Join me on a virtual tour of the world one racetrack at a time. This time, we travel to the Southeast of the USA to visit Roebling Road.

TLDR

I’m sorry if this is your home track. Grade D. E30 delta: 1:24. 86/ND 1:25.

Environs

Roebeling Road Raceway is pictured in the center of the satellite photo above. I can’t imagine that its suburban location is appreciated by the neighbors. There are houses just a couple hundred feet away from the track. A high speed incident could send you into someone’s house if there weren’t trees in the way.

Club

The track is rented by a variety of racing and HPDE organizations like SCCA, NASA, Porsche owners club, Hooked on Driving etc. The prices are sort of typical for the USA. The track hosts events year-round and is booked almost every day.

Turn by Turn

Turn 1 and Turn 2 form a long, high-speed carousel. The first part is taken in high gear with gradual slowing. At some point, you have to shift down as it tightens.

Turn 3 can be taken flat out in the ND.

Turn 4 is another carousel that tightens at the end. It’s slower than T1-T2, but otherwise sort of similar.

Turn 5 is another carousel that tightens at the end. This time, it’s a left turn.

Turns 6 and 7 form yet another carousel. This one doesn’t tighten, so you can get some drive out of it.

Turn 8 is labeled for some reason, but it’s a straight.

Turn 9 is a very high speed entry onto the main straight. It’s probably a little thrilling in real life.  But in the sim world, it’s just hold your steering wheel and mash the throttle.

Ranking

In some ways this track is very similar to the last track (Putnam Park). Both are flat and have more turns than straights. However, this track sucks and Putnam Park rules.

Whoever made this track had an evil sense of humor. I actually love decreasing radius corners because nothing separates good drivers from bad as quickly as a decreasing radius. However, they take it too far at Roebling Road. I think they are trying to kill cars. These very long corners basically say “if you have a stock oil pickup, prepare to spin bearings”. Almost every corner is a carousel that tightens at the end. Are they trying to get that last bit of oil to the side of the pan? Or are they trying to mess with drivers who robotically hammer the throttle as soon as they see the exit? Either way, it’s pretty cruel.

There are some tracks I have driven in the real world that I would not return to even if I could drive them for free (Watkins Glen, I’m looking at you). There are other tracks that I wouldn’t drive in the real world because driving them in simulation isn’t even worth my time (Daytona, I’m looking at you). Would I drive Roebling Road in the real world? For free, in someone else’s car, on all-season tires, yes.

Data

I ran as low as 1:22.627 in the E30 and 1:24.265 in the ND. I’m sure I could go faster, but I could only take so much of this. The ND trace is shown below. As you can see, I didn’t use the brakes very much. I’m setting the E30 delta a 1:24 and ND/86 at 1:25.

YSAR is touring the world one track at a time. This time we head to Indiana (it’s in the middle of the USA) to visit Putnam Park.

TLDR

More flow than a firehose. Grade: B+. E30 delta 1:23.

Environs

Putnam Park is about a 45 minute drive West from Indianapolis, the capitol city of Indiana. The track is surrounded by farmland, so it’s fitting that the entrance looks like you’re heading into a ranch. I used to live in Indiana, and the Summers can be a brutal mixture of hot and humid. But the Fall and Spring are absolutely gorgeous. There is snow in the Winter, so driving from December through February is limited.

Club

The track is rented out by various organizations for typical track day prices. There is also an exclusive member package. There are only 150 members at a time. Membership isn’t all that cheap at $7,500 for 3 years plus $5,000 annually (families add $5,000 per person). Imagine you went to the track 20 times per year, that’s $625 per day. Membership isn’t meant for casuals, but rather those serious drivers who want to get on track 50 ($250 per day) or more times per year.

Turn by Turn

Turn 1 is mostly dominated by the heavy braking zone from the long main straight. The straight afterward is short, meaning this isn’t an in-slow-out-fast Type I corner but rather a keep as much speed as you can Type II corner.

Turn 2 arrives quickly and is a typical 90, so you can take this in the Type I manner.

Turns 3 and 4 need to be considered together. Turn 4 opens and ends in a longish straight. So you want to optimize T4. However, it’s very easy to try to do too much in T3 and then end up getting to far away from the apex of T4. Show some discipline here.

