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Old 13 Apr 2013, 11:18 (Ref:3233382)   #4
Yannick
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Join Date: Apr 2006
Posts: 2,098
Yannick should be qualifying in the top 10 on the grid
The "track designs" of mine which I have actually run on, are cycling routes on existing roads and treks around the area of the town where my parents live. One lap or stage or whatever you would want to call them, usually is 20 to 40 km in length. The region has rolling hills and some short steep climbs, too, so it's quite fun to cycle there. I like to include some sort of sprint stages, mountain stages and cross stages (usually along a short part of unfortified trail), too. I had to miss out on that fun for the last two summers, though, due to work commitments.

In my teens, some 20 years ago, I used to run oval races on bicycles with friends in the backyard of my parents which was lined by hedges. That was a lot of fun. The hedges provided good protection from falling outwards at the end of a corner. There were never more than 3 people actually in such a race, though maybe 5 or 6 would actually have fit onto the track. We always had to sweep the area of the track clean with brushes every time before we went racing to clear the stuff falling down from some trees growing over the track. A friend of mine and I had agreed to do the cleaning on an alternating basis, one day me, one day him. At one point, I was sick of him not sticking to our agreement, having sweeped the floor for several of his stints in a row, too. So I said either you sweep it, or we run on the dirty track. Even though he was some years older than me and, in retrospect, should have been somewhat more responsible, he said no and we started our race that day on the dirty track. At one point, he overtook me going into turn 3 on the inside line but then, his bike tripped over a plum stone, he fell and sprained his ankle. That was the end to this sport because my parents intervened.

If I was better at computing and had more patience with myself and the machine, I'd most certainly use Bob's Track Builder to let some of my racetrack designs go live in a racesim, but for that to happen, I would need the help of a patient instructor with lots of experience with this software who lives locally. So this is highly unlikely. But I have run on some of my track designs in the past, even if it was "just" cycling.
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