IMPORTANT NOTES:
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After nearly a year of work, I’m proud to present the Autodrome de Miramas, a race circuit in southern France that opened in 1924 and hosted racing until 1933. To start, here’s a brief history of the circuit:
The Miramas Autodrome was built in 1924 as a result of a collaboration between l’Automobile Club de Marseille and the famous French racing driver Paul Bablot. It was supposed to hold the 1924 Grand Prix de Provence, but this event was not held, and instead some minor events for cyclecars were held in 1924. An extremely slow chicane was installed just before the south curve in 1925, and an identical chicane was installed before the north curve in 1926. Two races were held at the one-chicane GP circuit, one in 1925 and one in 1926. Two races were also held at the two-chicane layout, once in 1926 and once in 1927.
The circuit itself is a 5-kilometer (3.11 mile) -long concrete oval, with the two curves on either end banked at a very slight 2 degrees. It was then, and to this day still is the longest oval circuit ever used in major automobile competition, an impressive record for a circuit built in 1924. Its other claim to fame is that it hosted two of the worst fiascos in Grand Prix history: the 1926 Grand Prix de Automobile Club de France, and the 1927 Grand Prix de Provence.
The 1926 event was a disaster where the only starters were the 3 factory Bugattis, and after nearly 5 hours of “racing” Jules Goux was the only finisher. The 1927 race was even wilder. The race was postponed multiple hours while the organizers tried to wait out continuous pouring rain. After a series of qualifying “races” where the drivers heavily sandbagged just to qualify, Robert Benoist crashed the only Delage on a reconnaissance lap. The Talbot team then withdrew their cars just before the start. The crowd, which had been soaking in the rain for hours, was enraged at being deprived of the main competitors, and invaded the track after only a few laps, causing the race to be suspended after just 5 laps.
The combined disaster of these two events led to the collapse of the promoting company, and the circuit never developed to the prominence it deserved. This wasn’t quite the end of racing on the circuit though. After a 4-year hiatus the Grand Prix de Provence was held again in 1932 on the oval circuit, but its return was short-lived, and the 1933 edition was the final Grand Prix held at the circuit. It lay mostly dormant with occasional events until the 1980s, when it was bought by BMW and converted into a test track. The original oval was repaved in asphalt, but the two chicanes still exist today as they were in the 1920s.
MOD INFO
AI
AI has been optimized for the Delage 15S8. Faster cars should be fine through the chicanes, but slower cars might be a bit too slow at the chicanes for the GP circuits. I don’t anticipate any issues on the oval layouts.
LAYOUTS
The track has four layouts, representing the circuit in 1924, 1925, 1926, and 1932. The 1924 and 1932 layouts are both the 5 km oval circuit. The 1925 layout is 5.05 km long and has one chicane at the south end of the circuit. The 1926 layout is 5.1 km long and has identical chicanes at both ends of the circuit.
BRAKE MARKERS
There weren’t any brake markers around the circuit in real life (that I could tell, anyway), but picking out a braking point for the very tight chicanes without them is very difficult, particularly with the relatively poor brakes of the kinds of cars that would have raced here. To make racing easier but still maintain the proper feel, I have placed sandbags before the chicanes at 400m, 300m, 200m, and 100m for easier braking reference. They are pretty subtle, so keep your eyes open for them. The tire marks start at about the braking point for the Delage 15S8 as a secondary reference point.
TRACK
Track surface is a very rough, grippy concrete. Pitlane is a tightly packed dirt. The track was made using 5m resolution LIDAR data with significant smoothing. Buildings and trackside objects were recreated to the best of my ability using images from the period.
I first started on the track before I started work on the Delage, and then put it on hold while I finished the car up. I then decided to start over from scratch as I was a lot less experienced when I first worked on it and the files I had weren’t too good. I started on the project again in earnest in October of 2021, and have since put in around about 1000 hours of work into developing the track. I hope you enjoy the track, and happy racing!
- Requires CSP for layout-specific configs and for RainFX. Track should still work fine with Vanilla AC, but will be missing some visual elements in the 1926 and 1932 layouts. I think there were some flickering issues with the mountains that I fixed through config that will pop up without CSP, and there may be some other issues that appear without CSP.