Turn 5 has a slight rise and therefore a blind entry. Let me give you a little secret for blind entries. On the first lap or two, skid your tires and make a reference point for your following laps.

Turn 6 should be flat out. Cut the apex a little.

Turn 7 arrives much sooner than you think and it’s well over 90. It’s very easy to mess up this corner by entering too fast or adding throttle too soon. There’s a good straight following, so this is 100% a Type I corner.

Turn 8 is called Dead Bear Turn for reasons I don’t know. It looks like a simple carousel from above, but it’s not. The entry is tight, there’s a tiny straight in the middle, and then it turns up at the end. There are several ways to try solving this puzzle. 2 corners? 1 very late apex? Double apex? Added to this, is that much like many corners on this track, you may find yourself between gears. GLHF.

Turn 9 is a medium speed flat corner that sets you up for the final Turn 10, which is really critical. To get the most speed on the very long main straight, you have get the angle right through the T10 entry. If you overspeed or underspeed the exit of T9, you might mess up T10.

Ranking

If you’re going to build a racetrack on flat ground, you could learn a few things from the design of Putnam Park. The rhythm of the track is “let me present you with an interesting challenge” followed by “now have a short rest”.  I think this would make a great training track, especially for the 3rd-gear-no-brakes drill. There are a couple configurations that add chicanes and the track can be run in reverse. If you’ve never run a track in the reverse direction, it’s like having 2 completely different tracks in the same location. I rate this track a B+, which is pretty high considering how flat it is.

Data

I got to the point where I could lap just under 1:22. My best was 1:21.773. Lap times in the 86 and ND were about a second off. The E30 delta time is 1:23 (1:24 for 86/ND).

Let’s tour the world through the lens of sim racing! This time our adventures land us back in Canada. Hello Toronto Motorsports Park (aka Cayuga).

TLDR

Flat as your mom’s ass with more compromises than a school lunch. Grade: B. E30 delta 1:26 (86/NA 1:27).

Environs

TMP is located about an hour and half Southwest of Toronto. It’s actually a little closer to Buffalo, New York than Toronto. The surrounding area is farm land (both crops and wind energy). The area is flatter than most air ports.

Club

TMP sessions are $190 for the day and $120 for the evening. That’s pretty inexpensive even before the exchange rate. You can also get a season pass for $2990, which is a steal if you’re a track addict. As an added bonus, maybe you’ll run into the guys from Speed Academy. Their YouTube channel is one of the few I subscribe to.

Turn by Turn

Turn 1 is a little tricky because it looks like a 90 from inside the car, but it’s actually greater. So the apex is later than you think. There’s a long straight afterward, so this is a great place to practice your Type I, late apex line they taught you back at your first track day.

Turns 2 and 3 are an annoying distance apart. Should you take this as a single, large decreasing radius corner or as 2 separate corners? Try it both ways. The exit of T3 sends you left, but you need to get track right for T4.

Turn 4 is a typical compromise. You can lose a lot of speed in T5 if you mess up T4 and T3 before that. Carrying speed through T5 means compromises at both T4 and T3. Or you can drift the whole complex and feel like a hero.

Turn 6 is “just” a hairpin. There aren’t many reference points, so doing this one consistently well is hard.

The chicane at Turns 7 and 8 is annoying. I’m not sure how big the curbs are in real life, but they really upset the car in Assetto Corsa (I’m using the pclipse 1.1 version of the track). This may throw off your braking for T9.

Turn 9 is another compromise because it is quickly followed by the hairpin at Turn 10.

Turn 11 is another compromise to set up the final corners.

Turns 12 and 13 should be taken as one big carousel. A tiny lift at the center will help you point down the track. It’s easy to run into the K-wall on the exit if you don’t rotate enough.

Ranking

Despite the flatness, there are some really good puzzles to solve. It’s a good educational track because it will break you of the in-slow-out-fast mentality. It’s very much “easy to learn, hard to master”. The track is more B- than B, but I’m giving the higher grade because it’s pretty cheap in the real world. Also, the track in the virtual world is well done.

Data

My fastest time was a 1:24.32, but I had a hard time being consistent. Part of this is the lack of reference points, but the other part was trying to find the best way around the track. I’m setting the E30 delta at 1:26 (1:27 for NA/86). If you want a little more challenge, try beating the delta time 3 laps in a row (consistency is hard here).

