Some follow-up from last night.
First off, thanks to all for your time. This testing put my mind at ease that this was a good track. I find big wide-open older tracks are bit challenging because the game system can break down if there are too many really long straights with few meaningful choices on the player's part.
For instance, my original take on Reims was perhaps more true to life but did not feel interesting to race. First off the track was 120 spaces long. And there was only 1 corner between Muizon and Thellois. I ended up cutting the track down 25% and effectively making up 2nd corner down the back straight.
The track width is a bit of a liberty as well. I've heard commentary of cars running 3-wide down the straights (in a rolling road block no less) but I doubt there would be many cars 3-wide in the corners. I think the run from Calvaire to Muizon is probably narrower in theory.
However, the outside line in most of these corners is almost always the wrong the choice... it just might be the only choice you have. So the penalty for trying to be 3 wide in most of the corners is this sub-optimal line not a late brake.
I also heard some commentary from actual races at Reims that cars either took advantage of their raw speed down the back straight and braking into Thillois or they took advantage of speed through the corners between Calvaire and Muizon. If the track is narrowed in that later section, it reduces the ability of cars shooting for a wear strategy to be effective.
We actually saw this last night. I was running a high wear strategy and exited Theillois in first at the end of lap 1, but was the 4th car to enter Calvaire as 3 top speed people passed me on the front straight. I repassed them by the time I exited Muizon a full turn ahead of anyone else and then had them all close in down that back straight. 2 wear less and it could have been a very different finish for me.
Some notes on the corners:
First off -- Thillois.
https://youtu.be/B2RrFkO8kek?t=344I mentioned that Annie Bousquet was named for a famous female race driver.
https://www.historicracingnews.com/Arti ... squet/1960I mentioned that some of the corner names are real and some aren't. Bratelle Nord was sinply the stretch of track between Annie Bousquet and Muizon. As far as I can tell the corner in the middle of that section did not have a name so I conflated those two.
La Garenne is the only real "corner" on the back straight of Reims and it was more of a kink. Rn 31 is the name of the road that part of the track ran on. So when I decided to make a second corner there I called it Rn 31.