"New" rooftop race track

[JohnD]

Posted this at Virtula Racing, but it's really about Track Design.

Everyone must have seen the roof top test/track on the Fiat factory, used in The Italian Job. There is/was another one, that I have never heard of before!

A Belgian car factory, that originally made an extinct marque, Imperia, was later taken over by Standard to make Tens in Europe. Although Standard never used it, Imperias were tested on this dangerous looking track with extremely narrow steep corners.

You can see it on a Club Triumph thread at: http://club.triumph....896/s-15/#num18 The latest contribution shows that today, only two corners remain, and a large hole on the on-ramp, so there is no hope of getting a car on it now, let alone driving it.

BUT! I know that people design their own tracks on computer and drive them. Is it possible to recontruct a virtual Nessonvaux roof track, and put a cars on it? Anyone like to try?

John

[bio]

Hi,
the problem is that the link you provided doesn't work. The forum engine seems to truncate it - even in the source.

bio

[bio]

OK, I guess I got it. You mean this FIAT facility, right?

bio

[bio]

Oh, nice. I had a long comment with lots of photos about the Belgian track - and the forum engine swallowed it in whole...

[bio]

Let's try it once again...

OK, I guess I have found the Belgian track - or, rather what's left of it:

Looking at this image, those curves do, indeed look insane:



But, as the below image would indicate, not the whole track was on the roofs, only parts of it?



Anyway, it must have had a helluva atmosphere and was surely a special experience to roam past between those factory buildings:



To answer your question: yes, it's possible to recreate this facility and do virtual racing on it - but it would take quite some time possibly (depending on how accurate and lifelike the creator wanted it to be).

bio

[JohnD]

Apologies for the broken link!

The thread on the CT site mentions that the straight next to the main road runs through the car park, and this was the ground level entry and exit to the circuit. I didn't imagine it would be easy to simulate, just that it would be different!

best wishes
John

[bio]

If the aim is to simulate the driving experience then I persume it's a relatively simple task to recreate the track - provided there's enough data (track length, angle of elevation at turns, track width etc...). It's making it look like the original that would be the time consuming part.

Given the data, a track that could be used to simulate the driving experience itself would be the matter of a couple of hours I think. It wouldn't look much like the original, but would give the same driving experience.

bio

[bio]

Looking at the images... was there really nothing to stop the cars at the end of those banked corners? Just imagine negotiating a turn like you see on that last b&w image a couple of comments above. One wrong move and your car would be catapulted into the nearby woods...

bio

[JohnD]

There wasn't much to stop anyone flying off the bends at Monza!
I've seen the film Grand Prix, but I've also been there and stood at the top of the banking. The old Armco is still there, held in place as it was in the day by wooden posts!

They were heroes.

John

[SKG]

That Black and White photo showing the narrow straight into the 2nd banked corner makes this little circuit look. .. terrifying! Although I suppose the speeds reached would not be very high with the cars being tested at the time. I saw on Wikipedia that the track was just over 1km, would be interesting to see where the rest of the track went, is it just those 2 Square bends from the aerial photo?