San Benito Raceway (my first design here)

[clarkma5]

Hi, I found this forum when looking for some track design stuff and I've found it to be a really cool resource. I've tried my hand at a few track designs in my spare time over the years (none of which I can find, but oh well) and I have a formal education in civil engineering which means I know a fair deal about road geometrics and design, which is both quite interesting in its own right and somewhat applicable to race track design. I've also had the privelege of driving Buttonwillow and Laguna Seca here in California (the former, to me, a great example of a flat but technical track, while the latter is flowing and has lots of elevation changes) as well as the Nurburgring (what could I say about the 'ring that hasn't been said before?)

I tend to come at track design from the attitude of a club racer and track day enthusiast moreso than for big-name stuff like F1, MotoGP, WTCC, ALMS, etc. which is why I've chosen for my first design to do a club-ey style track. The location for this track is outside of Hollister, CA, not far from the greater San Francisco Bay Area. This is because, as a Bay Area resident, I live between Sears Point and Laguna Seca, two great tracks that are too busy and too expensive for amateurs to realistically enjoy! So this is kinda my fantasy for a club track that's a little closer to home than the current alternatives of Buttonwillow and Thunderhill.

One of my favorite things about club tracks are their versatility owing to their multiple configurations as well as the logistics involved in providing scaleable facilities (paddocks, pit lane, out buildings, etc.) that can serve one or two simultaneous tracks running at the same time. However, that's in the more advanced category for now so for this design I've stuck with a simple one-configuration track design. So with all that said lemme give a quick turn-by-turn of the track, which I call San Benito Raceway (it's next to the San Benito River):

-The property is bound on the north by a golf course, to the south by a quarry of some sort, to the west by the San Benito River cliffs, and to the east by California State Highway 25.
-The track is designed mostly to be run clockwise but it could be run either way.
-The elevations on the track range from about 510 feet above sea level at the pit lane to just over 580 feet above sea level over the turn 7c crest.
-The track is measured at roughly 2.65 miles long and is a standard 36 feet wide. I was shooting for it to be shorter, honestly.

-Turn 1 is a simple medium-speed constant-radius that comes after a fast section of track. Pit lane exit is off the racing line at corner exit.
-Turn 2 is a right-left complex with a tighter right opening into a wider left. Braver souls should get the jump to turn 3.
-Turn 3 is a tightening right-hander up a steep hill. I envision the banking starting out quite steep with it flattening out at the top just as the radius decreases encouraging late braking into the corner and caution coming out.
-Turn 4 is a fast right hander into the tight left turn 5, I envision it as off-camber...should be taken flat, with a lift, or with a dab of brakes depending on the car, but it's going to be a judgment call about whether you take the full racing line or set yourself up for the tight turn 5, as well as when to brake for 5.
-Turn 5 is a tight left hander with banking
-Turn 6 is an even tighter right hander with lots of banking to launch cars up the hill into the turn 7 esses.
-Turns 7a, 7b, and 7c are tightening esses, with 7c being over a crest. I envision most cars will accelerate through a and probably b too but c will reward bravery or chew up cars and spit them out. Plenty of runoff off c.
-Turn 8a just leads into turn 8b which is an increasing-radius right hander.
-Turn 9 is a flat jog to the right
-Turn 10 is perhaps the oddest part of the course, I call it "the roundabout" since it should be like going 270 degrees around a roundabout.
-Turn 11 is a steep downhill hairpin to the right and should feel something like the corkscrew (the grade is about 20% - roughly corkscrew-ish).
-Turns 12&13 - after letting gravity spit you out of 11, 12 & 13 should be very fast and make the speeds on the pit straight quite high coming back into turn 1. Pit lane entrance off the racing line past turn 13.

Anyway this is my first go at this so I'm really interested to hear your thoughts on all of this. Cheers

[Yannick]

First of all, welcome to the board. I'm impressed by your graphics, even though to you, they might be nothing special, because of your professional background.
But for me, they surely are, because I've been into this for years and still find guessing scale the most difficult thing about it.
I like the blot shape of your track. Especially the section from Turn 7a to the start-finish straight is very nice. Your roundabout is pretty unique, too.
There is only one section that I have a problem with, because it completely ruins the flow of the track for me. That's the tight section of Turns 4 to 6.
Would you mind going round less degrees in both Turns 5 and 6 or increase the radius of one of those?
I hope you like my suggestion.
Thank you for posting at My Tracks!

[LuiggiSpeed]

Welcome to the board!

