Belle Isle 'Full Circuit' is a semi-fictional racetrack based on the roads of Belle Isle, Detroit, MI, USA;
some of which were used in the track used for the Belle Isle champcar racing circuit from 1992-1999. The two circuits share the same pits and start finish straight, as well as the mickey mouse Fountain Drive section.
There are only two fictional additions to the circuit layout. One is a small bit of banking in the long left curve on the Strand, because otherwise that corner was hell to drive - now its a
little bit better. The second one was entirely necessary. Midway down Central Avenue there is a statue in the middle of the road. So there's a flat out chicane which kinks around this, and back onto Central Avenue. We could have just ommitted the statue, but it was an interesting thing to include.
The GPL representation of the track is 8.84 miles long (14.2km) and a fast lap comes up just under four minutes. It is built with 4 different track widths: the startline to the exit of turn two, the turn onto to the first part of Lakeside Drive and the Fountain Drive section to the finish are the narrowest at 36 feet (11 metres). Central Avenue and most of Lakeside drive is 48 feet (14.6 metres) wide. The exit of the corner which leaves Vista Avenue onto Riverbank road and the turn onto the Strand are 60 feet (18.3 metres). Most of the strand is nominally 36 feet wide, but there are intermittent stretches of wide parking lanes which can be used in a couple of places. There is a small step up onto them, and they're also sloped to prevent over-zealous use of them. The number of corners varies, depending on what you define as a corner, but there are 35 worth taking notice of. More in the readme.
Thanks to the
SimRacing Mirror Zone and B C Sims for hosting, and The GPL Repository for the project's forum.
