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#1 Barry Boor

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Posted 27 January 2012 - 19:37

WARNING - if you are not a person who has any interest in the historical side of racing circuits, please do not read any further....

Still with me? O.K. here goes then;

I have a lot of spare time and I spend bits of it looking at old circuits on Google Earth. It is a very useful tool that aids my quest to reproduce accurate slot race circuits. I have a race coming up later this year, or maybe next, at Albi.

Included in my Google Earth placemarks are dozens of circuits that have been located and marked by Mark A - who did a fantastic job finding them. When I opened up Mark's Albi - 1946-1953 plan initially it looked o.k. but then I noticed that the length of the circuit was about 5.2 miles. This didn't seem correct. I checked my 1955 Autosport Directory and found that the Albi circuit was quoted, very specifically as 5.563 miles - 8.901 km.

Looking at the roads that made up the circuit, it appeared from G.E. that the majority of them were very much in the same location as they were back in the early 1950s - with the addition of the inevitable roundabouts, of course. So, if Mark's tracing of the circuit is basically correct the relatively large discrepancy between his circuit path and the actual one must be at the western end where the old start-finish straight was. For those who are not familiar with Albi, it had a very short pit straight, entered and left through two more of less right angled right hand corners.

I have fiddled about with the line of the circuit at the western end, working from the old circuit map in my book and the actual distance measurement function on G.E. Looking at the image I have added, the red line shows where Mark had the start finish straight, but this gives a circuit length that is almost half a mile too short. Perfectly logical because Mark has picked up on roads that actually exist. The green line shows the whole circuit and I have actually made it into 8.901 kilometres. In order to do that I have had to take my road across some sports pitches and right through a building.

Posted Image

BUT, looking at Darren's site and checking on the Albi Grand Prix races from 1946 to 1953, I find the circuit lengths quoted as 8.899, 8.882, 8.880, 8.954 and 8.953. None of which matches the 8.901 in my Autosport book.

So, does anyone have anything to say about this other than the fact that B. Boor is a very sad old b****r.

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#2 Bauble

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Posted 27 January 2012 - 19:49

"I have had to take my road across some sports pitches"

I trust that Nello Ugolini was not playing football at the time.

Edited by Bauble, 27 January 2012 - 19:49.


#3 Doug Nye

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Posted 27 January 2012 - 20:22

Looking at the street views around Les Planques today really makes me think that road racing protects the environment. This used to be a magnificent countryside and village circuit. They stop racing there...now look at the suburban blight...

At least Wharton's bank appears to be still there in the very fast ess bend on the St Juery road, though overhung today by rather shaggy trees and bushes. It's not far beyond the 39th roundabout and the Lidl Supermarket. i assume this is where a V16 BRM Mark I roared its last. The other candidate curve is now lost to the aforementioned roundabout. Who invented these darned things?

DCN

Edited by Doug Nye, 27 January 2012 - 20:25.


#4 taylov

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Posted 27 January 2012 - 20:26

WARNING - if you are not a person who has any interest in the historical side of racing circuits, please do not read any further....

Still with me? O.K. here goes then;

I have a lot of spare time and I spend bits of it looking at old circuits on Google Earth. It is a very useful tool that aids my quest to reproduce accurate slot race circuits. I have a race coming up later this year, or maybe next, at Albi...............

.................BUT, looking at Darren's site and checking on the Albi Grand Prix races from 1946 to 1953, I find the circuit lengths quoted as 8.899, 8.882, 8.880, 8.954 and 8.953. None of which matches the 8.901 in my Autosport book.

So, does anyone have anything to say about this other than the fact that B. Boor is a very sad old b****r.



I have the 1953 programme in front of me and the official lap distance is.........8km 901m. Which proves that you are NOT a very old sad B****r.

Tony

#5 Barry Boor

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Posted 27 January 2012 - 20:31

Is there a map in there, Tony? And if there is, how close does my guess at the circuit line appear to be?

