Monday, November 10, 2014

Oklahoma Superspeedway


I haven't done one of these in a long time! I used to make formula 1 tracks, but this is one of the most in depth one I made. 

A few weeks ago, my roommate and I went to Talladega for the NASCAR Sprint Cup race. I've had an idea for a while that I've pitched to my friend, and he was on board but said "they'd never build one of these again". But from the start, I chose Oklahoma as the location for the fake track. Talladega is between Birmingham and Atlanta to draw fans from both cities. This one would be near the highway between Oklahoma City, and Tulsa.

Anyway, it's an infamous super speedway like Talladega and Daytona. Those two tracks are tri-oval shaped. This one would be different. It's an oval track, that hypothetically would provide the same super speedway racing that everyone loves. The front and back stretch are three quarters of a mile. Each turn would be a half mile, at 33 degrees. So it'd be a 2.5 mile track. Basically, it would be a big turn leading to Talladega's backstretch twice a lap. Most big crashes happen coming out of turns, so I made sure to give a lot of space on the apron to spin. The backstretch is limited due to the pits and road course(which I'll get to later). Daytona and Talladega don't have much grass anymore due to them not wanting cars to hit a lip and flip. I tried to design the big track with safety in mind. There's one big grand stand with sights in mind. The track would be north-south, with the stands on the west to block the sun during late Sundays

The road course is so the track wont only host events one or two weekends a year. The road course was designed with IndyCar or sports car in mind. The big front stretch remains in play, before a chicane. The inner track on the turns are along the wall, not effecting the super speedway. The layout was designed to fit in the open area. I used the Indianapolis Motor Speedway course and the Yas Marina circuit in Abu Dhabi as inspirations with tight corners and rhythm sections.

The inner part has enough room to house 3 series worth of cars and trucks seen on a normal NASCAR weekend. There's a big entry/exit to help the evacuation of the track before and after a race. The only other thing I want to mention is the white designs between the tracks and road. If I had my way, the track would be totally Green. I put 6 big wind turbines to power the track, provide a backdrop to the shots of the backstretch.