Opinion on track design

[Alex Kyriak]

Hi all,

Have designed a fictional track - intended to be a long-ish endurance circuit / test circuit for sports and race cars - but I'm not sure if it's TOO long.... wanted an opinion as a sort of sanity check from you guys...!

It's 14km, 38 turns. An average laptime in a Le Mans P1 car is approx 4 minutes, which is about 130mph average speed.

Is this too long? I might shorten it, but it seems to have a great flow all the way through. Are there any real life circuits like this, other than the Ring? What would you think to a long lap?

 

[Rhys Gardiner]

The track they use for Le Mans is about 3-and-a-half minutes long in an LMP - I'd say do it. You'd be surprised how many people actually like long circuits... I for one am looking forward to trying this track, should you decide to release it.

 

[Dave Stephenson]

As long as the track flows and you can settle into a rythm on it then the length isn't an issue for me. 14km of Monaco style none stop fury would be another thing all together, but I enjoy the longer tracks personally so go for it.

 

[Alex Kyriak]

thanks alot for the replies guys... I just put in the Fastline and gave it a whirl in a couple of races with a couple of different racing series, even though it was supposed to be a testing circuit.... well, it's pretty exciting so I guess I'll stick with it at this length. I'm still tempted to try to lop a bit of distance off though. I tried it with LMP1 cars, cart factor prologue, and a couple of slower GT Cup porsche categories, etc. (It's pretty quick in the BMW F1 n all...)

Problem regarding the fastline (it's the first time I've put in a fastline) : all the other cars pull off the road in the middle of lap 2 - randomly... like they're out of fuel or something. Anyone know what this is about...? Is it the lap length being 14kms?

 

[Erwin Greven]

It is a fuel problem yes. In the *.AIW file in your track folder (../rFactor/Gamedata/Locations/Yourtrack/) you can find "FuelUse".

"yourtrack.aiw"

[Waypoint]
trackstate=4543
drivinglines=1
autogengrid=(-1,9)
autogenaltgrid=(1,0)
teleportwp=(438)
pitlanepaths=(11,11)
times=(67.7990,340282346638528860000000000000000000000.0000)
multilinetimes=(139.2194,340282346638528860000000000000000000000.0000)
number_waypoints=4946
lap_length=23990.83
sector_1_length=7968.73
sector_2_length=15877.31
LeftHandedPits=0
FuelUse=37171.0

Add a "1" before this. FuelUse=37171.0 becomes FuelUse=137171.0

 

[Alex Kyriak]

Thank you very much What does the FuelUse parameter mean? And why is it 37171?

 

[catrasca]

Watch "San Lorenzo" made for me, here in argentina loves long tracks from earlys 70´

 

[Erwin Greven]

Thank you very much What does the FuelUse parameter mean? And why is it 37171?

Depends on the track.

 

[Alex Kyriak]

Sorry I meant what does the number mean? What does 1 unit represent, for example?

 

[Erwin Greven]

something i didn't figure out too...

 

[Alex Kyriak]

Erwin are you the guy doing a long track round your home town in Holland?

 

[Dave Stephenson]

alex, regarding the shorter track have you considered making it multi-layout. You could get a shorter version in that way and not lose the length for people that want it

 

[Alex Kyriak]

Dave that's a great suggestion...! Will give it some thought.

 

[Erwin Greven]

Erwin are you the guy doing a long track round your home town in Holland?

yes, i am the guy who builds the 15 mile track near my home town.

 

[Alex Kyriak]

On the track length question..... I read a post (on another forum on another topic) that implied there might be a maximum length for FIA sanctioned circuits. does anyone know anything about this maximum length? I can't seem to find any hard facts on this.

And whilst I'm at it... does anyone know how many teams I should cater for in a LM / endurance circuit? I need to know how many garage spaces I should provide for in the pitlane complex I'm building.....

Thanks alot

 

[R Soul]

I did some searching on Google and this (section 4) says the length should be between 2.2 and 4.3 miles. It's backed up by Scotracer's post in this angry thread on f1technical. It also says the maximum length of a straight is 1.25 miles. A few posts down is a suggestion that the first corner is fairly tight and a certain distance from the start/finish line.

But you won't necessarily have to build your own track to those limits to be able to pretend it's FIA certified. Here it says that there are different grades of FIA approved circuit. You could always say your track is class 2 or 3 etc, depending on how many rules you break (poor run-off areas, insufficient access roads etc).

 

[Ryan Callan]

If you want to host Endurance races then you will need at least 40 garage slots.

 

[Alex Kyriak]

Thanks alot, Ryan. 40 garage slots, for 20 teams at 2 cars each? That's what I currently have factored in for.

Soul - cheers mate have read a bit of this post, will need to finish it off its one long and very interesting post I might add! On the length issue, the post talks about guidelines in some instances, so presumably these aren't always hard and fast rules. Le Mans is a special case, for example, at some 13.65km.

Do any serious online racing leagues ever race on fictional tracks? Was briefly checking out Rattlesnake Point in Cananda and I suspect its fictional, but from reading post-race reviews and such, people talk about it like its a real place.... now that's dedication to the sim-racing cause!

 

[Dave Stephenson]

The place is real, not sure the track is though. Its a conservation area too so its unlikely to see one anytime soon if its not already there

 

[R Soul]

I've never really looked into online racing, but a while ago I did come across a Lotus Elan (Historix mod) league which only used fictional tracks. Unfortunately I can't remember any other details.