Up, running, and already changing the layout

An interesting thing happened when I added the grass mat [hereby forever known simply as "grass"]: I took out the elevation and got almost two feet more room on either side. So I lengthened the backstretch by two lengths and added a left/right/left infield:

I'm now able to race at night without waking my 2 year old daughter up. Pretty impressive.

Adding that part [where the car is] to the infield to make it an infield worked out for now. The table will be expanding off where that post is, so I'll likely redesign the entire layout to fit. I'm going to try to keep it open and flowing, but with some challenging bits. I'd like to replace some more 1/60s with some wider radius turns. Something like that infield being done with 2/30s instead of 1/60s would mean you could go through it faster, get more flow...hell, I'll probably get crazy and use multiple radius turns together! That's it!

I touched on this before, way back around Post #13 from this blog. I have curves of four different radii now. I'm going to hit the track editor and see what I can make out of them. I don't mind tight curves, but not two of the same radius together, if I can help it.

Here's the other side, for those interested. 

I haven't taken any lap times yet, although I'm about ready to. I still want a little more time on the track, getting used to it being flat and slightly different. Once I get a chance to do that with a few cars I'll give 'em all a go and see what happens.

The Porsche is LOVING the new layout. Any opportunity to add more straights is okay by this guy.

So far the Matra, Porsche and Alfa are responding best to the changes. The Fords are better in a straight line, and tend to get a little squirrely through the curves. The new infield replaced the front straight, which gave the longer Fords an advantage.

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As I'm racing and have now put down the grass, I no longer am thinking about the unfinished state of the track. I'm already pretty happy with it, and I think this will keep my interest for awhile. This winter/spring got kinda messed up due to the wasp situation, and I'm glad that's over. It's too hot to race in the day right now, but not at night. We're also having some cooler days lately, so that's good.