You can see most of the actual route taken by racers as they negotiated the HAIR race course. The fuzzy black line was created by rubber worn off the tires, fluids shed in hi-G and lo-G situations, and brake dust. It appears the lines are indelible to some extent.
 What you can't see is the second part of the long course Turn 2-3 complex, and the Turn 4 line. These were less used when I knew about it, and may not have been used since then.
You could imagine that Turn 3 is of the same shape as Turn 2, and mirrors it as it passes between the second 2 and the 3, back to the right side of the 3-4 straight. The Turn 4 line would begin on the left side of that straight, and more-or-less mirror the shape of Turn 1, with the true apex at the inner edge of the turn, at the beginning of the straight.
It seems a little odd to me that the long course Turn 2 line (goes from the right to the left side of the straight near the first "2") is visible. I would expect the short course Turn 2 line to be obvious (left side at the end of the straight, near the second "2"), and it is.
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I have this March, 2001, commmunication from Katie Jaques:
"I don't know when that aerial photo of Holtville was taken, but it seems to show the CURRENT course, which is a little different from the pre-Combat Heritage short course. The ess complex that you designate as 'long course' Turn 2 is actually the current Turn 6, and shows up so clearly because it has been in constant use for quite some time. Also, old Turn 6 was tighter than its current configuration. When we reconfigured the course post-CH, Vern laid that area out so that each turn in sequence from old 5-B through old 6-B is has a little wider radius (you can see it in the aerial photo). That got rid of most of the problems we used to have with people going off into the desert driver's right off the outside of old 6B and getting upside down. It also took most of the benefit out of the 'Walker line.'
"Combat Heritage scraped the Jaques Jolters off the concrete (I use a large fragment of one for a wheel-stop in my garage!) and took out the barricade. As a result, we reconfigured the course so that the pit and paddock area is now at the south (old Turn 4) end of the runways. Start-finish is on what used to be the back straight, between Turn 6 (which you mark long course Turn 2) and Turn 1 (old short course Turn 2). Old 5 is now 3, old 6 is now 4, and old Turn 1 is now Turn 5. Trust me, it took me a long time to get the turn numbers straight! I think it's only in the last two or three years that I haven't had to convert them in my head. And we've been running on this configuration for at least 10 years, I think.
"The dark area in the (old) Turn 5-6 area is blue dye that was sprayed on the surface several years ago for a BMW commercial. Alas, the commercial was made in German for German TV and we never saw it in the US. The dye didn't affect the surface (would have been nice, maybe, if it had made it a LITTLE smoother), and it is amazing how long it has lasted." |
