I've found that the Google Earth application (free and available for all popular personal computer platforms including Mac, PC, and Linux) is especially useful for getting both bird's eye views of race circuits as well as views of the various structures around the track.

Just for grins I went to the FIA site that has all the 2009 F1 venues. When I copy the location name from the venue, under Organiser Details (e.g. Circuit de Monaco, Shanghai International Circuit, etc.) into the Google Earth "Fly To" edit box and hit the Begin Search button it takes you to a satellite view of the circuit. If the track name isn't recognized, try entering the address.

The views that are presented on screen contain a lot of little blue boxes. The deeper you zoom, the more boxes appear. When you click on these blue boxes you get photographs of the area, locations around the track, the racing circuit, structures, pits, etc., from ground level. Some of the track structures on the newer circuits, like Bahrain and China are quite amazing, as are the ones at longer standing tracks like Indy. It's more useful for permanent layouts. For street circuits you may have to put in the location and then pan around looking for pictures.

While the level of detail varies, Google Earth is definitely another useful tool that you can use to help research track layouts, scenery, and structures that you can carry over into the modeling world.

That's a great idea. I have gone to the track sites themselves for info. Here are some of my favorites.

http://www.roadamerica.com/

http://www.roadatlanta.com/

http://www.sebringraceway.com/

http://www.mazdaraceway.com/ (Laguna Seca)

http://www.lemans.org/accueil/index_gb.html

Viewing Le Mans via Google Earth is cool - the track is huge!

http://www.nuerburgring.de/home.324.0.html

The 'Ring is even bigger.

:drunk::hat::freak::dude:

Here, check out this link too --


http://gdecarli.it/php/index.php?var1=2&var2=2

Wow, I never knew Texas World Speedway had so many layouts.

here's another.

http://www.mergetek.com/grabmap.aspx?CategoryID=33

I think Bauers site has some of the F-1 tracks from the Super International diagramed.

Cool stuff.

Check out the Google Earth shot of my track: :p

http://www.supervipersystems.com/VargoSpeedway/About_Vargo_Speedway/DriveVS/drivevs.html

ha-ha....:lol::lol::lol: EGG-cellent-:thumbsup:

nice one!like the uphill part!

The BBC Sport folks have upped the ante on cool ways to see how some of the F1 circuits are laid out. This is still a work in progress but you could almost use these animations and videos as a starting point for designing a slot car equivalent of these same circuits, including the table surface and scenery. Nothing adds more to slot car track's realism than getting the track "out of the box" and on a naturally curved and ideally, three dimensional, track table surface.

It only has the tracks that have been run thus far in 2009. You'll want to bookmark this site and check back as more tracks are added.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsport/formula_one/circuit_guide/default.stm?circuitID=03#top

Excellent, thanks for the link! :thumbsup:

Monaco Grand Prix track is now posted: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsport/formula_one/circuit_guide/default.stm#top

The BBC track site is very cool. They've put some serious efort into modeling the tracks and collecting the raing line data. Thanks for the link, AFXToo! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

The BBC track site is very cool. They've put some serious efort into modeling the tracks and collecting the raing line data. Thanks for the link, AFXToo! :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:

Great thread!!!!

Got to look into this more, when the darn site will come up! Big time interest I'll bet. British chassis and champion last year as anticipated, who da guessed Jensen Button and Braun would be on top at this time this year? And winning Monaco!!!! Anybody who predicted that at the start of the season would have been referred for heavy-duty meds.

This site really hints at what a real F1 track could look like done up in scale and mounted on an appropriate table.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/motorsport/formula_one/circuit_guide/default.stm?circuitID=03#top

Any slot car track would benefit immensely from being mounted on something other than a rectangular slab of a table. Unfortunately, our homes and basements tend to be constructed around right angles and it's hard to break away from the pattern without consuming a whole heck of a lot of real estate. But we can dream...