That appears to be the left hand small carousel which leads to the big right carousel. FB says they are addressing run off with a mix of more space and air fence. Not sure they mentioned gravel traps, but one there with air fence would be good. Question. Would people prefer paving to the walls vs gravel. Seems like the MotoGP guys prefer pavement so they can stand up/ woe up themselves. With gravel the bike is going down no matter what. Thinking turns 1 & 2 might be better for pavement. Turn 3 & 4 is a toss up. My guess is any hard braking areas - pavement. Any fast sweepers where it's more likely for a sliding bike away from the rider - gravel Please could WERA inquire/offer thoughts to NL? I'd really like to see that track back on the schedule
I'd love to see races at Nelson again, but with PIRC and Nelson both increasing their prices to cover the cost of improvements, it's going to take serious attendance support to make that happen. Nice problem to have though. Two freshly paved tracks withing 150 miles of each other? Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah.
What they need is more runoff room. The place needs runoff in the back section and the bowl period. The only way I can see them getting enough to make it safe is to purchase land in the back corner.
Totally depends on the corner, the likelihood in T4 there is you're going to crash under braking going in and need something to stop you before the tires. It's actually not as bad as some of the others, T1 would be good with gravel out by the wall, T2-3 needs the tires pushed way back, 5 on riders left needs tires and trees moved. Same for most of the carousel.
When was the last time some of you were there? They have made some improvements in moving back tree lines and tire walls. It's nowhere near ideal, but efforts have been made. Definitely many changes since 2009. I seem to recall a lot of work being done in 2013. Drainage, and runoff.
Track was repaved through corner worker station 9 as of the end of last week, rest of track was scheduled to be paved this past Monday. No word on run off being changed. Hoping to run up to the track next week now that school is out.
Rumored that someone is trying to organize a 12 hour motorcycle endurance race in the near future...remains to be seen if this is just a little too ambitious for this person to pull off
I've been keeping track via pictures and our peeps up there have stopped by in person. It's definitely better and they are working.
You know and I know how expensive this would be for a team to race. Teams just don't have extra money laying around at this point of their race season to add a 12 hour endurance race to their schedule.
I don't really understand all the questions about run off at nelson, no one ever talks about run off at mid ohio and there are plenty of places on that track that don't have much run off.
The new owner has run off on the list. They are lso looking into air fence for exit off carrousel. May drive up there tomorrow as that's when top coat is going down. Some track days are on schedule for July...or so I heard through FB.
Mid-Ohio covers the areas with issues with air fence. Since Nelson is doing construction I'd much much much rather see more room than leaving the walls and air fence. I'd love more runoff at Mid-O too....
Have to agree with zippytech - more run off would be nice, but there are plenty of tracks without significant run off. Mid-Ohio is one. Is Roebling really any better ? If I remember Roebling correctly, t1 and the entire back section - run wide and you are in the woods. Or am I remembering it wrong? At Nelsons, the only spot that ever concerned me was T12 - if you blow that completely (no brakes) you can run through the grass and up onto the front straight. Besides that I thought it was manageable. In some ways lack of runoff might have made people safer at Nelsons. For example, if you ever walked the track and looked at things, you had to know if you went wide in T1 it was not going to end well. That slows people down a little - at least I never saw anyone run wide there. Now, running wide in the carousel - I've seen that, and running out of track at the kink - thats a problem for the bigger bikes, but they seem to have been able to handle it with the dips and bumps that were there. I think they will be able to handle it with a smooth surface. Time will tell. Just glad to hear that there is progress and motorcycles will be returning to Nelsons!!! Best news in a long time.
The run-off and comparing Nelson to Mid-O is funny. One, the ruts in thee grass areas from decades of neglect are terrible. Ruts will hurt riders and there are shit tons of them. Second, the run-off issues at Mid-O are almost moot. I can tell you that I have seen more injured racers from Nelson due to run off than at Mid-O and I have loads of laps at Mid-O. They maintain the grass areas, groom the gravel traps and are constantly making things safer. Air fence always in use, moved walls, etc. Those that are complaining about run-off probably still think the wall is where it was going into Thunder Valley. It isn't... Nelson will have issues due to speed and trajectory of the bikes at those higher speeds. Carousel is going to be a serious issue. The wetlands on the outside is probably going to be an issue in adding more run-off or something to protect the rider. I am not sure airfence will help as the speeds and closeness is an issue in my mind. Getting between and under those would be a worry. They need to look at Road America's carousel and widen and create more runoff. After the kink is going to be an issue. That speed there is going to increase and the point of impact for rider and bike will be an issue. Removing the tires looks like it has not been addressed from the pics. That cost will be substantial also and if they are not moved, it is probably an issue after the kink. They will need loads of run off there. The cars aren't going to be as much of an issue in either of the two areas I referred. Cars spin out inwards. My feeling is that it is great to see them repaving. But I suspect that they will look at the run off from behind a windshield. Hope I am wrong as the prospect of a fourth bad ass facility is great to think about from the Midwest perspective. Mid-Ohio needs a repave soon, but still awesome. Putnam and Pitt are now premium. Add Nelson and we have a pretty damn good series of choices. After being at Road America, can WERA create a NC region that adopts RA and Putnam? If Nelson could get the run off safe, we could have the following as a series and rely less on being at Grattan three rounds a year in a 5 round series... Nelson Mid-Ohio Putnam Grattan Road America Pitt Six tracks. We could do a 10 round series and see a couple twice. Have a throw away round like the Nationals and we would have a killer region!!
4-6 hours are plenty for me, but if a 12 hour came up I'd have to do it (even at that shithole NL). On the SV that'd be 2 sets of tires and negligible fuel costs. I know I'm in the minority and it ain't gonna happen.
It was cool seeing you guys on it at RA. I had a good time learning my way around and sort-of getting up to speed. I'd like to go back and get more seat time and maybe a good tow from some fast guys instead of weaving my way through a lot of ahrma traffic. A WERA round at RA would be great, and add Gingerman to your list and we have a pretty nice variety of track experiences.
