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#1 DarioAndretti

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Posted 24 January 2013 - 21:31

Hi All, I would like to know if Milwaukee always had 9.2 degree banking

because in this videos it looks flat to me. It looks as it has maximum of 4 degree turns

http://www.youtube.c...;v=okpj28E55U4#!



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#2 taylov

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Posted 24 January 2013 - 23:01

Here's a better look at the track in 1955.



The track was paved in April 1954 and the current turns are indeed banked approx 9 degrees. However major work was carried out about 10 years ago which included widening the track. I wonder if the pre-2000 track had the same degree of banking. I checked my collection of 50's and 60's programmes but all are silent on the issue.

Edited by taylov, 24 January 2013 - 23:06.


#3 DarioAndretti

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Posted 25 January 2013 - 16:00

I am interested in 1967. I know that first race was run on the old pavemet, and for the second race in august there was new pavement. I am courious wether camber changed too. Because All books and info I have say that banking is 9.25. But when I read race reports from 60s drivers talked about milwaukee as track with a very flat turns. So I dont know was it always 9.25

Edited by DarioAndretti, 25 January 2013 - 16:51.


#4 Magoo

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Posted 26 January 2013 - 15:22

I've been at Milwaukee and on the track countless times and I can assure you it's banked. I haven't measured the superelevation angle, of course, but ~9 degrees or thereabouts seems right. I believe that when drivers call it "flat," they are speaking in relative terms. At slow speeds it's very apparent that you're on an incline, but less so at increasing speeds. The Indianapolis Motor Speedway, which is banked at just over 9 degrees as well, is also frequently described as flat.


Photos can be misleading but I believe this visual from Milwaukee is honest:

Posted Image


#5 Ross Stonefeld

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Posted 26 January 2013 - 15:23

For some reason Indy look more banked than Milwaukee.

#6 Magoo

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Posted 26 January 2013 - 15:39

For some reason Indy look more banked than Milwaukee.


I would say it looks the opposite to me in person -- possibly because the turns at Indy are of greater radius. I've noticed that Milwaukee always looks flatter on television because, being a mile, they use high camera angles and fewer cameras.

...There are some interesting historical wrinkles regarding the banking at Indy. Old sources frequently claim the banking was 16 degrees, which is incorrect. They got it a bit garbled. They meant to say 16 percent, which works out to 9 degrees 12 minutes, same as we know today.

#7 Michael Ferner

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Posted 26 January 2013 - 16:04

Well, the original drawings for the Indy curves specified 16 2/3 % of banking for inner 50' and 36 2/3 % for outer 10' of track width, but I've also seen text refering to 16° 40" (sic!) and 36° 40" (sic!), respectively. I must confess that I have forgotten how to translate the percentage into degrees, and don't feel like looking it up now, but in any case the actual banking may not be what it was supposed to be, 104 years ago...

EDIT: Okay, google is your friend... 16 % is actually 9° 10', and 16 2/3 % is 9° 32' 57" if I got that right, and 36 2/3 % = 21° 0' 30". If it's wrong, don't blame me, blame google! :D

EDIT2: Yeah, got it wrong, I can see... another try: 16 % is actaúally 9° 5' 25", and 16 2/3 % is 9° 27' 44", 36 2/3 % = 20° 8' 11"... doesn't look much better, does it? :|


Oh, and I have driven the Milwaukee Mile, too - didn't notice any banking, it's flat as a pancake! :smoking:

Edited by Michael Ferner, 26 January 2013 - 16:22.


#8 E1pix

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Posted 27 January 2013 - 06:35

I'm almost sure that the banking at the Mile has never changed.

Magoo's photo above appears the same as mine from the '70s, and I don't believe the track was "re-banked" anytime between the '60s in question and my numerous visits there in the '60s through the 1990s.

Edited by E1pix, 27 January 2013 - 06:37.


