racing line accidents

[jgraham]

The racing lines on my current track start and finish in the outside lane. When a car is closely following another car and the first car misses the racing line, the two cars often come out of the turn side by side, sending the outside car off the track. The simplest solution is to make the outside lane much longer, but solution just passes the problem to a third car. I'm considering building my second track using a different approach and I'm hoping for feedback.

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I want to reduce accidents while allowing passing. A driver is unlikely to use a lane change when another car is alongside. On this track, when a car is following another car and the lead car misses the racing line going into a turn, the second car can exit the turn beside the lead car, preventing it from using the racing line on the next turn. The straights are bent slightly to require alternating lane changes to hold the racing line. The track is 3.6m long (12') and 1m wide (3'3"). The outside lane has a 38cm turn radius (15"). The inside lane has a 25cm turn radius (10") entering and 30cm turn radius (12") exiting. The lane change has a 34cm turn radius (13.5").

[Lasp]

I like your problems.
As in real life, you have to take care, and respect other drivers!

Iam greathful for your drawings.

[Kellerkind]

...yes, shooting off another car is one of the games part . No, sorry bad joke. It happens and cant be avoided even when taking good care and when all drivers are experienced. In my track I am building in the moment I try to keep the space next to the track as wide as possible (especially after the bents) to make it easier to get back on the wires after 'deslotting'. Something like a kind of safetyarea.

Regards Jens

[jgraham]

I managed to squeeze the same idea into an 8' track by skewing the corners. The racing line turns have a consistent radius of 32cm. Inside and outside lanes have a smaller radius in the first half than the second half. All lane changes are required to maintain the racing line. Lane change collisions should only happen when cars are side by side going into a lane change. More importantly, a driver taking a lane change should be more likely to lose the guide wire in a collision than the other car because the other car will have the momentum advantage of being on the inside of a curve. This should discourage aggressive lane changing leading to accidents. The outside lane should be slower than the racing line because the path is much longer. The inside lane should be slower than the racing line because the 24cm turn radius will slow cars compared to the 32cm turn radius. Each lane change has a 40cm straight before the lane change. I plan to build this track when I get time. It takes much less time on the computer than building a track for real! :)

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[Ned]

What computer program do you use to design your circuits?

[jgraham]

I use a text editor to create tracks and Google Chrome to display the tracks. I'm using SVG, which is an industry standard way to include drawings on a web page. I'm not using a drawing program to draw tracks with a mouse. I am a computer programmer and I wanted to learn about SVG. It's very similar to creating a web page in HTML.

[Ned]

Thanks a lot jgraham.
I like your circuits.