YSAR has been touring the world via sim racing. This time, we head to the Pyrenees to visit the ancient city of Pau. Thanks YSAR reader Matt L for suggesting this location.

TLDR

Suddenly I’m a huge fan of street circuits? Grade: A. E30 delta 1:37 (86/ND +1).

Environs

Pau is small city (~80K people) in the Southwest of France, just 50 km from the Spanish border. The city is rich in history, having been inhabited for over 1,000 years.

Track

Unfortunately, the Pau city track closed just a couple years ago (2023). One of the great things about sim racing is that we can race on tracks we would never get the opportunity to drive in real life. Pau is thick with racing history, having seen victories from Juan Manuel Fangio to Lewis Hamilton. Although you can’t race through the city streets, I think it would make a great place for a casual stroll.

Turn by Turn

Turn 1 is very fast, and if you have the wrong geometry, you end up having to slow down. You sort of have to smush the nose of the car into the inside wall and hold it there on the way into T2.

Turn 2 is an uphill hairpin that is a little blind. You’ll have to do this many times before figuring out the correct geometry.

Turn 3 and Turn 4 are back-to-back hairpins that are tight enough that you may want to get to 1st gear, depending on the car. If you like these kinds of corners, then you’ll love the Trento-Bondone hill climb (one of the default tracks in Assetto Corsa, and a great place to work on your hand position).

Turn 5 is a long arcing corner that tightens slowly. You have to decelerate a little as you go. If you try to maintain or gain speed, you’ll end up washing out and having to lift later. Lift early or lift late? See which is better for you.

Turn 6 sort of continues the theme of T5. The corner continues to tighten, but in the opposite direction.  Eventually it opens up a bit, but then closes again. Frustrating.

Turns 7-10 form a difficult section of esses that end in a tight, long, left-hander. It’s very easy to overspeed each corner and mess up the next one. The fastest way through is by cutting distance. You’ll want to use the brake pedal to tighten corners.

Turn 11 is a downhill hair pin that leads to more esses in T12-15. There’s time to be gained hustling through these corners, but make no mistake, getting the angle through T14-T15 correct is critical for speed on the main straight. You can gain or lose 0.5 sec here.

Ranking

As a general rule, I don’t like street tracks. They are often flat and boring with too-long straights. Also, street circuits aren’t designed for safety. That said, Pau is more like a hill climb circuit, and blasting through the historic, twisty streets is possibly more fun than a purpose-designed track. Wait what? Who said that? I don’t even recognize myself anymore.

Data

My fastest lap in the E30 was 1:35.752. In the ND MX5, I was a second off: 1:36.806. The graph below shows 3 of my fastest laps in the ND. Getting down to a 1:35/1:36 requires everything going right, and that’s hard to do because there are curbs that upset the car and walls to avoid. I’m setting the E30 delta at 1:37 and the GT86/ND at 1:38. It may take a while to get those figures. I don’t meant to imply that I’m really fast, but that the track is difficult to drive cleanly.

We’re touring the world through the lens of sim racing. This time, we head to New England to visit Thompson Speedway Motorsports Park.

TLDR

It’s a good track with some head-scratching challenges. Grade B+. E30 delta: 1:28 (+1 for GT86/ND).

Environs

Thompson is located in a woody area a little over an hour from Boston. There’s a golf course across the street, but not much else nearby. It seems an excellent location for not pissing off the neighbors.

Club

Thompson is a private motorsports club with reserved member days, but it is also rented by various racing organizations. It is a popular destination for endurance racing series as well as drifting and oval track. The facility has everything you want from a Pro Shop to a restaurant. There are also several good areas for spectating.

Turn by Turn

I’ve raced at Thompson in real life and truly enjoyed it. The Assetto Corsa version of the track is pretty accurate.

Turn 1 has a heavy braking entry because the previous straight is so long and the corner is so tight. It’s very much connected to Turn 2, so I consider them the same corner. I don’t really approve of corners like this: they aren’t challenging and they abuse the vehicle.

Turn 3 looks like a simple 90 but I screw up this corner more often than not. There’s something about the entry that confuses me. There is enough of a straight afterward that this is a Type I corner.