#9 DarioAndretti

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Posted 27 January 2013 - 21:48

I'm almost sure that the banking at the Mile has never changed.

Magoo's photo above appears the same as mine from the '70s, and I don't believe the track was "re-banked" anytime between the '60s in question and my numerous visits there in the '60s through the 1990s.


Can you please, post your 70s photo?

#10 E1pix

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Posted 27 January 2013 - 22:58

Can you please, post your 70s photo?

(Edit: Welcome to the BB! :up: )


Thought you'd ask... :)

Not a great pic but the closest angle to Magoo's... with a special shout-out to former teammate and awesome Gent Lee Kunzman!... just leaving the pits to qualify here and on the flatter (or flat?) apron.

Magoo's looks like Turn 4 (?), mine's early Turn 1 and perhaps a bit less banking for its proximity to the straight (presuming the straight has less banking than the turns, as I believe it does).

Posted Image

Edited by E1pix, 27 January 2013 - 23:37.


#11 Joe Bosworth

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Posted 28 January 2013 - 07:03

I drove to two second place finishes in 1958 on the road course. The road course' last turns were turns 1 and 2 of the oval.

Then the there was about a lane width and a bit as a dead flat apron which prominently transissioned to a uniform banking all the way to the wall. The uniform bank would have been very close to the 9 degrees quoted above.

The apron was very much a raceable part of the track. Dropping into the apron for the first part of the turn before letting centrifugal force moving you up to the banking at which point you flattened the throttle and wound steering off up to the exit wall was a very quicvk way around.

Regards


#12 DarioAndretti

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Posted 28 January 2013 - 13:50

I drove to two second place finishes in 1958 on the road course. The road course' last turns were turns 1 and 2 of the oval.

Then the there was about a lane width and a bit as a dead flat apron which prominently transissioned to a uniform banking all the way to the wall. The uniform bank would have been very close to the 9 degrees quoted above.

The apron was very much a raceable part of the track. Dropping into the apron for the first part of the turn before letting centrifugal force moving you up to the banking at which point you flattened the throttle and wound steering off up to the exit wall was a very quicvk way around.

Regards


can you tell me did you feel the banking being constant in the turn or if it felt increasing along the turn?
Thanks :)

#13 Joe Bosworth

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Posted 28 January 2013 - 21:08

Dario

As I recall the 9+ degrees was uniform radially from the sharp transition at the apron right up to the wall and for perhaps for more than 120 circumference degrees around a two turn system. The transition from 9 degree bends to flat or near flat straights occurred in 20 to 30 degrees (give or take a bit) enterring and leaving the corners.

This was quite different to the banking at Meadowdale which in addition to being much steeper did a quite abrubt transission from banking to flat such that you were able to use the steep fall to gain acceleration by crossing from the hight side to the low side of the track.

I trust that this responds to your query, Regards

#14 DarioAndretti

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Posted 28 January 2013 - 21:20

Dario

As I recall the 9+ degrees was uniform radially from the sharp transition at the apron right up to the wall and for perhaps for more than 120 circumference degrees around a two turn system. The transition from 9 degree bends to flat or near flat straights occurred in 20 to 30 degrees (give or take a bit) enterring and leaving the corners.

This was quite different to the banking at Meadowdale which in addition to being much steeper did a quite abrubt transission from banking to flat such that you were able to use the steep fall to gain acceleration by crossing from the hight side to the low side of the track.

I trust that this responds to your query, Regards


Thank you it is a great response.

the thing is, I am helping few people who are trying to represent that track for Grand Prix Legends simulation. So we have been doing some research and came upon this quotes:

“It's a flat, non-descript chunk of concrete with dilapidated walls and fences that sits in the middle of a neighborhood in West Allis, Wis. There's nothing aesthetically impressive about it now, nor was there when it opened back in the 1930s. But, to anybody worth his salt as a racer, that old oval track known as the Milwaukee Mile is as appealing as it gets.
“Without a doubt, it's the best laid out racetrack in the whole USA,” raves Bobby Unser.
“It was the best mile to race on, unquestionably,” praises Mario Andretti.
“It was always real hard racing, but it was one of my favorites because you could pass on the outside,” reasons Johnny Rutherford.
“I loved that place. You had to get your car handling and you had to know how to work traffic,” says Michael Andretti.
...