#6 taylov

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Posted 27 January 2012 - 20:38

Is there a map in there, Tony? And if there is, how close does my guess at the circuit line appear to be?


See http://forums.autosp...w...=157081&hl= Post #11 for the map from the 1953 programme.

Tony

#7 Barry Boor

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Posted 27 January 2012 - 20:57

Thank you, Tony. That plan is a little simpler than the actual shape but I think I may be fairly close with my guess.

This all leads me to wonder about all those different circuit lengths.

#8 GMACKIE

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Posted 27 January 2012 - 21:13

The length of the circuit could vary quite a bit, depending on how it was measured. For instance.....Down the centre of the road? Straight-line the corners? Around the outside? Etc.

#9 Geoff E

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Posted 27 January 2012 - 23:05

The length of the circuit could vary quite a bit, depending on how it was measured. For instance.....Down the centre of the road? Straight-line the corners? Around the outside? Etc.


An interesting thought ... but the difference between the outside and inside circumferences of any closed circuit is pi times the width of the road, no matter what the length or shape of the circuit ... so if you measure along the centre and the road is 12m wide, your error should not be more than 19m.

#10 Bloggsworth

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Posted 27 January 2012 - 23:09

You haven't marked the DRS zones...

#11 Catalina Park

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Posted 27 January 2012 - 23:22

Barry, I have looked at the Google map and the map in the other thread trying to work out where the track was and I think you may have it right by running it though the building.

On the Google Map I found this strange looking building which appears to be the control tower for the circuit...

Posted Image

Over at Cahier Archive I found this photo showing the same building...
http://www.f1-photo...._Albi_02_BC.jpg
To me it looks like the track ran right through where the sporting fields and building are.

I found another photo of the same building on Flickr
http://www.flickr.co...rde/4564085113/

Edited by Catalina Park, 27 January 2012 - 23:58.


#12 GMACKIE

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Posted 28 January 2012 - 01:28

An interesting thought ... but the difference between the outside and inside circumferences of any closed circuit is pi times the width of the road, no matter what the length or shape of the circuit ... so if you measure along the centre and the road is 12m wide, your error should not be more than 19m.

The difference between 8.901 and 8.882 [the shortest distance quoted] just happens to be 19 metres. :clap:


#13 Vitesse2

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Posted 28 January 2012 - 01:29

I checked my 1955 Autosport Directory and found that the Albi circuit was quoted, very specifically as 5.563 miles - 8.901 km.

The thing is, Barry, that distance in miles is wrong. Or, to be more precise, not calculated accurately. Either it was worked out on a not all that accurate slide rule (everyone under 45 is probably asking WTF is a slide rule? :lol: ) or - more likely - whoever did it didn't like doing long division very much, as you get that result by dividing 8.901 by 1.6, a number arrived at by following the assumption that 8 kilometres = 5 miles exactly. Problem is, it doesn't. 1 mile is 1.609344 kilometres, so the bigger the number you're trying to convert, the greater the margin of error: I always calculate distances and speeds by multiplying or dividing by 1.609344 and then rounding them to however many places there were in the original figure. In this case 8.901/1.609344 = 5.53082498210451, which rounds to 5.531 miles. That .032 mile discrepancy equates to a difference of 56 yards - plus an odd eleven and a half inches.

BUT, looking at Darren's site and checking on the Albi Grand Prix races from 1946 to 1953, I find the circuit lengths quoted as 8.899, 8.882, 8.880, 8.954 and 8.953. None of which matches the 8.901 in my Autosport book.

So, does anyone have anything to say about this other than the fact that B. Boor is a very sad old b****r.

I've found many similar examples over the years, especially where authors have relied on British or American publications which have performed incorrect conversions as above. Sometimes they use 1.6, sometimes 1.61, sometimes 1.609. Sometimes I think they just guessed! I always find it worth cross-checking published speeds too, but I've found some cases where the figures are so confused that you just can't work out what the right numbers are supposed to be: races where a lap distance is quoted but in two heats and a final none of the speeds given in the results equate to the times given and the margin of error is different for each one! Again, presumably rounding errors.

