Posted 14 September 2017 - 12:54
A new version of the former F1 venue in Buenos Aires, Argentina has been proposed by a company which was involved in creating Valencia’s Formula One street circuit.
http://www.f1fanatic...a-street-track/
Sad mi je jasnija moja momentalna averzija prema predlozenom dizajnu staze. Prepoznao sam rucni rad. 
Posted 18 September 2017 - 17:12
Moto GP bi mogao dobiti još jednu stazu u budućnosti..
Hermann Tilke: «Indonesia GP 2019 is realistic»
By Günther Wiesinger - 18/09/2017 17:11
The German racetrack architect Hermann Tilke is concerned with the construction of the new GP track in Palembang / Südsumatra. It could be operational in 2019.
When it comes to the Dorna, Indonesia 2019 is for the first time since 1997 again be the place of a motorcycle GP.
Tilke GmbH & Co. KG in Aachen has long since begun planning. Since the land border has changed, the route layout is still being revised. However, it is only slightly modified.
The 4,311-kilometer-long piste in Palembang, the capital of the province of South Sumatra, is being built during the Asian Games, which will take place there in August and September 2018.
"Because of the Asian Games, an elevated runway is being built in Palembang from the airport via the inner city to the terrain," Hermann Tilke said. "If you live in the city center for the Grand Prix, you will be taken directly to the racetrack or back to the airport by this Monorail train."
The backpacks of the new GP piste are the politicians of the province of South Sumsatra who want to boost tourism and organize the Grand Prix.
On the ideal line, the slope is to be extended over 4276 meters, it includes three straight lines, the lap time should be 1:30 min, the average for MotoGP at 172 km / h.
Palembang is the second largest city on the Sumatra Island to Medan. It forms the capital of the province of South Sumatra.
Palembang is one of the oldest cities on the Malaysian archipelago and Southeast Asia. Palembang is located on the Musi River on the east coast of Southumatra; the city stretches over 369.22 square kilometers and houses about 1.8 million people. This makes Palembang the sixth largest start from Indonesia to Jakarta, Surabaya, Bandung, Medan and Semarang.
In the discussion with SPEEDWEEK.com, race-track architect Hermann Tilke (61) revealed the first details about the new circuit, which is built next to the steering wheel.
Mr Tilke, you have already built many racetracks in exotic countries. One can imagine that this often leads to problems. What are the difficulties with the Palembang project?
The slope is built next to this Asian paddling pool. The problem is that builders have to fill up the terrain.
Because the terrain is very swampy due to the adjoining rowing pool. It must also be filled up so that it is not submerged during floods. This makes our task difficult.
Nevertheless we are in the execution planning. Some architects have flown to Singapore after the Formula 1 GP to conduct further technical talks.
From the planning page, we are quite far. The next step will now be the landfill of the terrain.
How big are the chances that the runway for the MotoGP World Cup 2019 will be ready?
I can only say the current status: At the moment it is safe. The Indonesians have negotiated with Dorna's chief, but they have not yet signed a contract. He wants to see first that it also precedes.
Race track construction is financed by a private person.
The Dorna managers have already visited the site, and Safety Officer Franco Uncini was there.
And the GP 2019 deadline is realistic?
2019 is realistic, yes. Whether it is actually 2019 or 2010 takes place, I can not say now. But from our side as builder is 2019 realistic.
The whole circuit is built on a dash. In 2019, the entire instrumentation will already be available. Everything will be there.
A return to Sentul was conceived, but rejected?
We have made a concept about a new building of Sentul. But then the idea of a GP-track in Palembang came very quickly to the Asian Games.
You are also building the new route in Kazakhstan. Can this be a new MotoGP circuit?
We have been there for a long time. This circuit is certainly not Formula 1-capable. For MotoGP it would be possible. But whether a contract with the Dorna states, I can not condemn.
Kazakstan, Finska, Tajland pa sad i Indonezija. Puno izmena u kalendaru očekujem u budućnosti.
Posted 18 September 2017 - 19:30
Thousands Of Flooded Hurricane Cars Finally Killed Texas World Speedway
It was a hot afternoon—the kind that doesn’t belong in September, but, because it’s Texas, a few always manage to creep their way in. But, like all afternoons since 1968, there sat the monstrous, two-mile race track that once hosted the highest levels of American auto racing. Only this time, things were different.
Almost immediately after Hurricane Harvey hit the state’s coast, Texas World Speedway in College Station became a giant holding ground for flooded cars headed to insurance auction after the storm. Flood storage took precedence over the racing events, and all were canceled once the flatbed trucks began rolling in.