- I have separated the spectators into their own KN5 file, so if you’re someone who likes racing without spectators, you can easily delete or rename “spectators.kn5” to get rid of them.
- AI are a bit slower than I would like at the GP layouts, mainly because they struggled with the chicanes. It was a balance between speed and consistency, and I prioritized less crashing over faster times through the chicanes. Someone who’s more experienced at making AI lines might be able to improve the GP AI, but they’re about as good as I can make them.
After nearly a year of work, I’m proud to present the Autodrome de Miramas, a race circuit in southern France that opened in 1924 and hosted racing until 1933. To start, here’s a brief history of the circuit:
The Miramas Autodrome was built in 1924 as a result of a collaboration between l’Automobile Club de Marseille and the famous French racing driver Paul Bablot. It was supposed to hold the 1924 Grand Prix de Provence, but this event was not held, and instead some minor events for cyclecars were held in 1924. An extremely slow chicane was installed just before the south curve in 1925, and an identical chicane was installed before the north curve in 1926. Two races were held at the one-chicane GP circuit, one in 1925 and one in 1926. Two races were also held at the two-chicane layout, once in 1926 and once in 1927.
The circuit itself is a 5-kilometer (3.11 mile) -long concrete oval, with the two curves on either end banked at a very slight 2 degrees. It was then, and to this day still is the longest oval circuit ever used in major automobile competition, an impressive record for a circuit built in 1924. Its other claim to fame is that it hosted two of the worst fiascos in Grand Prix history: the 1926 Grand Prix de Automobile Club de France, and the 1927 Grand Prix de Provence.
The 1926 event was a disaster where the only starters were the 3 factory Bugattis, and after nearly 5 hours of “racing” Jules Goux was the only finisher. The 1927 race was even wilder. The race was postponed multiple hours while the organizers tried to wait out continuous pouring rain. After a series of qualifying “races” where the drivers heavily sandbagged just to qualify, Robert Benoist crashed the only Delage on a reconnaissance lap. The Talbot team then withdrew their cars just before the start. The crowd, which had been soaking in the rain for hours, was enraged at being deprived of the main competitors, and invaded the track after only a few laps, causing the race to be suspended after just 5 laps.
The combined disaster of these two events led to the collapse of the promoting company, and the circuit never developed to the prominence it deserved. This wasn’t quite the end of racing on the circuit though. After a 4-year hiatus the Grand Prix de Provence was held again in 1932 on the oval circuit, but its return was short-lived, and the 1933 edition was the final Grand Prix held at the circuit. It lay mostly dormant with occasional events until the 1980s, when it was bought by BMW and converted into a test track. The original oval was repaved in asphalt, but the two chicanes still exist today as they were in the 1920s.
MOD INFO
AI
AI has been optimized for the Delage 15S8. Faster cars should be fine through the chicanes, but slower cars might be a bit too slow at the chicanes for the GP circuits. I don’t anticipate any issues on the oval layouts.
LAYOUTS
The track has four layouts, representing the circuit in 1924, 1925, 1926, and 1932. The 1924 and 1932 layouts are both the 5 km oval circuit. The 1925 layout is 5.05 km long and has one chicane at the south end of the circuit. The 1926 layout is 5.1 km long and has identical chicanes at both ends of the circuit.
BRAKE MARKERS
There weren’t any brake markers around the circuit in real life (that I could tell, anyway), but picking out a braking point for the very tight chicanes without them is very difficult, particularly with the relatively poor brakes of the kinds of cars that would have raced here. To make racing easier but still maintain the proper feel, I have placed sandbags before the chicanes at 400m, 300m, 200m, and 100m for easier braking reference. They are pretty subtle, so keep your eyes open for them. The tire marks start at about the braking point for the Delage 15S8 as a secondary reference point.
TRACK
Track surface is a very rough, grippy concrete. Pitlane is a tightly packed dirt. The track was made using 5m resolution LIDAR data with significant smoothing. Buildings and trackside objects were recreated to the best of my ability using images from the period.
I first started on the track before I started work on the Delage, and then put it on hold while I finished the car up. I then decided to start over from scratch as I was a lot less experienced when I first worked on it and the files I had weren’t too good. I started on the project again in earnest in October of 2021, and have since put in around about 1000 hours of work into developing the track. I hope you enjoy the track, and happy racing!
