What is it about Laguna Seca?

[MistyRainne]

Everything feels sticky, like the road is covered in glue. Nothing seems to want to turn there: FWD, RWD, everything gets lazy.

Some cars which drive fine on Sports Hards will feel sluggish in turning on Comfort Hards (a sign of a bad tune that SH is masking, btw), like they do on Laguna Seca, but Laguna Seca isn’t slippery. But it’s not quite like having high traction either: most cars feel pretty nimble on Racing Hards.

Is it because Laguna Seca is in a desert and thus the road is hot? But there are other tracks in hot places (Daytona is in Florida; Côte d’Azur has palm trees lining parts of the course; is Madrid a hot place?) that don’t feel sticky like Laguna Seca does.

So is it just me, or is there something else to it, or what?

 

[Dragonschild81]

I agree with you, my cars seem to not want to turn well either. And these are cars that i have used on multiple other races and tracks where they had no issues with turning. Just a note I race with all aids off except abs:1.

 

[nk4e]

Laguna Seca is in the northern part of California. The track(s) your probably thinking about is Buttonwillow.

 

[David Bailey]

All the corners are off camber.

 

[Omniscient]

Laguna Seca isn't in a desert, I live by it, GT5 doesn't really do the landscape justice. But Laguna Seca is where I do all my tunes, I don't think it has more or less grip than other tracks. It is a difficult track for some though, it's one you either love or hate.

 

[ITCC_Andrew]

Laguna Seca has always seemed "wrong" to me. It feels wrong in GT5, wrong in iRacing, wrong in Race '07...


To be honest, I think there's something about Laguna Seca that people are forgetting, missing, or just not understanding.


I've always found that, even in a racing series I can win in, I have poor results in Laguna Seca, too. I can win at Suzuka, for example, and then finish last at Laguna Seca. Things just don't seem the same there.


I too have noticed this.

 

[iamsupernasty]

The landscape isnt accurate, but the course layout is damn close. It is a slightly older version of the track though. Some of the walls have moved. There is a video of me driving the real one in a Mazda cup car in my sig. I see no major issues with the track in gt5.

 

[MistyRainne]

Well, its name means “Dry Lagoon”, so I made assumptions from that about the environment it’s in.

What David Bailey said (that all corners are off-camber, which I’m assuming means “banked, but toward the outside”) sounds like it could explain what I’ve experienced there, although I’ve seen no mention of it from skimming various wikis/sites. I took a closer look in the game and all corners are banked inwardly/normally, though not far removed from being flat. (Tested by parking in the middle of the road at the apex, facing toward the apex itself, then releasing the brake, and it slowly rolls inward. Also tried it facing the other way, and it slowly rolls inward that way too.)

Besides, it happens on straights too.

 

[ITCC_Andrew]

👍 I've never seen that approach to finding the banking of a circuit, but I like the idea.


To be honest, I've always thought that the sand on the side of the circuit gets "lifted" onto the circuit, making it slippery. Whether Polyphony Digital did model that, or not...


Does anyone else have any theories? Or, better yet, can anyone analyze the G-forces generated in cornering at Laguna Seca vs. Other tracks?

 

[vovillia]

It's just one of those tracks that has changed quite a bit in each GT game, similar to High Speed ring, even though it wasn't in GT3.

But I do agree about the grip, you really have to push your car into the corners hard so you don't understeer, there were times I was reduce to dab at the handbrake to induce oversteer to get around the corners

 

[Speedster7]

I love Laguna, it's a weird layout meaning its very technical. You tend to get badly punished if you take the wrong line through a corner though, but I doubt it is because polyphony modelled the track for off-line grip reduction. It's probably just because if you push too hard into a corner the car is already unsettled causing loss of traction

 

[ITCC_Andrew]

Speedster7, I'm trying to figure out why I feel like the entire circuit has less grip. I'm not even saying that certain spots have less grip, I'm saying I've more often used my rallying skills at Laguna Seca, , it's like the whole surface is covered in a light layer of snow...

