High Speed Grounds - My First 4K in TS is Indianapolis!

Welcome to 2017! Well, it's my first post of the year, usually I'd post something about not believing in New Year Resolutions like last, last year, but with that in mind, it means that it's all about jumping into the action, and this is the said action.

Out of countless 4K WIPs I have, one apparently has finally finished. NO! Not any of the existing WIPs that I've shown here on my blog throughout a series of all Turbo Sliders posts from the first time the ability to make 4000x4000 tracks became officially possible (in 2.0.0, you would use a mod to do so), until now where my first ever 4K track is finally released to public! This marks another release after Park Avenue and Autumn Peak which I released last year in May.

That's right! Indianapolis Motor Speedway is alive in top-down style!

Enter Indianapolis Motor Speedway, one of USA's legendary High Speed Grounds and home to the legendary Indy 500 race! After a long battle against demotivation, I have managed to finish this track out, which apparently also includes some interior work which required me to spin my heads the moment I revisited this WIP. Being a track promised to replace the previous Indianapolis in SCARTS (with an addition of road course configurations suitable enough for additional SCARTS races) and promised myself that I could finish it by January this year, there's absolutely no other way than finishing this one ASAP. Plus, the track will also be confirmed to be included in a SCARTS race mid-season (as Burnout told me on Skype), so pretty much is there a reason why I had to finish this one quick, in addition to another reason I will reveal within the next set of paragraphs.

A LITTLE ABOUT INDIANAPOLIS

Since 1909, Indianapolis Motor Speedway, also nicknamed "the Brickyard", has been a place for a couple of top-level racing series, including the coveted Indy 500 and Brickyard 400. (Image: dailydose / The Odyssey Online)

Located approximately six miles (10 km) west of Downtown Indianapolis, Indiana, the Indianapolis Motor Speedway is constructed in 1909, being the first original speedway. The speedway is home to the coveted Indianapolis 500 and Brickyard 400, and also hosted Formula 1 races in the past.

After assisting friends racing in France and witnessing Europe's craftsmanship in automobile, Indianapolis businessman Carl G. Fisher envisioned building the speedway in 1905, to which he proposed a circular track 3 to 5 miles (5 to 8 km) long with smooth 100–150-foot-wide (30–45 m) surfaces, which would give manufacturers a chance to test cars at sustained speeds and give drivers a chance to learn their limits. His determination strengthened after visiting Brooklands circuit outside London in 1907, and a year later in December would attract other people in purchasing a property needed to build the track, with the construction not starting until three months later, despite having to downsize the initial size to a 2.5-mile (4.0 km) oval to give room for the grandstands.

The track earned its "Brickyard" nickname as Fisher and his partners had an idea of paving the track with bricks and concrete during the track's construction phase, with five Indiana manufacturers supplied millions of bricks to the track laid over a 2-inch (51 mm) cushion of sand, with the final brick added made from gold and laid in a special ceremony by Governor Thomas R. Marshall. The final remaining brick sections of the track though were paved over with asphalt in October 1961, but kept the 3 feet (0.91 m), or one yard, of the original set of bricks at the start-finish line, being the brickyard as we know today.

Racing activities would start a couple of months later from its core construction albeit several problems posed in its first hosting, with the first Indanapolis 500 held in 1911 won by Ray Harroun whose car, the #32 Marmon "Wasp, was fitted with a rear-view mirror, the first time the device was used in an autombile. With the years gone by and the track's reputation became improved, the 500-mile race became part of the Formula One World Championship for 10 years (1950–1960). Though Formula One drivers ignored racing in this track, a couple of drivers including Jack Brabham raced the track when it was off-calendar in 1961, and Graham Hill completing his "Triple Crown of Motorsport" honor in 1966, the same year he also won the Monaco Grand Prix and 24 Hours of Le Mans in the same year. Today, the track also hosted Indy Racing League (now IndyCar) races and NASCAR series.

Hosting its first Formula 1 race as the US Grand Prix the first time since 1991, Indianapolis built a road course that utilizes the infield section of the oval track, with its first race being ran in 2000. Today, the road course gives birth to newer configurations based off of the original road course for different purposes. (Image: IMS Photo / Road Racing World)

Road course racing in Indianapolis didn't start until 2000 when Tony George arranged for Formula One to return to USA for the first time since 1991, taking two years of renovation and construction of an Indy-based road course, which gave birth to a clockwise-run Grand Prix road course. The first two years marked the race's success, but in the following year a team order controversy between two Ferrari drivers Michael Schumacher and Rubens Barichello broke out, in which the former wanted to stage a dead heat to the latter, and the 2005 edition couldn't be much worse, with teams using Michelin tires unable to grasp the banking section after a series of tire failures throughout sessions, causing them to pull out before the race started. The track didn't return for 2008 edition, but instead in for MotoGP races effective the same year, with a new road course configuration which is a modification from the existing Grand Prix layout only ran counter-clockwise just like the oval course, four additional corners (the new "Snake Pit Complex"), an alteration to the double hairpin turn at the Hulman Straight, and a new pit road. The motorcycle event was a success despite the remnants of Hurricane Ike. Another variation of the original Grand Prix course was also used in the IndyCar season 2014 onwards, with an altered configuration in a form of a chicane that replaces turns five through seven, and the inclusion of the Snake Pit Complex section.