#14 Eric Dunsdon

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Posted 28 January 2012 - 10:33

Nothing sad about this thread for me Barry. Google on!. :cool:

#15 Rob Semmeling

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Posted 28 January 2012 - 11:17

The late Vincent Glon gives the length of the Albi circuit as follows:

1933: 8.926 km
1934-1939: 8.911 km
1946-1953: 8.901 km

As Catalina Park showed, the start-finish area of the old circuit nowadays does not exist anymore. I suspect the red line on Mark's map, which is the present-day Avenue de Saint-Juéry, may have been where start-finish of the Circuit Raymond Sommer (1954-1955) was located. Also see the maps on Vincent's website.

#16 Charlieman

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Posted 28 January 2012 - 13:03

An interesting thought ... but the difference between the outside and inside circumferences of any closed circuit is pi times the width of the road, no matter what the length or shape of the circuit ... so if you measure along the centre and the road is 12m wide, your error should not be more than 19m.


When measuring a figure of eight circuit, how do you define the outside and inside circumference?


#17 Bauble

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Posted 28 January 2012 - 13:27

If the different measurements should show that the 1953 circuit was longer than thought, then the BRM's lap speeds were even faster than recorded! Wow!

Personally I do not believe the circuit would have been any shorter than stated.

Never mind it's true length it was a truly awesome place to hold a motor race.

bauble.

#18 Vitesse2

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Posted 28 January 2012 - 15:36

BUT, looking at Darren's site and checking on the Albi Grand Prix races from 1946 to 1953, I find the circuit lengths quoted as 8.899, 8.882, 8.880, 8.954 and 8.953. None of which matches the 8.901 in my Autosport book.

So, does anyone have anything to say about this other than the fact that B. Boor is a very sad old b****r.

Just to expand on what I said above, as Darren only quotes kilometres on his site we can't be sure what the original source for the data was, but I think it's a fair bet that most of the original source material was British, calculated by journalists for a readership that didn't understand or want metric measurements.

Let's take 1953. Darren's data says "89.534 km (8.953 km x 10 laps) x 2 Heats, 161.162 km (8.953 km x 18 laps) Final". Now we can see one discrepancy immediately, because 8.953 * 10 does not equal 89.534: where did those extra four metres come from? Taking that further, 8.953 * 18 isn't 161.162 either - it's 161.154 - and even if we add in that rogue 40 centimetres on the lap length we still only get to 161.1612 km. Now, as we have the official circuit length from the programme we know the correct length of the final should be 160.218km or 99.555 miles. However, the figures Darren has used mean he is overstating the length of the race by 944 metres - about three-fifths of a mile.

So, somewhere in there, there's a lap length of 8.9534 kilometres. Where did that come from? Well, if you divide the correct final length of 160.218 km by the approximation 1.6, round the resulting answer of 100.13625 to 100.14 miles and then multiply that by the more accurate 1.609344 and again round that answer to 161.1597 (or even 161.16 - notice how close we now are to 161.162?) guess what you get when you divide it by the 18 laps? 8.9533! But what's 10 centimetres between friends? ;)

Therefore, by implication, all those figures have been based on some journalist, who believed that 8 kilometres really was exactly 5 miles, rounding his already inaccurately calculated figures (in miles) for a British readership. 59 years ago.

I've no doubt similar calculations can be done to explain the other misquoted lap lengths. But my brain hurts now, so I'm not gonna do them ... :p

#19 GIGLEUX

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Posted 28 January 2012 - 16:24

If the different measurements should show that the 1953 circuit was longer than thought, then the BRM's lap speeds were even faster than recorded! Wow!

Personally I do not believe the circuit would have been any shorter than stated.

Never mind it's true length it was a truly awesome place to hold a motor race.

bauble.

