2010 A/X Track Designs
Posted: Tue Aug 24, 2010 9:18 amI'd like to raise a glass to Don Auten.
Don has taken the track design bull by the horns and made it his bitch! I don't think he's borrowed much, if anything, from previous years' tracks. Starting essentially from scratch, he has come up with some outstanding courses. We've seen increasing and decreasing radius turns where off-camber is just as likely to help as to hurt. We've seen variably spaced slalom cones that reward those who are smooth on the gas or smooth on the brake, depending on the setup. There have been numerous "turns" which are cleverly disguised kinks, and straights disguised as rhythm sections, all of which reward looking ahead instead of picking out apex cones. There is the occasional gimick, some more successful than others, that at the very least prompt a lot of opinions! He has even come up with a system to rate track difficulty. I think it's more voodoo than science, but he's stuffed it into a spreadsheet and it spits out a rating.
The tracks evolve from month to month, each trying to incorporate lessons learned from the previous. He's managed to cater to both tail heavy and balanced cars. He has a design planned out well in advance, and there is never any scramble to "come up with something" at the last minute.
2010 will be a year remembered for its really, really fun tracks.
Bottoms up.
Don has taken the track design bull by the horns and made it his bitch! I don't think he's borrowed much, if anything, from previous years' tracks. Starting essentially from scratch, he has come up with some outstanding courses. We've seen increasing and decreasing radius turns where off-camber is just as likely to help as to hurt. We've seen variably spaced slalom cones that reward those who are smooth on the gas or smooth on the brake, depending on the setup. There have been numerous "turns" which are cleverly disguised kinks, and straights disguised as rhythm sections, all of which reward looking ahead instead of picking out apex cones. There is the occasional gimick, some more successful than others, that at the very least prompt a lot of opinions! He has even come up with a system to rate track difficulty. I think it's more voodoo than science, but he's stuffed it into a spreadsheet and it spits out a rating.
The tracks evolve from month to month, each trying to incorporate lessons learned from the previous. He's managed to cater to both tail heavy and balanced cars. He has a design planned out well in advance, and there is never any scramble to "come up with something" at the last minute.
2010 will be a year remembered for its really, really fun tracks.
Bottoms up.
(Thanks for the book. I'm really enjoying it. I'm about half way done.)
, fortunatly I have Don to keep me "on track". 
A track for a 924? It will be curious to see how he manages to make it all run downhill. 