Turn 4 is a very typical tight hairpin. More time is lost in hairpins than you might imagine, so this is good practice for any hairpin.

Turn 5 and 6 form a tight carousel or a loose hairpin. You can take several lines through this. In fact, you should experiment by taking this as a decreasing radius, increasing radius, or constant radius. Figure out which one works best for you.

Turns 7 and 8 form another 180 degree corner. That’s 3 in a row, but each one is very different from the previous. This one is the most difficult to solve. There’s so much asphalt to play with. Should you optimize speed or distance? Part of that answer is “depends on the straight afterwards”. In this case, that’s neither very long or very short.

Turn 9 and 10 form another interesting complex. The entry to 9 is long and fast, but you need to compromise the exit to optimize 10. Long decreasing radius corners are some of the most difficult problems for novice/intermediate drivers to solve because they want to take them as Type I corners, but the key is keeping speed, not shedding it.

Turn 11 sets up the main straight, so even minor imperfections will result in tenths of a second. You will repeatedly find yourself doing a great lap only to ruin the lap time on the “easy” final corner.

Ranking

Apart from the too long front straight followed by the too tight T1, Thompson is a joy to drive. It’s an excellent place to ask questions. Is it better to do this or to do that? Check your delta timer and learn. Grade B+.

Data

Most of my fast laps are in the low 1:26s, but somehow I was able to put everything together and manage a 1:25.810. I’m basing the delta on my more typical performances. I think 1:28 is a good challenge. 1:29 for the GT86 and ND. It’s hard to be consistent on this track so if you beat the delta regularly, you’re driving pretty well.

Let’s tour the world via sim racing! This time we head to Estonia to visit the Porsche Ring.

TLDR

Worth a quick visit in the virtual world and maybe a vacation in the real world. Grade C. E30 delta 1:33 (GT86/ND 1:34).

Environs

The Porsche Ring is located in the seaside city of Pärnu. This is apparently a popular Summer vacation spot, and it’s easy to see why. The city is home to about 40,000 people. Just inland, where the track is located, it’s mostly farmland.

Club

Never has a single track had so many names: Audru ringrada, auto24ring, Audru Ring, Pärnu Ring, Sauga Ring and EST-Ring. Is this a case of more is better or if at first you don’t succeed? Historically, the track has had several iterations, and this might explain all the names.

The original track was a street circuit. Although completely unrelated geographically and culturally, the mix of high speed and disconnected 90s feels very similar to another famous former street circuit: Watkins Glen.

The track doesn’t have many buildings, but there is a tower and a row of about 30 garages. How much does it cost to get on track? Only about $35 per hour. Estonia is starting to look like a great place to take a vacation.

Turn by Turn

Turn 1 is a pain in the ass. The straight leading to the corner is curved and very high speed. You end up being dumped into a very tight hairpin that is more than 180 degrees. T1 is frequently the site of motorsports crashes on any track, usually in the first lap. This probably causes crashes every lap.

Turn 2 isn’t really much of a turn. Why do they label that and not the turn leading up to T1?

Turn 3 through Turn 6 must all be considered together. The final part, T6 is critical for the high speed section that follows. You can mess up the whole thing by botching T3. However, you can also lose some time in the middle if all you do is think about T6. This is the most challenging part of the track.

Turn 7 is more of a straight than a corner. It is preceded and followed by long straights. That makes this whole section of the track really fast. The GT86 maxes out its speed (if you shift to 5th you go slower).

Turns 8-11 are all isolated, 90-ish degree corners. If you want to work on your in-slow-out-fast, this is a good track for that. Two lefts. Two rights.

Ranking

Whoever designed this track apparently thought that “annoying hairpin followed by super fast section followed by a bunch of 90s” makes a fun track layout. It doesn’t. I would give this a D if the location wasn’t so nice and the price so low. Grade: C. Would I do a track day here in real life? Absolutely, and I’d have a great day. But in the virtual world, it’s so much easier to click on something else.

Data

I ran a few laps in the E30 and got down to 1:32.035. My GT86 time was 1:33.041. Most of the time, these cars about 1 second apart, and that was certainly the case here. With more laps, I’m pretty sure I can knock off a half second. But I’d rather not spend any more time here. I’m setting the delta time at 1:33 / 1:34. Maybe you’ll like this track more than me. GT86 data shown below.