1938= 8,619566 km source official programme
1939= 8,901 km source L'Auto
1946 up to 1953 8,901 km sources L'Equipe, La Dépêche du Midi and the official programmes.

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#20 Barry Boor

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Posted 28 January 2012 - 16:30

so, my green line may be fairly close. It certainly measures exactly 8.901 km - or at least, it is according to the Google Earth measuring function.

#21 Roger Clark

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Posted 28 January 2012 - 17:24

Google Earth is a wonderful thing and i'm sure it's not at all evil, but does it really enable you to measure distances to the nearest metre?

#22 Vitesse2

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Posted 28 January 2012 - 17:37

Google Earth is a wonderful thing and i'm sure it's not at all evil, but does it really enable you to measure distances to the nearest metre?

I'm inclined to agree, Roger: isn't GPS only accurate to 10 metres? However, according to what Jean-Maurice has posted about 1938, then somebody apparently went to the trouble to measure the track to the nearest millimetre! :eek:

1938= 8,619566 km source official programme



#23 elansprint72

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Posted 28 January 2012 - 17:47

Barry,
A tool that I find very useful in addition to Google Earth is the Bird's Eye view facility on Bing Maps. With this you can get a brilliant view of how a location looks now and swing thro'90 degree increments around it.

#24 mikeC

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Posted 28 January 2012 - 18:28

... isn't GPS only accurate to 10 metres?



I was recently talking to someone who is in charge of a fleet of motorway gritting lorries. He claimed that they were controlled from HQ by GPS - all the driver has to do is steer, and the gritting is monitored automatically. It can identify which lane of the motorway it's on, and direct the spray accordingly :eek:

#25 Barry Boor

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Posted 28 January 2012 - 19:26

Well, until someone goes out with a tape and measures something that proves G.E. to be inaccurate, I'm sticking to it.

#26 LittleChris

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Posted 28 January 2012 - 21:23

Periodically over the last few years, I have spent time trying to determine where the old horseshoe ( Rue Flad I believe ) shaped start/finish area at Albi was located and my most recent conclusion is that it is where the sports ground / footy pitches are now located as backed up by Catalina Park's photo of what I agree is the old circuit building / control tower.

Where I differ from Barry is that I think that first corner is earlier than shown on his map ie I think it joined what is the current road from West to East to the north of the pitches rather than carrying on into what is now a car parking area.

Signed

Another saddo :wave:

#27 Barry Boor

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Posted 28 January 2012 - 21:34

You could well be right, Chris, because my start-finish straight is around 180 yards long, which, looking at film of the old circuit, is too long. but then, if that section is much shorter, then that straight would need to be even further west in order to make the measurement tally.



#28 LittleChris

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Posted 28 January 2012 - 21:49

I think it comes back to how the original distances were derived Barry.

Edit:

Guido de Carli's site quotes what appear to be two sets of measurements for the track each time it changed, measured from aerial photos.

My reading is that the inner circumference remained at 8455m despite the outer circumference changing from 8911 to 8901m. Is it possible for you to use GE to measure the inner circumference of your original map to see how that compares to Guido's ?

Edited by LittleChris, 28 January 2012 - 22:02.


#29 Catalina Park

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Posted 29 January 2012 - 01:42

I also wonder if the current road has been moved closer to the tower building, there appears to be room on the other side of the road where the cemetery fence is.


#30 GIGLEUX

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Posted 29 January 2012 - 09:11

I also wonder if the current road has been moved closer to the tower building, there appears to be room on the other side of the road where the cemetery fence is.

No. Room on the other side of the road is the cemetery parking. Before, there were fields.

#31 Catalina Park

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Posted 29 January 2012 - 09:39

No. Room on the other side of the road is the cemetery parking. Before, there were fields.

I thought the cemetery parking and the fields before it may have been the road alignment before the road was rebuilt with the freeway works.
The cemetery seems to be set back a long way from the road for such an old place, the building further back along the road seem set back more than in other locations along that road
Also the photos I have seen of the corner seem to show a wider approach to where the tower building is. It looked like the road was lower in relation to the tower too.

