Two concept street courses:

Memphis, Tennessee. The track begins on Beale Street and winds through downtown Memphis (linked due to size):
http://spaceforce.snohost.com/memphistrack.jpg

Chicago, Illinois. This track goes through the park and several downtown steets:
chicago track.gif
 
I think the first one would be a lot better, the main problem with street courses is that theres too many 90 degree or thereabouts corners.
 


A concept track map of Manchester with 3 possible variations.
 
I've been formulating a concept track, based on real roads, of mine own for a while. Here's the basic overview.

concepttrack1.jpg


What you can't see is the radical elevation changes involved (though there's some marked contour lines), nor some of the ferocious corners - the eastmost corner is really badly off-camber and there's at least one airborne moment involved.

The indigo track is the basic course, with a blue extended version. It's roughly 5km/3.1 miles long. Next time I'm in the region I'll drop by and take some photographs of the "course".
 
i think there should be a course round a few english country roads, some nice curves and hills and zig-zag hill! :D theres also one road i forget where but its near wales, that you go flying down this big hill and around this real sharp hairpin (pub on the corner :lol: ) and then up this real steep hill and up and down and up and down and round and round and... :crazy: :lol: english roads are great :D
 
Well, mine is English, it's sort of in the country (everything around it is green belt or National Trust) and there is a VERY big hill involved. So big that you can probably get a Ford Fiesta off the limiter down it, before you hit the corner at the bottom, can't stop and crash and die.

The three tight corners are a 270 degree roundabout, an off camber 90/100 degree bend pair (where the braking zone is uphill and the exit is downhill) and a hard 90 degree corner where you need to decelerate from VERY high speed.

I've just come from there and it never occurred to me to get some snaps... They'd reveal all... :D
 
An A-B course across the pennines would be good, theres some great driving roads there. A course that includes the snake pass perhaps. Theres a few elevation chages in the Manchester course, though nothing too steep, it'd be a better sportscar course provided the potholes had been sorted for the race track :lol:. The whole bottom section is the Mancunian way which is an elevated dual carriageway, the purple section goes straight past Deansgate locks, down Deansgate past Bauer and Millet, Kendalls and the more expensive places to go on a Friday night. The loger section in black to the left is twistier but quite high speed and contains some elevation changes, the extra section in black to the right goes down Miler street and Swan street, past the Express networks building, turns off and you get to Piccadilly gardens and onto Portland street which is nice and wide, left onto Oxford street then left again onto Bombay street (Canal street's between the two :lol:) then a narrower section and back to the start. The brownish green section is basically just getting onto Portland street sooner, a lot sooner. The full course would be quite a long tack, I'd say 2:20 in a fast car, 2 mins in a GT500 car.
 
Woolie Wool
Chicago, Illinois. This track goes through the park and several downtown steets
That track kicks ahss! I see the main straight passes by the United Center where my favorite hockey team, the Blackhawks, play.

Does anyone like elevation changes? Seattle's location reminds me a lot of San Francisco. A track through S.F. could provide for some nice hilly terrain to race around and through.

City courses are fun. Trans-Am used to run at a city course through Minneapolis if I recall correctly ...?
 
63AvantiR3
That track kicks ahss! I see the main straight passes by the United Center where my favorite hockey team, the Blackhawks, play.
I'm, glad you like it. What would really be cool if I could figure out where the Sears Tower was so I could run the track next to the tallest building in the country.
 
No offense but I couldn't stand another urban city based track. The amount 90 degree bends and dodgy hairpins bores me.

Though in Europe, or atleast Britain, the city layouts ae much less organised that in the states and Japan, so city circuits are, IMO, much better.
 
Famine
and there's at least one airborne moment involved.
You should make one from round about where you stay and use that hump back bridge! That'd be hilarious!
 
Actually, that would be a good laugh on its own, but there's not much else to make a track out of...
 
ExigeExcel
No offense but I couldn't stand another urban city based track. The amount 90 degree bends and dodgy hairpins bores me.

Though in Europe, or atleast Britain, the city layouts ae much less organised that in the states and Japan, so city circuits are, IMO, much better.


Circuito de Torino has very few 90 degree turns and has a lot of weird bends and kinks and claustrophobic places where the track shoots through a back alley.

Memphis is also fairly light on the 90-degree turns (which I find fun, actually, especailly when I can see the stoplights hanging over them)
 
This is the circuit I personally drive on whenever I want to flog my car (or someone elses?) around, and not go too far. I found the roads for this track in 1994, one late summer night, when all the roads in this area were virtually deserted (i.e. 2am). Yours truly was wandering about in his Honda Accord and decided it was the best available road course in the area.

Sure, we've all got the tempation to make another Nürburgring out of city or country roads (more on that another day), but to keep this practical, the total length of the circuit is about 3.3 miles around.

map-bocaratongp.jpg


Descriptions:

1) Start/Finish line. This is US 1, where it happens to be 3 lanes wide for a short period of time; a median in the middle is a perfect barrier against the other three lanes, which would make for a pit lane. Lots of financial buildings and other recently-constructed towers make for a nice skyline view to the heart of the city.

2) This turn leads onto Mizner Blvd.; so named for a weathly family that inspired a lot of architecture in these parts about 80 years ago to Boca Raton. It's a gentle turn onto this "loop" road.