The troubled Texas World Speedway held its first sanctioned race in 1969 and hosted the likes of NASCAR and IndyCar, but things never caught on like they did at its sister track in Michigan, which had an almost identical layout. The track’s small hometown, College Station, had an equally small highway leading into it, and the infield was never paved for race haulers to unload on.
Inconveniences such as those led in part to the low attendance figures that the track never could salvage. Texas World had half the crowd numbers that sister track Michigan International Speedway did for the same racing series, and by the 1980s, all of the major national touring series had trimmed the speedway from their annual circuits. NASCAR was the last to do so in 1981.
The ground under the oval’s high-banked turns eventually deteriorated, making only the interior road courses fit for racing. The speedway stayed around to host amateur racers longer than it was supposed to, as its landowner planned to send in bulldozers to make it into a subdivision more than two years ago.
But the storm was what finally did it. A former Texas World employee said at the start of September that all motorsport operations and events at the track were ceased, and that it was “no more.” He said he found out about it, and the end of his employment, via email.
My mother talks fondly about seeing A.J. Foyt and Darrell Waltrip race out at Texas World when it was still on the radar of the country’s biggest touring series. Being born in 1995 and not interested in cars until my teen years, I came to love Texas World in its current state—neglected, defunct and so deeply in disrepair that it would take millions to climb out of.
Empty, or scarcely populated, is the only way I’ve seen the speedway since a non-motorsport summer festival came there in 2007. A huge fire broke out in the non-paved, grassy parking area, destroying rows of cars and barely missing our 2004 Toyota 4Runner. The festival didn’t come back the next year.
But empty, mesmerizingly historical and defunct is all I’ve known the track to be. Pulling into it for what was probably the last time, that wasn’t how it felt.
Now it’s turned into an operation. Huge flatbeds went in and out of the speedway in groups of three, four and five, carrying cars that looked fine on the outside but were mechanically totaled on the inside.
A police officer was at the front of the often empty road leading into the track, stopping every car that wasn’t branded or a flatbed from coming in. The infield that I so often waltzed into, sometimes for a particular reason and sometimes just to see it, was off limits. It was a “live operation,” I was told.
It was a live dumping ground.
I was allowed on top of the grandstands, a place I’d never been before. There were flooded cars everywhere—thousands of them, with flatbed upon flatbed hauling more in to dump before turning around to start the cycle over again. The scene was eerily active. It looked, to me, like the NASCAR race I never got to see there—a packed infield, full of cars, ready to watch the races at one of the largest oval tracks in the country.
But the cars in the infield were just as dead as the track itself. No one was here to do anything other than their job: dumping them off.
I left the speedway for one last time, creeping down from the heights at the top of the rusted, now brown grandstands, seeing the sweeping, almost artistic banking heading into the track’s first turn. Tar snakes had mended the track’s surface together over the years, until the ground underneath simply gave up.
Tar snakes, rusted grandstands and all, the track was still a thing of beauty—as it always has been. It’s a huge, eery reminder of what happens when the big bucks pass something by, and at the same time, it made itself a place in the hearts of both the people alive to see its better days and those who weren’t.
And if it was my last time to leave that beautiful facility, well, I think I’m out of words to say—like I often was when standing in its infield, staring at what could have been.
http://blackflag.jal...dium=socialflow
Posted 18 September 2017 - 22:43
Posted 19 September 2017 - 01:33
Posted 20 September 2017 - 18:15
Predsednik Trkačkog Kluba Bazil Al Sabaha u Kuvajtu, Ali Favah Al Sabah, otkrio je da su devet godina planirali gradnju Kuvajt Motor Toun Staze (pisao sam o tome ranije) te da je konstrukcija podeljena u više faza. Sama staza s pratećim objektima (gledališta, padok,..) odnosno Faza1 bi trebala biti gotova oko Marta sledeće godine kad bi i trebala biti otvorena, Faza2 i sve ostale faze bi se trebale završiti u budućnosti (Jongam u najavi)
Lokacija staze ▼
Progres gradnje (fotografisano u martu ove godine)
Posted 20 September 2017 - 22:00
Konačno sam provozao Kuvajt Motor Toun Stazu, mogu reći da sam pozitivno iznenađen putanjom i odabirom krivina. Jeste da izgled odiše Tilkeizmom ali ovaj put se svojski potrudio. Najbrže vreme kruga sam odvozio u trajanju od 1:18.723. Video klip kruga:
Posted 22 September 2017 - 17:58
PUMPELLY: The case for tire curtains
Friday, 22 September 2017
Spencer Pumpelly / Images by Tee/LAT; LAT Archive; Pumpelly
During the opening laps of the 1999 British Grand Prix, Michael Schumacher's Ferrari went flying off the road at a high rate of speed. The resulting crash broke his leg and ended a potential championship season, but it could have been much worse.
