Track Testing - Outside Lane

It should come as no secret that all the time I run these races, I run them on the inside lane. Ever since the beginning, every race has been on the inside lane unless I specifically chose the outside. It might have happened early on, but I'm not sure.

But now that I'm getting the track into a permanent setup, I have to make sure to set up both lanes and not just one. It's easy when you're only running on the inside lane to focus banking to accommodate it while neglecting the outside lane. Ultimately I want both lanes to be even, although even in difficulty as well. Like the inside lane, I don't want it to be too easy.
Outside lane also has no borders and much of the track off the table surface, so it becomes quite a crash if you go off somewhere.

Inside lanes are traditionally the slower lane because of the larger amount of tight turns. People do everything they can to make sure they have exactly even lengths for both lanes of track, but that often requires an overpass somewhere.

Overpass is a dirty word to me. Sorry. I just don't want to use them.

That means my inside lane will be sharper, but it'll also be shorter. And right now, as the track is elevated but not yet bordered, it's quite perilous in some parts...some new, as-yet-to-be-of-circumstance parts. Getting the outside lane dialed in is going to be a little tricky, and may require rebuilding the elevation in some sections.

Where the inside lane gets this nice drift on the Turn 4 [middle right] left-hander to start the back half of the hillclimb, the outside lane rides the cliff. Not a good idea to get the tail out here. That's a 25 scale foot drop.

The outside lane itself is randomly rubbered-in, as a lot of the pieces have gotten use on both sides over time. But it's not race-ready rubbered-in like the inside lane is getting. The inside lane is starting to show visible tire lines, while the outside lane has remained untouched since I built the big track. When you spend most of the time racing against the clock, it's pretty rare for the two lanes to get equal use. I tend to usually treat the outside lane as my extended border. This of course has me thinking about getting some borders for my track. I'm already going to cut the under support wide enough for borders, and I was considering adding something to make it flush to the track, but I think it would be easier, cheaper and more precise to just get the borders I need and be done with it. I still need to think about this, though.

Since my plan is to build the supports based on the measurements I end up with, I want to make sure everything is satisfactory before I start doing any cutting of wood. The longer I test it and the more I mess with it, the better off I'll be when it comes time to cutting and replacing the supports with something more permanent. This care will have to be taken with both lanes of track. I don't want to get into a situation where I have to change something later because I neglected it now.

I'm going back to that style of support, only larger. Elevated too.

So I've been messing with the Sweeper, and trying to get it to bank. At first I was doing it like the photo above, but then I decided to get a little tricky and try to angle each track piece. In the process I think I made the track a bit unstable around there.

By putting these pins in, it's causing the track to not sit flush. Each piece is like a little hill, or speed bump.

So my plan, as it pretty much always has been, is to go ahead and elevate this section, but do so so that the Sweeper isn't banked as much as angled. Then, when it comes to the Davies Kink [like that?], I want to start a drop in elevation just after the first 3/30 curve going left. Then the drop happens all the way down to the end of the right 1/30 curve. It'll probably be a pretty big drop, so I'll have to wait and see if I can get it to work. It might end up being too much like the drop at Laguna Seca, and I don't know if I want that kind of thing as a feature on my track. Maybe I can find just the right balance of down, fast and drivable. It might require starting the drop before the end of the first 3/30.

__________

For kicks I decided to run some laps to see how each of the cars would do on the outside lane of the track. It's still 5º in the attic, so time is a factor, as is willingness to deal with the cold. But then I'm up there after already having run a race today, so I could actually stop and do this some other time. Yeah, right.

I ran each car for 50 laps. I knew some were going to crash, as the track isn't rubbered-down yet. So I'll include that info too.

Car           Time         Offs   Lap

#11         4:50.80         3        5.80
#8           4:21.28         0        5.22
#2           4:36.48         0        5.52
#5           5:08.50         2        6.16
LH          5:26.90        2         6.52


The cars are all over the place here. To me what felt like the way all of them should have run was with the Alfa. I can expect a half a second difference between the two lanes at this point, but I have a hard time believing a 1.5 second difference. Again, cold. I'm totally basing all of these numbers on cold factors. That and the lack of grip are the only ways to explain why, even though the Porsche crashed twice, it still wasn't up to speed and fishtailing so much.

Both times the Porsche crashed and one of the times each the #5 and #11 crashed were on the Sweeper. This is what's triggering me to go back to the other way of banking and see if that works better. Losing a car there will easily add 10 seconds to your lap time by the time you put it back on and get it running again. So hopefully a little elevation mixed with a little angle will stop that from happening as much. That turn is going to cost me about 30 bucks in borders.

The #5 also crashed on the hill climb at Turn 4 when his rears gave out. That's also about a 10-second re-slot job.

The Porsche on the entrance to Turn 4, inside lane.

It should be noted that the Shell car was 2/10ths away from breaking a 5-second lap. That's pretty incredible considering one of the other cars have yet to do that on the inside lane yet. In fact, high marks for the the #8 and the #2 cars this round.

The other car?  The #5.

I'll probably run the outside lane for a bit until I've gotten some good lap times from each of the cars. I'll do most of my racing on the inside, though. I'll likely do one or two on the outside lane after having a chance to work on it a bit, but then I'll go back to the inside.