Some personal musings, just for a discussion starter:
I am really pleased to see the number of new tracks that have opened
in the USA in the last couple of years.
At the same time, I am genuinely disappointed at the layout of most
of them. From a driver's standpoint, a good track needs several
things to be fun and challenging. These include straights where you
can go fast plus corners that are challenging. But a road course also
needs to have more than one place in its two mile length where safe
passing is possible.
It seems to me that in our racing, almost no passing occurs in a
stretch of road that is a continuous sequence of relatively tight
connected corners. Fun to drive, but not fun to race. There is a
distinction between the two. Most of these new tracks have one
straight and then the rest of the real estate is filled with
continuously connected corners. Examples are Mid America at Council
Bluffs, Gingerman to a degree, and nearly all of the private club tracks.
Most older tracks that I can think of had multiple passing
opportunities. Think of Road America, Watkins Glen, and VIR as
examples. Granted, these are all bigger tracks where it is easier to
design what I'm talking about, and the new ones are much shorter.
However, most of the older shorter tracks, that are about two miles
in length, have multiple passing opportunities too -- like Mosport,
Grattan, Lime Rock, Willow Springs, Portland, Blackhawk, and more.
Not that we can do anything about it. Just an observation.
uncle jack
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