Schumacher's rear brakes failed at 191mph as he attempted to slow for the Stowe corner. He still had front brakes, which slowed the car down to 127mph before locking up and continuing his deceleration to 67mph when he made impact with the tire barrier.
In a statement after the crash investigation the sanctioning body proclaimed: "The gravel trap performed satisfactorily in a worst-case situation."
Oh, really?
First, this wasn't a worst-case scenario. Schumi was going 191mph heading to Stowe. What would have happened if there had been a total brake failure? A stuck throttle? An incapacitated driver? It takes little imagination to come up with far worse scenarios than what actually happened. Worst-case my ass!
Secondly, you have a driver with a broken leg in what was far from the worst-case scenario. What about this is "satisfactory" in the eyes of the governing body tasked with safety? Was there some sort of gruesome driver injury quota they had to satisfy back in 1999?
Odd statement aside, the lessons that should have come from this crash are still in need of learning 18 years later – and 18 years later we are still killing drivers because we refuse to learn it.
Fast-forward six years from Schumacher's accident to the 2005 Continental (then Koni) race at VIR. I was driving a 996 Porsche in the GS class. Our first practice session was run in a heavy downpour, and on the out lap I was in thick traffic. As the pack came into Turn 14a I went to the brake pedal only to have it go to right to the floor.
My first instinct was to avoid the cars ahead, which put me immediately in the wet grass at near top speed. From that point on, I was a passenger. Here I was, in a similar situation to Michael, except I was going faster in a car that definitely wasn't as safe. Imagine my pleasant surprise when I emerged completely unhurt. We were even able to repair the car before qualifying.
What was the difference? Curtains.
In racing, there are two types of offs. By far the most common are the simple ones where a driver makes a mistake and spins, overshoots the brake zone, or gets punted going into a corner. These typically result in anything from a trip through the runoff to a meeting with a tire wall. I don't want to minimize the potential dangers of any off, but in general the racing world has done a good job of identifying areas where these are likely to happen and added the necessary safety features.
What concerns me the most is what I like to refer to as a "rogue" car. Cars can go rogue for many reasons, some of which I mentioned earlier. Mechanical failure, incapacitated drivers, car-to-car contact on straightaways and hydroplaning are just a few of the things that can send cars uncontrollably off of race tracks at very high speeds. From that point on it's not a matter of if they will hit, but rather what. "What" makes all the difference.
What should have been clear from Schumacher's crash, and Gunter Schaldach's, and Mark Pombo's, and Allan McNish's, and Sean Edwards', and Brad Keselowski's, and RB Stiewing's, and Jimmie Johnson's, and Tim Bell's... (I could go on) is that gravel traps don't stop rogue cars. That means that the only thing between a driver in a rogue car and a serious injury is the barrier that they hit. Too often, as was the case with Schumacher, barriers behind gravel traps are just not very deep, leaving little distance for the car to decelerate across.
What is needed is what VIR and some other forward-thinking tracks in the U.S. have implemented: tire curtains (above). Tire curtains are rows of tires, bolted together. Then they are set between the hard concrete wall at the end of the runoff and the track in layers, each about ten feet apart. The faster the approach area, the more curtains are placed in the runoff.
The idea is that the car makes impact with the first row of tires, and then dissipates energy as it drags the first row across the void and into the next row. Instead of having four to ten feet to stop a speeding, car curtains allow for 20-60 feet depending on approach speed.
These tire walls aren't free, and there is the labor of assembling them, but for the amount of protection they provide, the cost seems very reasonable. Yet very few tracks we race on in the major professional road racing series here in the U.S. have them.
Most of our facilities are one rogue car away from a repeat of Schumi's Stowe crash, or worse. This is a problem we can, and must fix. I'd love to see curtains everywhere a rogue car could end up everywhere we race. It's time we start making smart decisions with track safety before it's curtains for another one of us.