The dimensions for the oval track comprised of two short straightaways with a length of 0.125 miles (0.2 km) each and two 0.625 mile (1 km) long straightaways. All four turns have a length of 0.25 miles (0.4 km) with more than 9 degrees of banking. In the oval, cars can go as fast as more than 300 km/h (mph), with the fastest speed ever clocked at 385 km/h (239 mph) courtesy of Arie Luyendyk's practice run in the 1996 Indianapolis 500 race. (Wikipedia)

CREATION MOTIVATION

The bigger Indianapolis, complete with the Brickyard!

The origins of creating and finishing this very track started when I randomly create the track path of Indianapolis just to waste my time. Nothing's special about the track and I kinda leave the track's WIP as it was until I stumbled upon a post in the SCARTS forum, where a 4K Indianapolis is needed to replace the old one. Realizing this, I took the chance, and Burnout agreed with my decision.

Since this is a 4K track, however, I also took my chance to incorporate the Road Course track, which means not only the oval course will be used for the Full Throttle Cup, the Road Course will also, hopefully, be used for the Road Course Series! The question is, which Road Course? The newer one (the "Road" course used in 2014 onwards), the classic one (the "Classic" course, inspired by the first road course version), or the one used in MotoGP (called the "Moto" course)? This of course opens up so many possibilities for this track which ends up having many configurations, with some of which use a different track pattern. Yes, the track pattern for certain tracks are different for certain tracks due to the usage of the different pit lane (Moto and Road are this) although obviously the track's image is all the same across all the configurations. The additional kerbs are made as tiles and only serves its purpose in the Road course.

Twenty Toyota 86s racing through the classic road course (called "Classic"), me included. Toyota 86, Classic Indianapolis Road Course... Sounds familiar? Well, FYI I didn't do that without a reason apparently.

In total, there are four configurations playable for this track, but wait, THERE'S MORE! (in TV commercial tone) - I also added two additional configurations inspired by Codemasters's GRID series, namely North and Infield configurations (named as Infield A and B, which run counter-clockwise and clockwise respectively), whose layouts are similar save for the direction. These are layouts that has no pits, so it's recommended to use these layouts for sprint-oriented races only. Maybe some D1GP-styled one-on-one Slider race here would help, perhaps?

With SCARTS' own Superspeedway-configured car used for testing all the tracks, all configurations are between 30-40 seconds a lap, with the Oval (obviously) taking the fastest time to finish a lap. Walls are put in certain sections in each configuration as an off-limit barrier, and infield tracks have a set of white tire tiles strategically placed to prevent corner cutting.

And the Brickyard is finally populated by a number of TS cars and dedicated fans!

Also, I didn't say that I worked on the interiors too, did I? Initially, I have thoughts that the interiors had to follow the one in real life (based on Google Maps snapshot), and I sort of did, unless that I play some improvisation game on the parking lot to which I had to fill them with appropriate white lines and TS cars (by Hengari, available here). At glance, I'm in for some tedious work, but Tijny's IziEditor exists for a very good reason and it really saves time thanks to its copy-paste and layer abilities! The application really helps in trackmaking decisions although it still has a couple of bugs (I noticed that the pit section made in IziEditor is somehow misinterpreted when I opened it in the Track Editor). Last but not least, the cherry topping of it all: the Victory Lane. Having a winning car traveling through the Brickyard to the Lane after the race has never been more glorious when winning races, and I thought it could be a nice touch indeed! The Victory Lane features in select configurations: Oval, Road, and Classic.

AFTERMATH

As I finished this track, the plan of testing the track with the SCARTS crew is also being considered albeit a long time ago. I had a good, stable run during racing with Whiplash and magnam as stated in my last post detailing the new TS version, where my ping stands in the 260-ish number, which meant there's a little bit of lag but not so much considering I played it at midnight. I don't know if the testing session would give me lags but maybe I should consider throwing my hat to the ring as it is simply just a testing, and all I had to do is to drive well without incidents albeit lags, that's it. But, with my switching mobile operator due to the fact that this new one has a more affordable internet subscription given my condition right now, I'm not sure that the ping will stay at a "stable" number of 300 or not. As for the test itself, I envision running three tracks for testing: the new Tsukuba, the oval Indianapolis and whatever road course configuration in Indianapolis will be used, but Indianapolis is the definite focus.

Unfortunately, I cannot promise you anything after this track because I know that with not thinking too much about interiors and custom track tiles (which might take longer) I could go on to finish Dubai Autodrome, or even continuing either Bathurst or any other one, but at the same time I promised myself I had to graduate from College by the mid-year, and I know I had to fully focus to my final project. Any TS-related (or top down racing-related) activities would hinder my progress. So, I consider this track as the first in 2017 and the last in my TS trackmaking career until my final project is done. So much to do whenever I graduate if TS WIPs were to be taken into account, but I know I had to stop soon before it hinders everything.

Finally, ending this post, here comes the download link for Indianapolis, my first ever 4K track released for TS, complete will all the supporting configurations! Hopefully, having finished one 4K track, this track becomes a motivation for me to finish my other 4K tracks in the future! You can download it here, and please do look forward for my next creations!

Stay tuned for more tracks and cars for Turbo Sliders courtesy of [R]GARAGE! Don't forget to visit the [R]GARAGE site at http://setsunathefandom.wix.com/r-garage/! You can also Like the Facebook page here and Follow the Twitter account here! (I know I haven't update it for a long time so I'll try kicking up some activity there!)

~[R]