Raven Park

[jab]

Raven Park - how it came about

I was bored this evening so I decided to partake in a little track designing, and I've cme up with what I think is one of my best tracks, and probably my best overall setting for a track - Raven Park. It's a fast layout with some long constant corners and a couple of tight, twisty bits as well to balance it out

Track setting and history

It is set around a park in rural England. The park is set around Raven Mansion, comissioned and owned by Sir Vincent Raven, the famous train designer, in the 19th century, along with the mansion grounds, which was quite a big area. It included a large patch of woodland and a lot of open countryside, with a couple of fields and stuff. The architect constructed a large beautiful garden, and also, little pond, but Raven wanted a larger lake. So, leaving the original pond, a larger lake was built, and filled with fish from the nearby river, as well as other fish bought by the owner to go in

Many years later, the house and area, now a bit worse for wear, was given to the National Trust, who restored it to its former glory. In 1958, using the roads around the estate, the park held its 1st race. It held a few occasional races, with a bi-annual meeting, alternating with another small local circuit. It was very popular, but a couple of serious accidents on the fast back stretch meant the installation of a tyre chicane just before the flat out double kink. Also, there was another problem - the grounds also became popular as a tourist attraction, one of the most popular in the area, especially with families

As the '60's progressed, the number of races decreased to nearly zero. But in 1973, the 15th anniversary meeting was held, and at that meeting it was announced that the National Trust and the local racing club had come to an agreement for the track to be modified, including an extension through the woods, and a slightly slower section between the Esses and the river crossing. A short circuit was also devised, coming off the main circuit by the pond and joining the nearby forest loop. Armco barriers were erected and run-off was increased. Unfortunately, this meant the loss of a small part of the garden, which didn't please some people

Through the late '70's, Raven Park was visited by a number of different championships, though just small ones. Larger championships didn't visit the circuit, mainly due to the high speed nature of some parts of the circuit, especially the woodland section and the part between The Valley and The Twist. So, in a bid to tempt some to the track, a chicane was installed after the fast right hander leading onto the back straight. However, this had an almost adverse effect, because with the nature of the chicane, it led to high speed attempts to drive through the chicane, bouncing across the kerbs, and although it caused a couple of big crashes, it remains pretty much the same today, and is one of the most popular corners on the circuit

In the mid 80's, it underwent another renovation. The field on which the paddock was stationed before was made more user-friendly, with tarmac replacing grass. More run-off was added and the barriers were replaced. In the woodland, a few trees that had been damaged in a storm were felled, allowing a little more space either side of the track down by Woodland corner and on the run towards Glade hairpin. A couple of the larger series, including the National Saloon Car Championship (now called the British Touring Car Championship), hesitantly booked weekends at the track towards the end of the 1980's, and the track started to become more popular than the estate itself. Despite this, improvements were made to the grounds, including the adding of a playground and portaloos, both of which gave their names to corners on the circuit, as did a newly-made sculpture of a Lotus 25 in the woods

The NSCC events were a big success and it held it's place on the calendar until 1994, when a huge crash at the Playground Chicane for Jan Lammers of Volvo spelt the end for the track's place on the calendar until more run-off was installed. Thus, work was done to improve run-off here and other places, but due to a lack of funding, this took longer than expected, and by the time the work was done in 1997, Croft controversially its promised place on the calendar, and the owners severed ties with the championship

Since then, the track has held British F3 and British GT races, as well as other smaller series, but it has stayed clear of the BTCC after the '97 debacle. Hopefully, though, soon all grudges can be forgotten and the track will feature in the country's top touring car series

A lap of the track

The track starts fittingly heading towards the large mansion, one of the most beautiful locations for a S/F line in Britain and possibly the world. The 1st corner, Garden Bend, is a right hander that is very tricky to take, because it's not a slow corner, but not particularly fast as well. It can be difficult for new drivers to learn. Another right, Pond, follows, next to the small pond. Then, it heads for another tight right at Gate, which is next to a large gate leading to the lake. The track then bends right through 270 degrees round the lake, hence the name 270 Lake. After this is Cenotaph, another tight-ish left hander near the war memorial for the local area. Following this is Cowfield, a sweeping left in the middle of a field where cows used to be kept for some reason. After this is where the old circuit used to swing through 180 degrees but the track now continues to the left and into the woods, passing one of the oldest trees in the wood at Old Oak, a deceptive left. Then, we pass the wooden sculpture of the Lotus at Sculpture, a right flick with little run-off on the outside. This is preceeded by the blast to Glade, a tight right hairpin at a patch of grass where trees didn't grow (or, as was in the '73 renovation, cleared - again, it didn't go down too well). There is then the long Hockenheim-esque blast through the forest back in the opposite direction, with the bumpy but flat-out Woodland left hander. There have been plenty of safety concerns over this corner over the years, but thankfully so far no serious accidents. There were plans at one point to install both a tyre chicane and modify the track to slow cars down, but they didn't see the light of day