Spencer Pumpelly's long sportscar career spans the ALMS, Grand-Am, IMSA and the PWC, and includes two GT class wins at the 24 Hours of Daytona. He is currently racing in IMSA's Continental Sport Car Challenge ST class with RS1, and also competed for Magnus Racing in the PWC's 2017 SprintX series.
Posted 09 October 2017 - 19:58
.@RaceSonoma structures and facilities not at "immediate risk" as wildfire rages nearby: http://bit.ly/2yaPZbw
Posted 10 October 2017 - 13:47
https://www.motorspo...63828/?tp=2&s=1 Ako bude, bice u Rotterdamu 100%
Nisam ljubitelj ove ideje jer mi idu na živce ulične staze koje sve više popunjavaju kalendar ali uzbuđen sam zbog projekta. Mogla bi ovo biti druga Valensija jer su ulice takve prirode, nešto u centru grada nije moguće pa bi industrijske zone možda mogle biti od pomoći. Problematika leži u garažama i pedoku, potreban je baš veliki prostor za garaže (sama pit zgrada je dugačka oko 350m) oko 400m dužine i 70-100 širine. Dalje, taj veliki prostor mora biti tik uz neki put minimalne dužine od 500m (Valensija, Singapur i Baku su imali baš te savršene uslove). Ne kažem da nije nemoguće ali Amsterdam i Roterdam su prilično skučeni gradovi i bilo kakav masivni projekat tipa F1 staze s Grade 1 sertifikatom od FIA mora negde stati u tu kutiju šibica (FE bi već mogla stati malo bliže centru grada, ono što Liberti samo može sanjati), optimalno rešenje su dakle industrijske zone.
Posted 10 October 2017 - 21:31
Sonoma Raceway Opens 50 Acres Campground to Evacuees
SONOMA, Calif. (Oct. 10, 2017) - Sonoma Raceway will open its 50 Acres campground to evacuees seeking temporary refuge from the Northern California fires.
The raceway, which is equipped to handle up to 2,000 campers during its major event weekends, will open its largest campground to evacuees in RVs beginning this afternoon. The 50 Acres campground is located directly across from the raceway on Highway 121 and has not been affected by the fires.
Those in need of RV camping at Sonoma Raceway should enter the campground at Gate 6 on Highway 121, a quarter-mile north of Hwy 37. The raceway will team up with United Site Services to offer basic RV services, including water/sewage service, to campers during their stay. The campground is dry with no hookups.
For on-site assistance or directions, visit the Sonoma Raceway main office or front gate at 29355 Arnold Dr. in Sonoma. For more information, contact Sonoma Raceway at 800-870-7223 or email sonomaraceway@sonomaraceway.com.
Posted 16 October 2017 - 15:45
Pirelli could be looking to buy the Brazilian grand prix venue at Interlagos.
That is the claim of the Italian sports daily La Gazzetta dello Sport, following a visit to Milan of Sao Paulo mayor Joao Doria.
Doria reportedly met with Marco Tronchetti Provera, the president of official F1 supplier Pirelli, an Italian tyre manufacturer.
"Pirelli has a strong presence both in Brazil and in F1, so I wanted to meet the president to discuss the privatisation of the circuit," Doria said.
"He (Tronchetti Provera) told me that he would raise the issue with Chinese investors."
Doria said "several groups" are also interested in buying Interlagos, which will host the penultimate round of the 2017 world championship next month.
Pirelli said in a statement to O Estado de S.Paulo newspaper: "Pirelli supports the initiative of the mayor and his efforts to find investors.
"But the company (Pirelli) does not contemplate a direct involvement at this time."
Posted 16 October 2017 - 18:21
Odlične vesti, Interlagos se godinama muči s parama.
Posted 16 October 2017 - 21:41
Odlične vesti, Interlagos se godinama muči s parama.
Vest je daleko od odlične, kurtoazna poseta i odjebavanje na kraju, pročitaj poslednju rečenicu još jednom.
Posted 16 October 2017 - 21:52
Pirelijev loš akt prema Interlagosu pokazuje želju organizatora da spasu stazu od propasti. Investitori ćese uvek naći, koliko puta su samo Monca ili Silverston bili na rubu izlaska iz takmičenja pa su to nekako rešili na kraju krajeva. Najveća pretnja Interlagosu je Buenos Aires ali ovi nisu ni počeli rekonstrukciju...
Gornja vest je tipično medijsko napuhavanje već napumpane patke. Nema teoretske šanse da u narednim godinama F1 izgubi Interlagos, naći će se neko rešenje uveren sam.