You seem to have my exact same focus, club tracks and more down to earth stuff.
Love your design, very organic and fun, I have my reservations about T10, the roundabout, if run CCW you have a potential for a driver going out of the course and in again or slamming against an inner barrier(if it's there) since it's only 120' diameter for the whole roundabout.Seems a good deal of speed can be gained in the preceding section.

I would try to shape that in a more tangential direction, at least if running CCW so that an out of control vehicle would be spat outside the roundabout,not inside.Or you can also enlarge the roundabout a good deal, say make it 120' radius, that's a good 240' of empty real state,more appropiate and also it would make for a funnier ride,IMHO.

That'd be the only critique,otherwise it looks great.

Also, since you're a civil eng you can really enlighten us about the terrain prep before asphalt in diferent conditions, i.e. how much base needs to be under asphalt etc...

Luiggi

[LuiggiSpeed]

On another thought, I also would re-think pit by going straight after T12, so that no interference can be had in the final turn.

Aghh I'm getting too picky! never mind, just keep posting! lol

[Tathrim]

No, don't be too picky, as that would be the one thing that I'd do to change this circuit. Perfect first

[clarkma5]

Well thank you all very much for your comments! I didn't expect so many positive comments about my first try...my feeling was that, at least from turn 10 to turn 4, I had too many boring straightaways connecting up corners due mainly to the terrain. Anyone have thoughts on that? Also felt like a less than efficient use of the land. Lastly, I sorta picked turn radii a little randomly...I don't really have a great feeling for what's appropriate yet.

So I guess I'll respond post by post:
-Yannick: The graphics I owe to the USGS who are so kind as to provide high quality topographic maps of the entire country for free on their website. I can see what you mean about turns 5 and 6 ruining the flow, though I admit it was somewhat intentional...to me, "flow" sorta implies "fast" and I was trying to slow down cars at a couple places (5/6 and the roundabout). But I'll look into opening that up, particularly 6.
-LuiggiSpeed: The roundabout is what I had the most reservations about safety-wise as well. I really like your thought about changing the approaches to it, I would've never thought of that, though the more I think about it the more I realize that running this track CCW is a little impossible since turn 11 is soooo steep. However, coming out of turn 9 will still be reasonably fast so I might take your suggestion and improve the safety of the CW approach. And yes perhaps I could make a thread sometime about asphalt and concrete cross-section designs; I've got some pretty simple equations and summaries for it all.

As for the pit lane entrance, I must admit that was another area I was less than happy with. It seems to me that your suggested placement is better than the one I chose but I'm still afraid that that section of track is still quite fast for a pit entrance. Do you think mitigating that by widening the track at pit-in and using striping to delineate the pit lane would work?

[ScotsBrutesFan]

Well an interesting first post.

I like the idea of drawing over a genuine contour map. Can I ask whether your lap length and radius values are accurate (given the scale) or a guestimate?

Without knowing that I'll continue with a few observations.

For me there is too many turns/curves in a length of 2.65 miles that you have given.

Obvious concerns have already been mentioned, T10, the pitlane and also T4&T5

To address T10 might I be so bold as to suggest something similar to the infield 270ish degree curve on my Grafton Point infield. A simple modification eliminating 10c and straight lining off 10b to T11.

The pitlane would be ideal if the circuit was the other way around. However in this case I have issue with the exit, and the only way to solve it would be to move the entry.
Essentially flip the pitlane lines around so that the exit is on the S/F straight, with the entry either between T12 & T13 or as has been suggested already a straight on at T12 entry. The latter probably the better with it's own chicane beyond the gravel trap to reach the pitlane.

T4-T5 I don't think would work in the way you suggest. using a screen ruler widget (so not exactly accurate) and the scale shown, there is only 200ft (60m) between the 2 corners.
I think you would actually have to take T4 riding the brake (rather than a dab before) to get enough speed off for T5. In some ways it actually makes for a difficult corner.

A final comment about boring straights ... the S/F and the T10-11 straights are both under 2000ft (600m) with T2b-3 just under and T3-4 just over 1000ft (300m) so they are not exactly mind numbingly long or engine breakers for Clubbie or National class.

[clarkma5]

Yes everything's to scale, or at least within a couple percent. Mathematically it works out to about 5.20 feet per pixel and that's how I did everything. The length is less precise, measured with a ruler pressed to the screen (ha, how ghetto is that?) so that's probably +/- 10%.

Too many corners: That's a surprise to me. Any suggestions on areas to simplify it? Personally I'm not a fan of the turn 1/2a/2b complex and would like to simplify that.

