Suzuka

My favourite real life circuit¹, designed by Dutchman Johannes Bernhardus Theodorus “Hans” Hugenholtz or, sensible fellow, John to native English speakers.

Used cut outs from a big sheet of cardboard and a careful selection of books to build the slope up to 130R. And made it almost full speed of course. I’m not sure it’s possible to recreate spoon properly at this scale but it sure looked good. Despite spanning 2 rooms both drivers could see the whole track comfortably.

I’m a big fan of side by side racing. Having this as a huge-ass 2 lane meant cars spent most of the time far apart on the circuit so not a huge success from that perspective. Being a figure of 8 does make it popular with some.

Let me also draw your attention to my ginormous implementation of the iconic big wheel in the background there. I seem to remember some roller bearing system to reduce friction. The gondolas were deliberately tiny and I spent an inordinate amount of time arranging the colours of the beams in a pleasing rainbow fashion. Sadly I didn’t capture it for my other blog.

1. Of the existing famous ones at least. The Montjuïc Barcelona city circuit is really evocative and I might have a go at recreating that in memory of Jackie Stewart one day. However #1 overall is the Arctic Circle Raceway. There’s something about the overal shape and the various radii that really does it for me. ↩︎