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The Most Difficult Corner On The Planet


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So we have favourite tracks but what about most challenging corners? For me it's the crested-hard-on-the-gas-into-a-first-gear-chicane challenge at Almeria in Spain. You come out of a chicane and get hard on it with the rear wheel struggling for grip and drive hard over a corner on a crest :o . Once you get to the brow and still with the bike leant over you have to get HARD on the brakes for another chicane :( . Get your vision wrong here and you add seconds to your lap times :blink: .

 

What challenges you?

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Turn 9 on the big track at Willow Springs. I've probably got a bizillion laps around that track and I still haven't got that corner wired.

 

It's pretty strait foward decreasing radius corner. No elivation change or anything too tricky other then a deperesion at the apex. I think it's just that you come into it real fast and have to slow some it's real hard to get your entrance speed right. Your sense of speed gets kind of twisted in turn 8 :D

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Turn 2 - Phillip Island (Southern Loop - left handed 180 degree sweeper).

This turn has three radius changes (the first one suckers you into turning early, and the last will push you wide if you let it). It also has two elevation changes, which also includes, for your enjoyment and pleasure, a few chamber changes as well. Its a 4th gear corner, so its pretty quick (Phillip Island is a fast flowing circuit). You're pushing the front tyre (tire) to the middle section of the corner, and steer for the second time before the corner drops, and then on the throttle for the remainder of the turn. Get it right, and your smiling for a week (if you feel you got it right).

 

Turn 3 - Broadford (Crash Corner). Tight 90 degree right hand corner off the fast back straight. The approach is heavy under brakes on a rise, the track drops down the hill on the other side. Visually there is nothing to see as you turn the bike, except for the apex curbing. As you're hard on the gas, the front lifts, the rear slides and the corner drops down the hill (off chamber to add to the pucker factor).

 

Honourable mention - the turn into Thunder Alley at Mid Ohio (turn 9?).

 

Note: The true colour of adrenaline is Brown! :blink:

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Well I only have experience on one track and that is Watkins Glen NY and by far to me turn 1 is the hardest. It is a changing radius and changing camber turn. Also it starts after the front straight, and gets traffic from the pit exit. To me that was harry but it is a rush.

 

B)

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Not sure if it's considered a turn, but going under the bridge and down the hill at Road Atlanta scares the ###### out of me every lap!

 

The most challenging one from a technical standpoint would be turn one at VIR south. In several hundred laps I think I've gotten it "right" only a handful of times!

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Mine is on Road Atlanta... Only because it is the only track I have ridden on.

 

It is turn 10a, the first of the chicane. You are coming over a hill at about 150MPH and you have to downshift 4 times very quickly and load the brakes bigtime. If you foul up 10a then 10b is totally screwed too. I haven't dialed that turn in yet, but hopefully this March I will.

 

I should note that most of the peeps I rode with hated turn 7, but I loved that one. It is my favorite, but it seems to be the nemesis for most everyone else.

 

-Rip

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My favorite series of turns was from 10 through 15 at Ontario Motor Speedway. It was a decreasing radius right leading into a left, left, left combo that you could just keep on rolling into the gas all the way through and upshifting in the left, left, left, it is where I learned about throttle control.

 

Too bad Ontario isn't still there. 20 turns, 3.17 miles, mostly flat but very fun to ride.

 

Keith

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I know the very corner you mean Andy (at Almeria) - that is one of the cleverest designed sections of any track I've been on so far! To be honest that whole track is so technical that I had to concentrate on the other sections before I even got onto that one (and ran out of time!). The section before yours was also very challenging - there's a huge sweeping left-hander which goes into a right, into a blind right (uphill) then downhill into another tighter right - that sequence is awesome when you get it right, scary as hell when you get it wrong!!! :D:D:D

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Have to say turn 9,Eastern Creek, Aust. Hairpins to the right, downhill and always have trouble setting up the bike for a good exit getting hard on the gas. :o Either nearly highside on the gas out of the apex or lowside going in too hard. Not the hardest corner, but hard to get it right nonetheless.

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Turn 2 Phillip Island

I haven't found any other corner like it and it's so long.

I find myself taking a different line through there every time.

 

Turn 2 Eastern Creek

From top speed to a slow first gear corner - just feels like a waste of time because it's so slow. So many have crashed there (not me thankfully) ;)

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Most difficult for me at the moment is the sweeper at Winton (Australia).

It's the fastest left hander on the circuit with an entry in either 3rd or 4th (bike/gearing dependant). It's a double apex corner with a chicane at the exit.

Most of the corner is positive camber except for the outside 3rd and the trick is to pick a line which uses the camber to your advantage. A large meter square bump is a good reference point mid turn to tell you if your on your correct line. The exit is complicated by large (3-4") curbs which catch your cases if your not precise.

Stuffing up this part of the circuit costs you around 2 seconds.

 

Pictures here:

http://www.racingcircuits.net/archives/Winton/nf05-2.html

 

It's turn 3

Edited by Ian Wiltshire
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hmmm, that's a good one. I'm going to say one section that is hard to get right on the money is hte back section at Barber. After the 'Bama Rollercoaster, left/right, straight, another left /right, with a crest on the end. I don't think I ever got it to my satisfaction.

 

Wish I had ridden Ontario though.

 

Cobie

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keyhole at mid-ohio....?

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Moss's Corner at Mosport - a very tight pair of right handers after a fast uphill approach exiting to a quick kink left onto the fastest sixth gear straight I have ever ridden including Thunder Alley at Mid Ohio or the main straight at VIR North . The layout doesn't allow you (well, me at least) to take the two rights as a single sweeper as the second right closes too quickly plus getting the second piece correctly is everything for setting up the left kink and the hard drive uphill into the straight.

 

Kevin

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Hmmm... haven't been there, that sounds intereesting.

 

OK, Kevin, how about the sweeper that you have to run wide in the middle, onto the front straight at VIR?

 

Getting far enough out in the middle and keeping the speed up...wheee!

 

Cf

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T3D/4 BHF

It's a hard right follwed quickly by a hard left. I think maybe it's the trees that get me in some sort of target fixation hex and the close proximity of the corner workers.

 

T5 at Road America

Coming down from 160-170 seems to get me in the flat-I over brake, way too early, and then compensate scrubbed speed with too much throttle, unsettle chassis and flunk the turn in. It's either hilarious or painful to watch, I'd imagine. I should be writing about this stuff more often-helps to sort it out somewhat.

 

 

Will CSS ever go back to Road America?

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We don't have any plans to make it back to Rd. America right now. We had some problems up there and it also got extremely expensive. We once used the long course, and really it wasn't a very good training track---there just weren't enough turns per mile.

 

Blackhawk has been better for us, the students just get more time in the turns--really only one good sized straight there. The guys that do the 2-day camp, we switch and run it backwards on the 2nd day! 2 tracks for the price of one.

 

I do miss the brats though!

 

CF

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