T10: I'll give your suggestion a try, because it's a good one. I've currently done something that's kinda the opposite based on Luiggi's suggestions and I'll post that edit up in a bit.

Pit lane: I already moved the entrance based on earlier suggestions and I'll move the exit, because you are definitely right. Thanks for that.

T4: Thanks for your insight there. I definitely don't have the knack for knowing what distances and radii work, though riding the brake through T4 would be interesting in and of itself. I'll try and sort something different out for 4/5/6 based on your suggestions and those from up above.

Straights: Good to know. My pit straight started out as a half mile and has shrunk since then. I felt like a half mile was a bit on the long side but like I said it's nothing I really had a good intuition for.

I'll get working on a few edits for you guys to critique! Thank you for all the input.

[ScotsBrutesFan]

Here's a quickie edit showing a possible alternate to T4/5 with T1/2 made into a simple chicane and T10/11 as I described though possible adjustments for run off might be needed with the diameter of the "roundabout".
I've redraw the pit lane ut the pit area needs to move to the right accordingly.

I think I'd like to do something with the 7 and 8 Esses too something about them doesn't feel quite correct, but I don't know what I'd do to change them whilst keeping the feel of the circuit.

Yep Revise the pitlane and add changes to T2,4,5,10 and possibly 7 and 8.

Other than that perfect

[clarkma5]

Alright here's my edit trying some of your suggestions and a couple ideas of my own. Track length is about 2.6 miles (2.5 with the turn 9 bypass). Starting at the S/F line:

1) Pit exit is now before turn 1 as suggested by SBF.
2) Turn 1/2 complex is much simpler because it was too busy before. Also faster to compensate for shorter pit straight (see note #6 below)
3) Turn 3 is slightly longer now, though the radii are the same.
4) Turn 4/5/6 has now become 4abc/5...4 is now a chicane leading into a more wide-open 5.
5) The roundabout has been rotated by Luiggi's suggestion...there is now room for runoff for drivers coming hot off turn 8. Also provided a bypass so the roundabout doesn't have to be run all the time; bypass is somewhat "airport-style" due to the lack of a corner radius on exit.
6) Moved turn 11/12 farther from turn 10 hairpin in an effort to make the pit lane shorter. Pit entrance is now between turns 11 and 12 from everyone's suggestions.

Lemme know what you think.

EDIT: Didn't see SBF's post before this one.

[clarkma5]

Alright so based on SBF's last post I made a couple more tweaks:

1) Moved turn 11/12 back to where they used to be to make room for SBF's better pit entrance.
2) Straight-lined turns 6c and 7b to simplify that section of the track.

[LuiggiSpeed]

Just to take care of you concern about eficcient use of terrain,I took the liberty to add an imaginary section, adding a medium lenght section,heading to a set of light radiused esses,using elevational changes to add G's and some adrenaline,then a tight radius heading to the longest straight of the circuit,a 600m that has an intresting braking zone, due to extreme elevation changes,heading to a fast right that takes you back to the original trace, also provided a bypass for all that.

[clarkma5]

Yeah going for a more U-shaped course crossed my mind, and it would work, though you really can't have that straightaway there because that escarpment is just way too steep.

[TilkeWannabe]

Hi, clarkma5. I'll just say that the original was fine and quickly looking at the others, they all look great. That's a very interesting first track.

Judging by your background in civil engineering, that's just the beginning.

[ScotsBrutesFan]

Having re-read your intro...

I can see influences of Buttonwillow and Thunderhill. I'm not familiar with either but as soon as I found them on Google Earth the influences were obvious.

I do like how you have edited T4 into a variation of Thunderhill's cyclone

[clarkma5]

Glad to hear it. Yeah, I did borrow a lot from those two tracks. As you said, T4 is like the Thunderhill "cyclone" corner (albeit flatter, though it could be graded to be blind like the cyclone), and the esses were designed to be like Buttonwillow's esses with the turn 6c crest looking like the Lost Hill corner there. My original 4/5/6 also borrowed heavily from the Buttonwillow cotton corners complex in concept and, as I mentioned before, the turn 11 hairpin is like the Laguna Seca corkscrew. I was certainly trying to borrow a lot of Buttonwillow's technical flavor, because that's a huge part of enjoying a track to me...when you drive Buttonwillow it's not always obvious where your car should be and what the best line is. And even the instructors there differ on the best way to attack various corners. Makes the learning curve much steeper, and ultimately more rewarding.