted by hakkiman
I remember reading an article where Coulthard and someone else (maybe Hakkinen) chose their fav corners to make a track. Can't remember where I saw it.

t'was in the McLaren 'Racing Line' magazine about a year ago, got it free with F1 racing (I think)

[mac]

Originally posted by Raven
Great topic mac! That looks like quite a unique and challenging track. 2 questions:

a) What's it's length?
&
b)What did you use to create it?

a) I haven't worked out an exact length (maybe I should) but I think it'll be about 4.5 kms - similar length to Barcelona.

b) I used the most technologically advanced methods possible! I merely drew the circuit, filled it in with black texta, and scanned it. The one with the track details was just done on Microsoft Paint.

Pete, you're right, that was the bit like the Variante Alta chicane at Imola. The chicane's a bit slower though.

[Inigo Montoya]

Nice work mac! How about whipping that one up for GP4?

[mac]

I would have absolutely no idea how to do it!

It took me a day to figure out how to get it on here!

[FastJoel31]

Mac that is cool- I like to doodle tracks on paper a lot, with heavily wooded areas, paddock, stands, all sorts of good stuff. I would like to see some sort of observation tower that fans could use, like a scaled-down version of the CN Tower in Toronto. I would also make the bridges have transparent walls made of a Plexiglas or something...that would be great!

Keep on drawing!

[Tristan]

Back to the track at hand... it IS the first half of Imola, the second half of Albert Park TAGGED TOGETHER!! Isn't it!! Admit it, man!!

[mac]

No it's not. If you look at the map, it might appear like it. But if you imagine driving around it, it is nothing like it. I don't like using other tracks as guidance. I prefer to just design my own tracks, perhaps utilizing aspects I might like from other tracks.

[Rutle]

Strange that a brand new (albeit hypothetical) track comes with two built in chicanes.

Now, call me old fashioned, correct me if i'm wrong, (and any other old cliché you care to chuck around) but isn't a chicane something the FIA have built at a good track to turn it into a worse track.

[mac]

Not necessarily. Chicanes can be tremendous corners if done correctly (Imola chicane at Magny-Cours, for example). The ones that suck are the ones that are chucked into the middle of or just before fast corners to make them slower. Chicanes are also a very good way of testing a car's handling and a driver's ability. Tell me you don't enjoy watching JPM, MSchu, or (in the past) Senna attacking a chicane.

[MagnetON]

mac: I'm assuming you've read FIA Appendix O to the International Sporting Code

[mac]

No - why?

[mac]

While I'm waiting for MagnetON to get back to me on that, here's my next effort - Onionstone.

[mac]

I like this one a little more than my first one. Here's how I see it:

Turn 1 is a quite flat, open hairpin and is the 1st passing opportunity of the track.

There is a short, slightly uphill shute to turns 2 & 3. 2& 3 is a fast s-bend. Turn 2 is flat, and the entry to turn 3 is slightly uphill. Between the apex and the exit of 3, the track suddenly starts going downhill.

Almost immediately after 3 is the turn 4 esses section (left-right-left). This is FAST and slightly uphill.

As soon as you exit the esses, you have to prepare for the braking zone for the tight, uphill right-hander - turn 5.

Turn 5 flows into turn 6 (an opening and slightly downhill left-hander). 6 leads the driver (or rider) down the flat-out blast down the back stretch.

At the end of the back stretch is a tight 90 degree right. This, turn 7 is the 2nd good place to pass on the track.

Turns 8, 9 & 10 is a fast downhill right-left-right section.

Immediately out of turn 10, is a tight and flat left, turn 11.

11 flows into turn 12 - an opening, downhill right that leads onto a shortish straight.

At the end of this straight is a tight, flat left, turn 13. 13 is the 3rd and last passing possibility.

Turn 14 is straight after 13, and is another slow corner, this time right.

The exit of 14 sees a steady uphill climb through the fast right-left, turn 15 chicane.

Between 15 and the turn 16 complex, the track flattens out.

The complex at the end of the lap is particularly tricky. The first part is a medium-speed right, immediately followed by a very slow left hairpin, which is immediately followed by an uphill, opening and quite fast right onto the main straight. Straight after the final turn, the track flattens out for the main straight.

Feel free to leave your thoughts - good or bad.