I am only guessing, I only know it from a computer screen!

#32 Rob Semmeling

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Posted 29 January 2012 - 09:49

Google Earth is a wonderful thing and i'm sure it's not at all evil, but does it really enable you to measure distances to the nearest metre?


I'd say the measuring tool is pretty accurate as long as the surface you are measuring is flat, but even then there is a slight error margin. For example, I measured the TT Circuit at Assen, which has almost no elevation change, as precisely as possible along the centre line, resulting in a length of 4.557 km. The official track length for that layout is 4.555 km.

I don't think the measuring tool takes into account elevation changes, however, so the hillier a circuit the less accurate the measurement will be. Of course measuring a circuit to the nearest centi- or millimetre is completely pointless no matter what method you use.

Going off-topic a little: I am sometimes surprised even a professional series like Indycar doesn't seem to have a standard protocol for measuring tracks. Some are measured up to three decimals, others only to one, yet the timing is always done up to four decimals (ten-thousandths of a second).

#33 GIGLEUX

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Posted 29 January 2012 - 13:45

I thought the cemetery parking and the fields before it may have been the road alignment before the road was rebuilt with the freeway works.
The cemetery seems to be set back a long way from the road for such an old place, the building further back along the road seem set back more than in other locations along that road
Also the photos I have seen of the corner seem to show a wider approach to where the tower building is. It looked like the road was lower in relation to the tower too.

I am only guessing, I only know it from a computer screen!


The cemetery was built at the end of the seventies. It is the cemetery of Caussels but we still call it "the new cemetery" (my parents grave is here); it was buit because there were no more places in the old cemetery of Albi, the cemetery of Les Planques, which also was the name of the circuit.
From my mother side my family lived in Albi and Saint-Juéry. My grand-mother sister was the grand-mother of Bernard Pelissier who wrote the book "Albi et ses Grands Prix", so Bernard is a little cousin of mine. One of my grand uncles owned the "Café de la Terrasse" which still exist, in the hairpin in the center town of Saint-Juéry. When a teenager I lived for many years in Albi and Saint-Juéry. My parents had their house built, in 1965, at the exact place where Wharton's BRM finished its course. Nearly facing is a little stele in honour of the 1950 world motorbike champion Dario Ambrosini who lost his life in 1951. Till the end of the sixties, every year his father came and put flowers; after that nobody, maybe too old or dead...

#34 Barry Boor

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Posted 29 January 2012 - 14:21

It really is no surprise that you are interested in the history of motor racing given where your roots lie, Jean-Maurice.

I am sorry if I have caused you any distress or unhappiness with this thread.

#35 Vitesse2

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Posted 29 January 2012 - 14:39

The cemetery was built at the end of the seventies. It is the cemetery of Caussels but we still call it "the new cemetery" (my parents grave is here); it was buit because there were no more places in the old cemetery of Albi, the cemetery of Les Planques, which also was the name of the circuit.
From my mother side my family lived in Albi and Saint-Juéry. My grand-mother sister was the grand-mother of Bernard Pelissier who wrote the book "Albi et ses Grands Prix", so Bernard is a little cousin of mine. One of my grand uncles owned the "Café de la Terrasse" which still exist, in the hairpin in the center town of Saint-Juéry. When a teenager I lived for many years in Albi and Saint-Juéry. My parents had their house built, in 1965, at the exact place where Wharton's BRM finished its course. Nearly facing is a little stele in honour of the 1950 world motorbike champion Dario Ambrosini who lost his life in 1951. Till the end of the sixties, every year his father came and put flowers; after that nobody, maybe too old or dead...

I have a t-shirt from a military history forum which bears the slogan "Information which is not shared is lost".

