So..What makes a good track?

Very simple answer to that question that is too often overlooked.

GOOD DIRT !!!!

Compare all your good local tracks to the bad ones. Compare the great national tracks to the average ones. The one common denominator here is the soil. Use good dirt and you are guaranteed to have a great track, track design is second in line !!

180 degree turns for good solid take out moves in SX.

Soil is an option, but then you make all the tracks somewhat the same. I don't mind some tracks (inside or outside) having harder dirt than others, just think the layouts need to compliment the dirt better. I, being a lowly message board member, don't have the answer to the layout question. Probably more 180 turns and jump combos that are more equal if rolled from the inside. Maybe? I dunno.

Agreed. Seems as though the guys are tiptoeing through most of the track on hard packed slick tracks.

East Texas red soil watered overnight, deeply disced and dragged smooth on top. That makes a good track.....and I think I just described Swan MX in Tyler Texas. That track looks like someone took a giant flour sifter to it as the sun starts peeking through.First practice is always a blast.

Did you see the Jeff Emig Kawi commercial being run during the MEC Speed show ? That's a good track, my brother, Marc's track: The Ranch (theranchanzaca.com).

S

x2......love the Ranch, my favorite track in so cal right now

layout for sure. more corners, less on-offs and less whoops.

tracks are too one lined, the fast line on 4-strokes is rail the corner everywhere, leaves no reason to go inside and start out on a different rhythm.

also, the riders are SO good at finding the fastest possible way around a track, that it TURNS into a one lined event.

i would like to see a track designed by Pourcel. that kid always uses alternate lines everywhere and makes it work, regardless of the "One Lined" moniker... that would be rad

Nobody ever uses practice to create multiple lines. Perhaps the elimination of practice/qualifying races in favor of timed qualifying practice only has had an effect on this. A case in point was practice day at the State Series race I worked this weekend. I was flagging a section where a tabletop-short straight led to a 90 degree right and a downhill double. The first half of practice, it developed into one line about three feet wide, with 25 feet of track beside it. At lunch we prepped and watered, so that section of track was pristine again. Before afternoon practice started, I took some foam blocks and blocked off the inside 6 feet of the turn. After about a third of the practice had gone by, a good groove and berm had developed in the center of the track so I pulled the blocks back to the edge of the track. Lo and behold, not only did two tighter lines develop, people actually started passing on that corner. More than that, the outer line of the corner could be used to set up a pass on the 180 degree banked left after the downhill. And because more of the short straight going into the turn was being used, braking bumps developed across the track instead of a single track groove.

In short, although there are things on tracks which have a tendency to become on-lined, a lot of "one-line" tracks are only that way because of what the riders do and don't do.

And I'd disagree that fourstrokes only create sweeping outside lines; they are the ones that were making the deep inside ruts in the turns. It was the 65's, 85's and 125's that were using the outer sweeping berms on the turns.

I think it depends on how much room you have to build a track, making a track minimum 25 feet wide you'll have more lines, narrow tracks you won't, just an observation I see when I look at tracks, how much space do they have. Building a race track is not easy, people think you just drop dirt, it's just not that easy, you have to look at the angles ramps landings etc.

S