Exiting the woods at high speed, a driver can be dazzled by the light, as at Monaco coming out of the tunnel. After the exit is the Sunlight Esses, so called because of the effect of the sunlight on the drivers. It's a tight, climbing s-bend well liked by the drivers as an overtaking spot and as a challenging corner. After this, the cars pass through what's known as "The Valley", where there are large grass bankings either side of the track, giving a sort of claustrophobic effect on the drivers. These bankings were and still are popular places of spectators to sit, although some of the new seating areas have cut down the spectators here. After the valley is the uphill sweeper at Portaloo, named because of the portaloos here - it surely must rank as one of the strangest corner names in the world. This corner cut inside the previous one when built in 1973, with the old corner leading onto the dangerously fast back stretch, and is unique in that it has quite steep adverse camber as it climbs uphill. After Portaloo is the famous Playground Chicane, where the cars jump from kerb to kerb in a similar fashion to the old Dingle Dell and Variante Alta chicanes. After this is more climbing on a sort of straight, but there is a slight left kink in the road. This then leads to The Twist, a tight left hairpin plunging downhill into a opening right. It is similar to the Corkscrew at Laguna Seca but not as steep. Then it is flat all the way to the finish. There's a left kink called, surprisingly, Kink, just before the track crosses the river, before a tight right at Riverside, next to the picnic area. The corner used to be a 90 degree right pre-73 at the end of the long back stretch, but the modifications led to the more interesting tight left hairpin followed by the fading left leading back onto the original circuit. The track crosses the river again over a narrow bridge, which can be a bit of a bottleneck, especially on the opening lap. It is followed by the tight right at Boundary, which marks the boundary of the land owned by Raven back when it was built, although it has since expanded over the years. This is the followed by the finale, Avon, which is allegedly so-called because the tyres work pretty hard coming round it onto the main straight

The layout of the track



Key: dark blue - current full layout
grey - short circuit
light blue - old circuit (now rarely used)

A map of the track and park



Well, that's my new track - comments and edits more than welcome as usual

[the_royksopp]

Whoa! Many 90 degree bends there! . Perhaps a few too many, although something about that track excites me. It's got a very classic feel to it.

[Rockmunky]

Nice one, i just love the fact that there appears to be a corner named Portaloo!

"and he's binned it in the portaloo!"

[ScotsBrutesFan]

It has a certain feel to it. It would be interesting if nothing else to see what cars would make of such a circuit.

I can just hear Charlie Cox commentating about Drivers throwing their toys out after making a mess of the playground Chicane.
Better change the name of Portaloo...Charlie would get pulled off air after making comment about a driver making an @R$€ of portaloo

[cosmicpanda]

It looks like something like an F1 car would find it very hard to overtake, even at the Sunlight Esses. However, I do like the Cowfield-Old Oak-Sculpture-Glade-Woodland sequence, which could be very fun.

[Yannick]

That's quite an extensive back story you've written to this track. Thanks for posting it. And there are some great corner designs included in the track as well. I especially like the 270 Lake and the section from the Sunlight Esses leading through the Valley, around the reversely cambered Portaloo (though my vocabulary fails me on this one) and the section from the Twist through Riverside.
But I'd love Pond and Sculpture become wider sweepers and I'd also push back Glade and Woodland further into the woods, for the track diagram would become a nicer blot shape then.
Still, congrats to you jab, since this is one of the best tracks on this board.

[jab]

Thanks guys

Yannick, a portaloo is a portable toilet - toilets in like a wooden cabin. They're put up for special events and stuff like that. And I think if I remember rightly, Sculture was supposed to be more of a sweeper when designing it, but as I'm not brilliant with these sort of corners, it ended up a bit tighter. Same with Avon as well

SBF, I'm most definitely not changing the name of Portaloo - it's probably the best corner name I've ever come up with!!

cosmicpanda, I didn't really design it with F1 in mind, so that's not really a problem

Actually, when designing the Valley-Riverside section, I had to fiddle around with it quite a lot, because I changed the original design after I'd finished it. I moved it side-to-side a number of times because an S-bend not too much tighter than the one on the old track I had put between Playground and The Twist I decided to get rid of. It took a while to get the hang of but eventually it came out quite nicely