A V8 Supercar is essentially NASCAR that can corner a bit better. I know a lot of V8 Supercar fans think this is an outrage, but they are both "stock cars" with relatively the same power to weight ratio and look about them. So Bathurst wouldn't actually be a bad option... plenty of Aussies follow NASCAR now because of Ambrose and that would be pretty cool to see him come back to his "homeland" to race. He would be a hero if he won, which he probably would!
I know that Purist is always the one that does the track design business, but here's my crack at something detail-oriented. I've done some thinking about it and I've picked out a few tracks that would be noticeably better for a NASCAR race than others, the best of which is...
Hungaroring: One of the major things that one should look for when hosting an event with big heavy beasts like NASCARs is how much runoff the first corner has. With drivers that are relatively inexperienced on road courses charging down into the first turn with 800 HP, 3000 pound racecars approaching 200 miles an hour, a race organizer would want a pretty forgiving first corner. Hungaroring has just the thing - a relatively fast, extremely wide first corner with lots of runoff, almost identical to Watkins Glen's first turn in that way. Turn 2 is not quite as forgiving, and it narrows down, but the speeds wouldn't be nearly as great and there would be three wide passing row after row of cars. And then coming out of the kink that is turn 3, turn 4 would be extremely fast but, yet again, has lots of runoff. The rest of the turns speak for themselves - plenty of runoff, lots of variety, but not very hard on the brakes with the exceptions of turn 1 and turn 11. A NASCAR Cup car would probably run a time just a bit slower than a ELMS GTC car, so probably a 1:46-1:50.
Also, Dijon-Prenois, Imola, and Hockenheim come to mind. Dijon-Prenois has plenty of long, fast straights and wide, sweeping corners, almost oval-like. There would be plenty of room to pass, but decisive moves wouldn't be the key; it would be more about gaining speed entering the wide corners to power out of them than anything else. Imola has plenty of fast corners but also many corners where drivers could make decisive, bold moves. Hockenheim has a wonderfully wide turn 1, but a turn 2 and 3 that are absolutely superb for passing. The only drawback for Hockenheim would be the brakes issue.
19 Jul 2013, 21:28 (Ref:3279508)
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