 

[playnthru]

It's a very technical track by nature. It's not in Northern California or in the desert. It's located between Monterey and Salinas.

As already stated, many of it's turns are off camber.

 

[Ridox2JZGTE]

I think laguna seca is fine, I often do FF tuning there with comfort soft tires around 400PP to 500PP, it's a bit tricky nailing the entry on some corners, if not all of them Here is a video of me driving a shifter kart at Seca - very tense as the road is quite unforgiving to mistakes :

Just a lap I've done with 59HP 6 speed shifter kart at Laguna Seca on comfort soft tire,1:28.465.

Nice grip level for a kart, a bit edgy with that much power, but loads of fun and intense all the way

 

[ITCC_Andrew]

At first, I thought you meant that you had actually driven a shifter kart (in real life) around Laguna Seca. I was about to put you in the ludicrous claims thread, that would never happen! Then I remembered that you and Johnnypenso did that hybrid... 👍


Anyways, playnthru, specifically which corners are off-camber?

 

[Ridox2JZGTE]

^ I still have them all -works on 2.14, thinking of supplying shifter karts ( stock power or more ) for league/club racing Gotta love shifter kart I can also adjust max steering angle, default on all cars in GT5 is 40, I prefer 30 to 35 for track racing, 50 to 70 for drifting.

 

[Amor_Fati]

I always got that feeling in Forza Motorsport, havent set any time at Laguna on GT, will try it when i got home

 

[playnthru]

Anyways, playnthru, specifically which corners are off-camber?

The ones that are not 'on camber' of course.

Don't believe me, try google.👍

 

[David Bailey]

A good example is the first few turns at the nurb (the 21km one I mean) you can feed the car through the corners & get on the power early for a fast exit . If you get on the power to early at laguna your off into the sand. Its weird because when you watch a race on TV there the course seems quite banked.

 

[VBR]

Does anyone else have any theories?

I have one! Laguna Seca is one of those tracks in GT5 that suffers from the cold tyre bug. If you set an online lobby to load the track with the room, the tyres will warm up fine, but if you choose the track after coming into the room the tyres will stay blue longer & not warm up properly. Mind you, if you're having the same problems offline as well, then this theory isn't the answer.

 

[MistyRainne]

👍 I've never seen that approach to finding the banking of a circuit, but I like the idea.

Better than my original idea, which was to go there in a kart and eyeball it! Then while zipping around in that, I had another idea...

Anyhow, my question isn’t about the layout of the circuit, but about how the road surface itself feels “sticky”, that cars turn noticably less than expected given the same amount of steering input, than the same cars do on other tracks. And that’s before any wheels start squealing (losing traction, understeer).

Like I said, this is what happens to some (poorly-tuned) cars if you give them less-grippy tires, but Laguna Seca doesn’t feel slippery in any other way. Conversely, even though it feels sticky, it doesn’t feel like it offers more traction: put more-grippy tires on a car and it usually feels very nimble.

I rather like Laguna Seca, even as sticky as it is (“Oh, it’s all sticky! It’s covered in jam!”), so I’m not complaining about it. Just wondering why the road feels so weird there.

Everyone keeps saying “off-camber”, but just so we’re all on the same page, what exactly does that mean?

• The outside edge is higher than the inside. (Normal banking.) This is what my gravity experiment said is true of every corner at Laguna Seca.
• The outside edge is lower than the inside. (Inverse banking.) This is what I’ve been assuming “off-camber” means, but gravity says otherwise of Laguna Seca.
• The middle of the road is higher than the edges. (Normal crown.)
• The middle of the road is lower than the edges. (Wikipedia says this is called “adverse camber” in the UK, which is the term closest to “off-camber” that I’ve found there.)
• Or what?

 

[David Bailey]

Just because you can't find the term "off camber" on Wiki dosen't mean it does not exist.

 

[MistyRainne]

Just because you can't find the term "off camber" on Wiki dosen't mean it does not exist.