First of all, it's the ideal shape,” says Unser (shown at right chasing Johnny Rutherford's Chaparral 2K with his Penske PC9 in 1980). “It's a true, true oval because it's flat and you are working all the time. In the old days, you had to use your brakes, pedal it hard in the center of the corner but get back on the throttle easy because those Offy engines were real strong. And those corners had a long radius so you really had to make your car handle.”
...
you can't pass people following them so he wanted me to get out wide and clean off some room outside. I did a lot of outside passing at that place.”
The high line is where Michael Andretti lived for most of his five wins at State Fair Park and he was also a master of negotiating traffic.“That's what made that track so much fun to drive,” he says, “anticipating when you would catch somebody and going inside or outside. It was definitely a driver's track.”
...
Nobody handled traffic – or the Milwaukee Mile – better than Sneva.
“It was flat enough and wide enough that you could run two wide through the corners,” says The Gas Man. “And, because it was a short track, you didn't need horsepower to do well.”
Those cold Wisconsin winters always left a nice bump between Turns 1 and 2 and that, too, was intrinsic to the character and demands of the Mile.
“To be honest, I was never in favor of paving Milwaukee because I enjoyed bouncing around and it gave you more to work on in terms of your chassis,” recalls Mario. “Dealing with the bump was part of the challenge.”
Rutherford also liked it bumpy, and points out: “You could miss that bump if you could diamond the corner because you would slide around the biggest part of the bump and then you'd be set up for Turn 2. It was down to technique.”


So problem is that all drivers are reffering to it as flat. But 9 degrees is not flat. So we are not sure what the banking was in 1967 - the year we are trying to represent in our new mod

Can it be that it was always 9 degrees -but that nine degreees is actually considered flat. Indianapolis is around 9 too.

also was the june race held on concrete and august on new asphalt. o r was june on old asphalt and august on new asphalt?

and what was the grip difference between asphalt and concrete

thank you?

Edited by DarioAndretti, 28 January 2013 - 21:23.


#15 Joe Bosworth

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Posted 29 January 2013 - 12:30


You can very safely disregard statements of Milwaukee being "flat" circe the time frame that I was familiar with. Comments of Milwaukee being flat would have been all relative to other tracks that the commentator was familiar with. Milwaukee's bankings being uniform from apron to wall would have emphasised the relativity as soany other tracks were not only more stteply banked but were also compound banked, ie, getting progressively steeper as you approached the outside wall. Almost everything from Langehorn and Trenton in the east to wherever else you went other than some of the horse tracks that sometimes were useed by the Indi car derivatives of the time.

The thing that made Milwaukee so loved by some is that its configuration allowed the really well set up car to grab heaps more corner speed which then allowed an unusual amount of passing on the straights. The ratio of corner distsance to straight distance is also a bit unique. But it gave the ability to balance a high wide line that held speed at the expense of covering a great deal more distance compared to the low line that I found effective and which shows amply in at least one video attaached to this subject. The low line also allowed a very early hard squeeze on the throttle which resulted in very high exit speeds.

Sneva's comments that HP was not critical is very true for the road course as well since the oval dominated. With my two second places I was about 40 HP down on 30 cars and was able to beat all but Augie Papst while starting well down the grid.

If your group is doing a modelling for Legends Racing you must take into considerarion the qite low tire grips available in the period you are working towards. 1950's well into the early 60's really saw tires maxing out at 1G plus or mius a few hundedths. This had a big affect on how it was driven and car setup. This also meant that there was scarce difference between concrete and various mixes.