Merci pour l'information, Jean-Maurice. Maintenant - pas perdu! :up:

#36 GIGLEUX

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Posted 29 January 2012 - 14:46

It really is no surprise that you are interested in the history of motor racing given where your roots lie, Jean-Maurice.

I am sorry if I have caused you any distress or unhappiness with this thread.


Thank you Barry but don't worry no distress and no unhappiness, only some melancholy when I realized I was writing of things or events of my life which occured something like half a century ago! God, time is like water you try to retain in your hands...


#37 GMACKIE

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Posted 29 January 2012 - 20:13

God, time is like water you try to retain in your hands...

That is so true, GIGLEUX. :up: :wave:



#38 Doug Nye

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Posted 29 January 2012 - 21:47

Indeed, so true. Jean-Maurice, can you possibly pinpoint for us the exact position of the Ambrosini memorial and the site of Ken Wharton's V16 BRM accident?

DCN

#39 LittleChris

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Posted 29 January 2012 - 22:33

Doug,

If you look at Barrys map on the first post, approx halfway along the top leg is what looks like a hippodrome. The right hand curve after that is the site of both the Wharton crash and the Ambrosini memorial. The latter is visible on streetview at the junction of Av Jean Jaures and Chemin de la Renaudie next to the advertising board.

Chris

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#40 Doug Nye

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Posted 29 January 2012 - 22:49

Thanks Chris - I hadn't noticed the plaque before but that is where I deduced Wharton would have fallen off, and out? But the general obliteration around the old course by modern development is sad to see, though naturally understandable.

DCN

#41 Geoff E

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Posted 29 January 2012 - 22:52

If you look at Barrys map on the first post, approx halfway along the top leg is what looks like a hippodrome. The right hand curve after that is the site of both the Wharton crash and the Ambrosini memorial. The latter is visible on streetview at the junction of Av Jean Jaures and Chemin de la Renaudie next to the advertising board.


Here? http://tinyurl.com/7drdrwl

#42 LittleChris

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Posted 29 January 2012 - 23:12

That's it. If you go to post 39 in the link given in post 6 of this thread there's a close up of the memorial

#43 LittleChris

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Posted 30 January 2012 - 00:16

But the general obliteration around the old course by modern development is sad to see, though naturally understandable.


When I drove around there a few years ago, my original intention had been to do one lap to get a feel for the place then film the next lap but I didn't see any point following the completion of the "sighting" lap due, as you say, to the obliteration of the old circuit. Funnily enough, the area of the Wharton / Ambrosini accidents was the first point at which I felt I was on the Albi circuit that I'd only previously read about. The other section was that from Montplaisir to the start / finish area which was still very narrow and bordered by trees with the attendant bumps in the road due to the roots growing under the tarmac. I was a bit nervous driving at 70 mph along there so more than appreciated the courage of Fangio, Gonzales, Wharton, Ascari et al travelling along the same road at more than twice the speed :eek:

We then went to see a modern development, the Millau Viaduct, which had just opened and proves that not everything new is bad :clap:


#44 Catalina Park

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Posted 30 January 2012 - 06:37

The cemetery was built at the end of the seventies. It is the cemetery of Caussels but we still call it "the new cemetery" (my parents grave is here); it was buit because there were no more places in the old cemetery of Albi, the cemetery of Les Planques, which also was the name of the circuit.
From my mother side my family lived in Albi and Saint-Juéry. My grand-mother sister was the grand-mother of Bernard Pelissier who wrote the book "Albi et ses Grands Prix", so Bernard is a little cousin of mine. One of my grand uncles owned the "Café de la Terrasse" which still exist, in the hairpin in the center town of Saint-Juéry. When a teenager I lived for many years in Albi and Saint-Juéry. My parents had their house built, in 1965, at the exact place where Wharton's BRM finished its course. Nearly facing is a little stele in honour of the 1950 world motorbike champion Dario Ambrosini who lost his life in 1951. Till the end of the sixties, every year his father came and put flowers; after that nobody, maybe too old or dead...

