Kart circuit challenge

[luke]

I thought it would be cool to do a kart circuit challenge, where we have to design a track, for those who race karts I'm sure some would like to do some edits, in particular Bayford Meadows.

[the_royksopp]

While we're at karts,

OT: Crozier, i saw you added a bunch of danish karting circuits at racingcircuits.net - That really surprised me! . Any particular reason, or did you just randomly pick a silly looking country up north? .

[crozier74]

Haha, excellent! Good onya for starting this thread Luke, could become a firm favourite of mine - combining two of my favourite aspects of motorsport (karting and circuits)

Ah, yeah TR, does look kinda impressive having my name cover half the page eh? Not really no, what I did was spend a wee while putting together a spreadsheet database of kart circuits (that's the "info 20-2-05.xls" you see quoted as a source), which contains around 500 circuits (or variants at least). What Dan seems to be doing is working through the countries in alphabetical order - notice Austria, Belgium and Czech Rep have been done too, Finland and France next

Right, back on topic, I'll do some stuff for this thread within the next few days, but no promises, as I'm inundated with exams at the end of this week (Geography, Computing and English). If I don't, I'm relying on the rest of you to fill this one with posts and keep it near the top

[crozier74]

Here ya go Luke.



The circuit on the whole ain't too bad, but that infield is just too damn slow and mickey mouse, and ruins the circuit IMO (although I don't know what it's like to drive, so I might be totally wrong ). Anyway, I considered just bypassing that section completely, but felt that would be too boring and obvious, so I stuck in a chicane where you charge flat out over the kerbs, a nice little flick and hopefully quite good fun, vaguely reminiscent of the one coming into the last corner at Llandow (I know, I'm speaking giberish to most people here now See this video, it's the left-right-left flick as the karts come towards the cameraman). Now, whether to make those kerbs lovely and smooth or rough as hell ones which shake your bones... hehehe...

BTW people, that last corner is famous is British karting circles, as the rest of the track is fairly flat, and then all of a sudden that one corner is built on a huge mound!

Got a few ideas for kart circuit challenges now...

[Fish_Flake]

Kart tracks are the worst. 99.9% of kart tracks fold inside themselves repeatedly in a nauseating Mickey Mouse pattern, like the one in the photo above.

I'll give one a try, though, once I get back in the mix. (And I will get back in the mix...)

[luke]

Originally Posted by Fish_Flake

Kart tracks are the worst. 99.9% of kart tracks fold inside themselves repeatedly in a nauseating Mickey Mouse pattern, like the one in the photo above.

I'll give one a try, though, once I get back in the mix. (And I will get back in the mix...)

I wouldn't say kart tracks are the worst, there's losts of good tracks out there like Clay Pigeon, Lydd and Buckmore and you can hardly call FPI tight and twisty and they're not micky mouse, and there is some good tracks out there although I'll agree on Bayford it is to twisty, but has a nice facility, I'll have a go later at editing it.

[crozier74]

Oh FFS, not again. Sorry Fish, but your last post just typified the kind of attitude that makes being a karter suck on occasion. It is quite probably THE #1 most misunderstood motorsport. **** the crappy little indoor tyre wall marked out ****holes that give our sport the bad name that results in views like that. Don't slag "99.9%" of them off until you've seen any proper ones at all. I know of a lot of car tracks that are so much more mickey mouse than the better kart tracks. Although admittedly Luke didn't help there by posting one of the twistiest tracks in the country. And beside, the point is with kart tracks that the layout isn't everything - karts are fun to drive and easy to race on almost any layout. I've gone on about this subject twice on the net already, and can't be arsed regurgitating it, so see here and here. This is the main reason why I'm working with Dan on the kart circuit database, to clear up this misunderstanding, and give everyone a balanced viewpoint.

[/rant] Peace dudes

[luke]

As crozier said 9 times out of 10 kart circuits are fun to drive and not micky mouse, well that's indoor tracks, but I can agree with you that most indoor tracks are on the micky mouse sdie but are just for fun.

Bayford isn't that bad a track, just it has one to many corners, and doesn't really have long straights that's why I wanted to do an edit Lol.

[Mike_Wooshy]

i find that kart tracks are ment to be more mickey mouse as the fun is chuckin the kart into the corner and holdin on while you go through, at what feels insane speeds, thus this type of driving lends itself well to mickey mouse tracks. As normal motor racing is slow down and power through the corner, which lends itself to circuits we are more used to.
Those who say they are the worst, obviously hasnt driven a go kart around a circuit, as they acclerate pretty fast on short straights, there isnt a need to have a long straight, like for cars.

[the_royksopp]

**** the crappy little indoor tyre wall marked out ****holes

'Guess you hit the Freedom-of-Speech-Limiter there .

[crozier74]

LOL!

Anyhoo, back on topic. And from Kent, to a challenge at the other end of the country for y'all now - Boyndie, Aberdeenshire. The track used to be nice and technical, but in 2003, to celebrate the 40th anniversary of racing at the track, the committee decided to loosen the flow of the circuit. The plan backfired however, and now the track has been criticised for being too boring, not challenging enough, and relatively difficult to pass at. However, the club are not willing to go back to the original layout. Your mission (should you choose to accept it ) is to make the current track more technical and easier to pass at, whilst keeping a better flow than the original switchback-hairpin nature of the original track.

Original track


Current track