Barber Motorsports Park: The Hidden Diamond of American Motorsport

My favorite track, and only 90 miles from home. Two days on track in Feb, and another two days coming up in July.

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I dunno, COTA might not be the best track, but it has proven to be fantastic for racing. Barber would suck for F1 because there'd only be about 3 overtakes in the whole race.

It may not be a Spa but neither are most of the current F1 circuits and applying that logic they shouldn't go to Suzuka either then. ;)
 
Ahh... Mosport, funny you mention it. One of the best. If not the best. :thumbsup:

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Sorry for little bit off topic here but must say... does anyone here love (not much as I, you can't that but just... love) Portland/Vanport circuit ? I really don't know what's about it, I have always love tracks with big elevation changes, SPA, Mosport, Laguna, you know... and then comes Portland - flat as a pancake. But you just have to love it. I love every sector of it but that section after the Festival turn....:inlove: omg...:inlove:
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Stay away F1 and WEC. Those requirements would ruin the track. This is a throwback...more like Mosport than Silverstone, this was originally a motorcycle course, as mentioned.

That is true, God knows what would happen if Tilke got his ruler and 90 degree right angle on this track :laugh:

One of the reasons why I was glad the Grand Prix never went to Brands Hatch was for a while they were looking at butchering the whole of the "forest" end of the circuit (making the corners 2nd gear 90 degree), it would have been horrible. Probably would be the same here.

I have to defend Silverstone a little though, until the Wing complex went in, it was still an awesome circuit (Bridge corner I miss you :(). The new complex section has spoilt it a little but corners like Becketts make up for it :). Watching the LMP-H cars go through the first half flat out is something else.

@Gary Horneck that looks like a lot of fun matey :)
 
Ahh... Mosport, funny you mention it. One of the best. If not the best. :thumbsup:

Sorry for little bit off topic here but must say... does anyone here love (not much as I, you can't that but just... love) Portland/Vanport circuit ? I really don't know what's about it, I have always love tracks with big elevation changes, SPA, Mosport, Laguna, you know... and then comes Portland - flat as a pancake. But you just have to love it. I love every sector of it but that section after the Festival turn....:inlove: omg...:inlove:

Went to an Indycar race in Portland back in the 90's, really enjoyed the race and the city. Simple tracks like that can often make for very good racing. Silverstone used to be like that back in the day (even if Becketts is better now the rest isn't).
 
The one thing that really catches my eye, is how beautiful it looks with the grass and graveltraps, it looks natural, and amazing. Compared to the airports and parking areas that F1 and WEC drives on.

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So true Marius. COTA makes me want to vomit from vertigo. I bet you that giant spider keeps you more honest than paint.

Truth be told, Road Atlanta was even compromised after Panos bought it. Although the Can Am cars (beasts) ran it, "the dip" was reconfigured for the ALMS around 1997. So sad, as I remember watching all sorts of daredevils bottom out, then shoot up under the bridge, almost scraping their right mirror against the bridge wall @100pmh before plunging down the hill blind. At least one car a weekend was wrecked there. Sad to see it go.
 
The tracks with a lot of elevation changes like Barber are the ones I like the best.

It kinda sucks that on iRacing, there's not a lot of participation at that track because it's hard to learn. And in a way, yeah it is hard to learn. But once you learn it, you never forget it. And then you somehow get faster with more practice without even knowing it because you are in this weird state where you are like a sim racing zombie running a ton of laps because it's so easy to get into a good groove. :)

The track designer is Alan Wilson. Here are some of his other tracks: http://www.wilsonmotorsport.com/public_html/code/maps.htm
 
Fantastic write up! I'm so happy that this place is only 30 mins from my home. It's such a nice facility that it's hard to believe it's in the Birmingham area, lol. It's also such a contrast (in a good way) from Talladega :p

Guess I need to find the rFactor 2 version and try it out.
 
The one thing that really catches my eye, is how beautiful it looks with the grass and graveltraps, it looks natural, and amazing. Compared to the airports and parking areas that F1 and WEC drives on....
You are right, no doubt.
But you forgot one thing though... these "airports and parking areas" tracks are a lot safer.
Thanks to the fact that they doesn't have grass and graveltraps, mostly.
And safety seems to be the most important thing in today's racing. At least in F1.
...The track designer is Alan Wilson. Here are some of his other tracks: http://www.wilsonmotorsport.com/public_html/code/maps.htm
Interesting read.
So it's the same guy who brought us Mont Tremblant, NOLA Motorsports Park, Las Vegas
Motor Speedway, Pikes Peak, International Raceway,
and is working now on a project of Badlands Motorsports Resort !? I didn't knew that. Amazing. :thumbsup:
But I'm not surprised actually, looking at his name... I know a couple more cool and very talented guys ...with that very same name. :whistling::p
 
Interesting read.
So it's the same guy who brought us Mont Tremblant, NOLA Motorsports Park, Las Vegas
Motor Speedway, Pikes Peak, International Raceway,
and is working now on a project of Badlands Motorsports Resort !? I didn't knew that. Amazing. :thumbsup:
But I'm not surprised actually, looking at his name... I know a couple more cool and very talented guys ...with that very same name. :whistling::p

There are millions of track designers that should be more recognizable than Tilke :). Alan Wilson is one of them. It would be nice for various sims to have official content with his tracks. Patrick has done a great job with GSCE/AMS track mods, and there's an rFactor2 track with Barber I believe. But I hope there's a bit more variety of tracks, especially the simcades. Because a lot of sim racers start with the simcades. Forza and GT recycle the same tracks all the time. Maybe if newcomers to sim racing have experience racing a track like Barber through racing games, they will enjoy it a lot more in the rFactors, iRacings, RR3s, AMS, etc.

I love new tracks, especially ones I never heard of. Never heard of Atlanta Motorsports Park before rF2 for example. Let's widen the scope of tracks in racing sims (the default content)! Obscure tracks with elevation, and street courses are two of the underrepresented tracks in sim racing and racing games in general.

There's one whopping game with Mont Tremblant: GRID Autosport. Say what you want about that game and the terrible physics, but I like the track list at least.
 

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