Western Speedway visit report

[Lister Farrar]

FYI. I went out to Western today to check out the surface, debris, oil, etc. It looks really good to me. I took my bike and tried skidding the back wheel in the puddles to see if there any noticeable effect of water on oil to worry about. I could barely make the back wheel skid with full brakes. I'd say the centre of most road lanes is much worse for oil. The track manager said there had been a race on the weekend that used tires filled with sand to indicate a course, and a little gravel and sand had spilled out of the tires. He had planned on sweeping the track before I came, but even unswept it looked fine. Anything lying around was nearer the outside of the track than the inside where we'd be riding.

The curves have low curbs to define the inside, but you could ride over these without damaging wheels if necessary. The main track surface is better than the average road, with no significant holes or cracks. There is the odd place where there is shallow gouging or pitting (from demos I guess) but no-one would even bother to ride around them. In general, it's better than the average road, and better than corners 1 and 2 at Windsor.

There are several infield roads that could be used to add some corners. For eg, at the east end, a left-right-left combo at the end of the finish straight would add some technical challenge and keep it nearly 600 m still. Without that, it will be hard to break up a group. But that could be a good thing for a training race.

The curves are slightly banked. I tried one fast curve and it felt like there was lots of room to pedal full out through the corners without sliding or hitting pedals.

We will need some soccer cones to mark out the inside edge of the finish straight. There's no line, and it's paved inside the pole line. There are two judges stands for results.

And 3400 seats!

I looked for an option to add some parking lot to make a crit course, but could only see one entrance and exit in use . Which is probably not wide enough to have a race go in both directions.

[sylvan]

I seen a figger-8 race out at Western once. Y'all oughta try that, I reckon.

[AlW]

Here's a potential course I found on a karting site. The extra bits would make it a little more interesting and the accelerations out of that hairpin corner may help break up the big groups.

[Lister Farrar]

Thanks Al. Sorry, but I didn't look at the hairpin surface. Maybe someone could go by there and take a peak? That would be a good A and B course. For C's, maybe just the oval at first, then the chicane on the right hand side of the photo, but without the hairpin?