3) Mizner Boulevard is bordered by nice-looking "European-style" row homes in this part, with palm trees as avenue planters in the middle. A shady section to block out the sunlight.

4) You turn right here onto Royal Palm Road, a narrow chute with lots of nice 1920 to 1940s-era fashionable homes in the area.

5) A little break onto 5th Avenue to slow down the cars.

6) This is Palmetto Park Road (I normally avoid driving down section 4 and 5, since the speed limit is just 25mph, but this is a concept, anyhow). It's quite wide here, with lots of quaint shops full of art and other knick-knacks bordering the road.

7) A drawbridge here (the first of 3) provides some elevation. You could "get air" here if you were using this as a video game track. Along the straight, it dips down, but then rises slightly to Section 8.

8) Hard braking for Ocean Blvd, right in front of South Inlet Park, a great place to stick your feet in the sand and watch the ocean.

9) Famous State Road A1A, a guaranteed scenic route anywhere in the state. Lined with high-rise condos and some very expensive houses (the people who can afford any of the cars in the game). You just might hear the waves...

10) The long straight is interrupted by a sharp elevation rise for the narrow drawbridge (so this is why this track wouldn't really work in real-life...) which also makes a blind ess-bend. You're now about to go steeply downhill. Whee!

11) Shortly after negotiating the ess-bend, you make a hard right turn that's not quite a hairpin (maybe a three-quarter hairpin), but still enough to load your right side with some serious g-forces in any car. You're certain to squeal the tires through here in a road car.

12) The road wanders a little to the left and right here. Nothing difficult. Australian Pine trees and few little apartments and bungalows in this region.

13) Another narrow bridge here.

14) Traffic circle, except it's not very much used to go anywhere but across. The Boca Raton Country Club is on the right, but the only elbow-rubbing you're doing is when you make a hard right and then left around the trees in the middle. (Aren't traffic circles great when there's no traffic?)

15) Camino Real. 1960's-era homes with wide yards and a wide street that bends just slightly left and right.

16) A right onto Federal Highway completes the circuit, across from the nicest Publix Supermarket you've ever seen.

Herrman Tilke, eat your heart out.
 
Woolie Wool
What would really be cool if I could figure out where the Sears Tower was so I could run the track next to the tallest building in the country.
The Sears Tower is closest to the corner of Wacker Dr. and Adams St. It is contained in the block of Wacker Dr., Adams St., Franklin St., and Jackson Blvd. and its official address is 233 South Wacker Drive.
Do an Internet search for "Sears Tower" and you'll probably find more than you ever wanted to know about the building. Here are samples of what I found:
About the Sears Tower
Sears Tower main site

On Topic/Off Topic: I was in Chicago last September while helping my brother drive X-country from Maine to California. Our first leg took us from Maine to stay with family in Pennsylvania. While in Pennsylvania, and close to Gettysburg, we stopped there for a day. After leaving Pennsylvania and finally heading west, we stopped in South Bend, IN at the Studebaker Museum. Our final sight-seeing stop was to Chicago for the Sears Tower and the United Center. Ever been 1/4 of a mile high ... in a building? It sucks that hockey wasn't played last year or we may have stopped in for a 'Hawks game. We couldn't think of anything really important to see between Chicago and California, plus we had to be back by the time school started, so we had to meet a deadline.

I'd do it again in a heartbeat: without a deadline, I'd take hundreds of times more pictures and I would stop to smell the roses.

Pictures from that trip here:
Chicago
Studebaker
Gettysburg
 
They should have a Philippines Rally Track :D!

We have a nice mountain pass around here, nice and scary... i'll try to find a map on that place!
 
63AvantiR3
How many turns are there at Nürburgring? The whole course, not just the Nordschleife. Turns aren't evil, they're fun :D
I was waiting for someone to bring the 'Ring up. For the record, it has roughly 180 (I think - operative term here). When I meant 'practical' I meant the type of track you'd hold a race on for either your national flavour of touring cars, or maybe even an international standard of racing. And let's face it: the 'Ring is NOT practical.
 
Mine has 4 (short) or 5 (long) clearly defined corners, joined by 3 very bendy and hilly straights. It's relatively narrow, but with some wide-open parts (and one hideously narrow part), and flows very nicely indeed. It'd make a great Super GT track.

But I'll comment more when I've taken some snapshots.
 
s12ken
They should have a Philippines Rally Track :D!

We have a nice mountain pass around here, nice and scary... i'll try to find a map on that place!
Hell yeah! Some of the roads there are pretty bumpy!
 
s12ken
They should have a Philippines Rally Track :D!

We have a nice mountain pass around here, nice and scary... i'll try to find a map on that place!
With some Phillipino girls dancing at the finish line.


Oh crap, I'm not asleep.
 
63AvantiR3
The Sears Tower is closest to the corner of Wacker Dr. and Adams St. It is contained in the block of Wacker Dr., Adams St., Franklin St., and Jackson Blvd. and its official address is 233 South Wacker Drive.
Do an Internet search for "Sears Tower" and you'll probably find more than you ever wanted to know about the building. Here are samples of what I found:
About the Sears Tower
EDIT: Never mind, I read the map wrong. I thought I had it in there for a moment.
 
Do you race?
Just one question: are thrity-turn tracks really all that practical?
Is holding a race in Central London where the cars whizz by Buckingham Palace at the finish line practical? Does it matter for GT5?

The answer to all 3 questions is no.
 
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