Thanks for that Jean-Maurice. I am sorry to have jumped to the wrong assumption.
I was looking at the aerial photo on a different site and it is a little clearer... http://binged.it/yq7PXj
I can picture in my mind how the corner flowed into the pit straight now.

#45 ray b

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Posted 31 January 2012 - 03:23

GPS has many datums
if you use a different datum in your GPS from google earths wgs84
your results will vary

http://bbs.keyhole.c...ite_id=1#import

greenwich 0 line is now 100m+ off as per the above link

continental drift is a factor over longer time periods
the earth moves !!!

btw survey uses RTGPS that has a station on a known point
that apply a updated correction by radio link to the moble GPS unit
and will get cm level results



btw2
do any tracks measure the racing line
as that can be far off the center line distance
with cars running a diagonal down a strait to get to the corner entry points
let alone the difference in racing line vs center line in a curve

Edited by ray b, 31 January 2012 - 03:27.


#46 Barry Boor

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Posted 31 January 2012 - 07:14

An interesting point regarding measuring inaccuracies where the road being measured goes up or down.

However, my simple brain wonders if a racing circuit is being measured and therefore starting and finishing at the same point, would not the inaccuracies cancel themselves out, as in 'swings and roundabouts'?

#47 Geoff E

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Posted 31 January 2012 - 09:00

An interesting point regarding measuring inaccuracies where the road being measured goes up or down.

However, my simple brain wonders if a racing circuit is being measured and therefore starting and finishing at the same point, would not the inaccuracies cancel themselves out, as in 'swings and roundabouts'?


No. If you imagine the road surface as the hypotenuse of a right-angled triangle, that hypotenuse will always be longer than the longer of the other two sides (which may be thought of as the horizontal (GPS) distance.


#48 Doug Nye

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Posted 31 January 2012 - 10:04

Surely with hand timing to only one tenth of a second or so, the actual distance covered by each car per lap - which in truth would have included all kinds of variations like taking five metres of outside verge or cutting an apex - also becomes more or less academic? Each year the timekeepers knew more or less the parameters to which they were working. It was a game - not an attempt to land an explorer survivably on Mars.

DCN

#49 Barry Boor

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Posted 31 January 2012 - 10:16

Ah, but I haven't measured the distance to Mars yet, Doug. Google Mars is not yet downloadable AFAIK.

#50 wenoopy

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Posted 31 January 2012 - 10:59

I was looking at the aerial photo on a different site and it is a little clearer... http://binged.it/yq7PXj
I can picture in my mind how the corner flowed into the pit straight now.


I had been looking at this closer-up Google Maps version of Barry's aerial. The Tower is clearly seen because of the shadow it casts. Behind it to the west there is a narrow lane which runs from Route de Millau to Avenue de Saint Juery, and possibly marks the Western boundary of the sports ground area.

Posted Image

(sorry about the white patch - a couple of labels just wouldn't go away)

The "binged.it" aerial shot is taken at a different time of year, when grass growth was green rather than the dusty brown of the Google shot, and there appears to me to be an interesting curved patch of grass of a slightly different colour just in front of the Tower. Could this be the path of the original corner? If the track had been dug up and grassed over, the soil/subsoil and hence the grass growth might be different, even 30+ years later.

On a different note, the JM Fangio website (jmfangio.org/historial....) details almost every race Fangio ran. He competed at Albi in 1949,1950,1952 and 1953, and the site has reports of each race, largely derived from Bernard Pelissier's "Albi et ses Grands Prix - 1928 - 1960". There are several photos for each race, many of them around the start-finish area, but also of St Juery and other parts. The picture of 2 BRM's in the narrow streets of St Juery between the two-storeyed buildings conjures up thoughts of a shattering noise experience.

Another question occurs - did a very original circuit extend 100 metres further to the sharper corner of (then) Route Nationale 99 and Chemin Departemental 100) and was the track through the park/open area a later development? Or was this the original design, with a view to a possible future GP de France?

Stu