White line issue (Question) - Trial Mountain.
with cool pictures included to highlight areas
Okay, Evan and I were running a practice session at Trial Mountain last night when we noticed that there's a few places where the white lines are quite some distance on the "wrong side" of the standard/ideal/normal driving line. It sits in places that often don't mark the track edge.
So we figured that we should ask this question to get some clarity before Monday night. If the corner cutting rule is to be applied:
From OP of this thread
2 wheels must be on the black stuff at all times! In other words.
2 wheels must always be inside the white track edge lines.
Both Evan and I (plus I'm sure most of the guys in this series) have played GT since GT1 and Trial Mountain has been a feature since day one. And as such we're used to driving the track in a fast efficient way. But that established driving line cuts inside of the white track edge line in a number of places.
So I think we all need to know how the rules apply here in advance.
I'm including a whole bunch of the places where the white line is different to an ideal driving line.
To be clear I'm not saying they all need to be considered, I'm just including them all to be complete.
Okay the images & photos to explain:
Map
- - -
A - I mainly included this due to the cool picture
. The rule of not cutting the corner will be fine and understandable here. But at the approach the apex is unsighted and you're at high speed, so a few guys will likely be caught out, doing this.
- - -
B - In the first tunnel, as you can see the track has an apron on the leftside, but to note: it's a smooth apron, not a ripple strip so a lot of us are likely to regularly use it. But as you see that is in breach of the corner cutting rule.
- - - -
C - The turn onto the back straight. There's a painted yellow striped area at the turn apex, but the white line goes well wide of it. The black rubbered line takes an ideal driving line . . . which goes over the yellow striped area. Again this would be a clear breach of the corner cutting rule.
Perhaps look at it this way - if we ignore the white line, there's no real way to
CUT this corner as there's a big stone wall there.
- - -
D - End of back straight. Again a yellow striped area where the rubbered driving line is, which is well inside the white line. As you can see here you could nearly drive 3 cars side by side on the inside of the white line.
Perhaps look at it this way - it's the same as item C above, there's an earth wall there so you can't technically get an advantage here.
- - - -
E - Or get innovative and find a way to keep at least one wheel on the white line.
- - -
F - The approach to the final high speed left/right chicane. As most of us have done since GT1, the best place to have your car as you approach the chicane is to run down as far to the right of the track as possible. But as you see it's the wrong side the white track edge line.
- - -
G - Last high speed chicane, part1. As you can see here, the lead car has left wheels 1/2 way up on the ripple strip, but the car is a long way inside of the white line. On most tracks the white line sits only a wheel width or so from the base of the ripple strip, so the white line rule works really well. Stopping anyone from using the whole ripple strip. Where as here the line is a car width wide of the ripple strip.
Importantly - There does need to be some rule here to prevent cutting as some people can do some stupid cutting.
- - -
H - Last high speed chicane, part2. As you see the line is set well into the track like part1. It does the same thing here.
In truth - If you try to cut this corner you can get launched and badly thrown off balance so there's no advantage.
- - -
So there it is, hope I don't sound like I'm whinging, just looking for some clarity.
Mick.