I guess you mean you want me to google for it, be self-sufficient, right? Well, I did, and the answer I found (amidst literally dozens of organizations with “Off Camber” in their name) says that it means a corner where the outer edge is lower than the inner edge.

Which is the exact opposite of what my gravity experiment showed to be true at all of Laguna Seca’s corners. (The Corkscrew notwithstanding. I think that section is beyond the reckoning of mere mortals.) That’s why I was confused: I assumed you were right, but the evidence said otherwise, so I wanted to check my assumptions.

So, cupcake, if you’re going to be condescending and unhelpful, at least be correct first.

 

[iamsupernasty]

Any corner that is not completely flat from side to side is considered to be off camber.

Typically the inside is lower than the outside to create a banking. This increases grip and allows you to carry more speed through the corner.

However, if you are offline even just a little bit, you fall out of the banking which hurts your cornering ability dramatically.

 

[byegad]

I found the track hard to learn due to the lack of distinctive roadside landmarks on the track side. I feel it's very low grip TBH but then the bends are way tighter when you look at the plan of the circuit than they seem 'from the car'.

 

[MrWednesday]

I guess you mean you want me to google for it, be self-sufficient, right? Well, I did, and the answer I found (amidst literally dozens of organizations with “Off Camber” in their name) says that it means a corner where the outer edge is lower than the inner edge.

This is my understanding of "off camber" as well. I'm used to the term being used to describe a turn where the track will fight the turning of the car, sometimes from the banking of the turn, sometimes from elevation changes in the middle of the turn. Vs. on-camber, where the track will help the car turn.

 

[Dragonwhisky]

I have one! Laguna Seca is one of those tracks in GT5 that suffers from the cold tyre bug. If you set an online lobby to load the track with the room, the tyres will warm up fine, but if you choose the track after coming into the room the tyres will stay blue longer & not warm up properly. Mind you, if you're having the same problems offline as well, then this theory isn't the answer.

I have experienced this bug first hand. Laguna is the worst track in GT5 for this. If the room is not set up from creation at Laguna, 8 times out of 10 this cold tire bug will raise its beady eyed head, wink at you, then snicker as you go sliding of into the sand where all its buddies can crawl on to your tires and do what bugs do, all the while, your wondering if someone put comfort hards and removed any aero fittings. It happens at other tracks as well. I hadn't joined the room prior to the reset but the host said just last Thursday that this bug snuck in to his Nurb/Nord room.

 

[vovillia]

Now that I think of it, keeping off camber in mind too, the best way to correctly go through the corners is to directly attack the apexes, instead of just brushing by them, this also goes for the corkscrew, you'll just have to make a mental note of where to point the car when going over it

 

[nk4e]

Ever keep track of anything graphical about the track?

 

[playnthru]

I guess you mean you want me to google for it, be self-sufficient, right? Well, I did, and the answer I found (amidst literally dozens of organizations with “Off Camber” in their name) says that it means a corner where the outer edge is lower than the inner edge.

Which is the exact opposite of what my gravity experiment showed to be true at all of Laguna Seca’s corners. (The Corkscrew notwithstanding. I think that section is beyond the reckoning of mere mortals.) That’s why I was confused: I assumed you were right, but the evidence said otherwise, so I wanted to check my assumptions.

So, cupcake, if you’re going to be condescending and unhelpful, at least be correct first.

Ever think your experiment is flawed? We're talking about a console video game here right?

Who's being condescending and unhelpful here. The track has off camber turns. Mainly the exit of turn 9 but it also has no camber turns. Which are nearly as bad! This is all easily googled information. I googled it in minutes (laguna Seca off camber, try it. http://www.grand-am.com/tabid/141/a...azda-Raceway-Laguna-Seca-with-Joe-Foster.aspx ...

GT5 had a grip update some time back. All grip was improved. Perhaps that's what you're feeling? I've never noticed any 'special grip' lapping Laguna Seca?