Track design and safety
09-29-2017, 02:49 AM
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Track design and safety
Hi all,
This is something that comes to my mind every time I watch race videos - there are tracks, like Laguna or Le Mans where most important corners have plenty of run-off with sand or gravel pits to catch a car or bike. However, there are other tracks like Sonoma where even though there is run-off, it's just earth with grass (mostly dead grass, but still) which is very slippery. At least the sides are clean and no significant drop off between tarmac and run-off, but considerable banks which can turn a car into a salvage metal. Then there are those like Willow Springs - rocks in run-off, drop-off on inside and outside edges of the corners, weird shape chicanes, banks close to turns, sand on tarmac, outside corners have walls and inside have sand.
Some of these tracks are inherently worse in case one goes off the pavement. It is much more likely that the car will roll if it catches sand sideways when loosing it and tracking into inside corner. At the same time having banks or walls on the outside of a corner is just a sure way to destroy the car one goes outside. Common sense would say that outside corners along the the corner entrance vector should have sand/gravel or at least compact dirt/grass with very long run off so that the car will slide and stop after a good distance. Inside corners on the other hand are probably best to have pavement, packed dirt or grass in worst case scenario. When going off payment on outside - car is likely to go a fair distance as the cause if often too much speed. At the same time too much input or wrong line is likely to cause someone to spin and end up on the inside (often shorter distance is required to stop since car loses a lot of speed in the initial spin.
So the questions
1) which tracks would you consider to have better design and to be safer and which ones would you say are worst in this regard?
2) Why isn't there enough pressure on track owners to correct those or at least to perform basic maintenance and fix drop-off, move banks a bit away from frequent run-off points, etc (Willow Springs comes to mind here). I'm sure it ain't cheap to fix and proper design in the first place would have been nice, but I would imagine that racing community could drive owners to do a better job for everyone's benefit (fewer wracked cars for owners, less hassle/insurance/EMT costs and downtime for owners.
This is my noob analysis, so feel free to correct if I'm way off. I could be giving this too much significance, but I really dont like seeing people wrecking cars because a mistake on their part combined with mistake of track designer/owner/maintainer can't really lead to any other outcome. It is assumed that drivers will make mistakes, so the space should be as forgiving as possible IF one goes off track. Not to say that track should be easy, just safe.
This is something that comes to my mind every time I watch race videos - there are tracks, like Laguna or Le Mans where most important corners have plenty of run-off with sand or gravel pits to catch a car or bike. However, there are other tracks like Sonoma where even though there is run-off, it's just earth with grass (mostly dead grass, but still) which is very slippery. At least the sides are clean and no significant drop off between tarmac and run-off, but considerable banks which can turn a car into a salvage metal. Then there are those like Willow Springs - rocks in run-off, drop-off on inside and outside edges of the corners, weird shape chicanes, banks close to turns, sand on tarmac, outside corners have walls and inside have sand.
Some of these tracks are inherently worse in case one goes off the pavement. It is much more likely that the car will roll if it catches sand sideways when loosing it and tracking into inside corner. At the same time having banks or walls on the outside of a corner is just a sure way to destroy the car one goes outside. Common sense would say that outside corners along the the corner entrance vector should have sand/gravel or at least compact dirt/grass with very long run off so that the car will slide and stop after a good distance. Inside corners on the other hand are probably best to have pavement, packed dirt or grass in worst case scenario. When going off payment on outside - car is likely to go a fair distance as the cause if often too much speed. At the same time too much input or wrong line is likely to cause someone to spin and end up on the inside (often shorter distance is required to stop since car loses a lot of speed in the initial spin.
So the questions
1) which tracks would you consider to have better design and to be safer and which ones would you say are worst in this regard?
2) Why isn't there enough pressure on track owners to correct those or at least to perform basic maintenance and fix drop-off, move banks a bit away from frequent run-off points, etc (Willow Springs comes to mind here). I'm sure it ain't cheap to fix and proper design in the first place would have been nice, but I would imagine that racing community could drive owners to do a better job for everyone's benefit (fewer wracked cars for owners, less hassle/insurance/EMT costs and downtime for owners.
This is my noob analysis, so feel free to correct if I'm way off. I could be giving this too much significance, but I really dont like seeing people wrecking cars because a mistake on their part combined with mistake of track designer/owner/maintainer can't really lead to any other outcome. It is assumed that drivers will make mistakes, so the space should be as forgiving as possible IF one goes off track. Not to say that track should be easy, just safe.
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