nevaH ecaR...

[Fergy]

Yeah, that's right... Race Haven backwards! A few of us spent a few hours playing on the track backwards last night. Not only is it a totally different track (none of the corners drive the same at all!), but it really works quite well! I was impressed with it, and think Ron has a good idea about switching directions during a series, in alternating fashion (or 2 one way, 2 the other way, etc., whatever!) - it will be more like a 1:1 race series where you aren't at the same 'venue' every race.

What are lap times like? Can't speak for everyone else, but with my Porsche Series car:

Forward Best: 6.031
Backward Best: 6.092 (twice)

And obviously, I've driven far fewer laps backward (a couple of hundred versus thousands the other way), so I doubt there is much difference in it at all!

I say let's do it!

[Fred Fries]

I do the same thing here on my home track (4 lane routed), only I save the "backwards" runs for when I have newbies over, it equalizes things out somewhat when the old hands have to figure it out also.

Fred

[Fergy]

Makes sense, Fred. But we usually have the same guys battling over 10 races, with new people gradually adding to the field. I think it's a great way to make the 'established racers' show their worth on two different tracks. This fall, I think we're going to have large fields, and I wouldn't be too surprised if some drivers show better in the backward direction! It'd just be great to have what amounts to two different tracks scheduled into the series.

[Black3sr]

The track did work well in reverse. I never got 6.0s but I did manage to keep up with Fergy some of the time.

The kink is still the kink and takes getting use too. Sometimes cars will end up off under the bridge or at least out of sight. Under race conditions this may increase sales.

So everyone make an effort to get out and race the next series.

[Fergy]

Yes, the kink is still the kink, but I found it easier to drive it backwards. You can see your car all the way down the straight before it, unlike the forward direction where your car is invisible under the bridge and is seen only for a split second before you're into the kink.

I agree that the marshalling will be different, and may be a problem. Most cars that came off at the kink stayed close to the off point - tiny mistakes. Yes, a couple were bigger errors and the car ended up under the bridge.

On the other hand, if anyone deslotted in the corner onto the backstraight, I didn't see it! Another plus to running backwards is that the very fast sweeper (opposite end of the short straight to the kink) is now flat-out, even for the twitchiest cars, as it is now at the start of that straight rather than the end.

As for the 6.0s, Bill, they were few and far between! I had some good runs with you and Phil too.