The F500s seem to have hit a roadblock at the moment, so I decided to hop back to the historic Lake Garnett GP track for a bit. Part of why I let it sit for so long is that since the event was of regional interest and only ran for ~8 years, reference imagery is pretty sparse. Most of what I have to work with are a handful of newspaper photos, event programs, and a few Youtube uploads of DVD rips of VHS transfers of 8mm home films. As you might imagine, these are... a
bit less clear than one might hope.
That said, one feature that can be attested to is this *terrifyingly* spindly observation tower, which appeared to be welded up from steel tube and sized to be trucked in on a flatbed and tipped up for the event:
I'm not sure where exactly it was placed along the pit straight, but I think it was close to the start/finish line since it seems to have a flagging station on the lower level. The banner is also fairly accurate to what I can make out on the videos, though I think it changed from year to year so it may not be 100% accurate.
Lake Garnett is also home to the county fairground, so there are several trackside buildings associated with that. Fortunately, most of these still exist today, and I have decent aerial imagery bracketing the time period of the GP that let me see what existed when, so these aren't too hard to flesh out.
The 4000'-long Santa Fe Straight was named for the rail line running parallel to it. I've added telegraph/signal lines along the right of way, as well as some fencing. I may use some CSP animation wizardry to put a freight train here at some point, as well... would be nice to see a Santa Fe-liveried F7 pulling grain hoppers alongside the track, just for flavor! The haybale chicane continues to murder AI -- I may play with the new soft barrier feature in the latest CSP previews to see if it makes them a bit more forgiving.
A bonus shot of the F500 through the corkscrew, maybe at one of the recent revival track days. Not giving up on that project, just putting it on the backburner for a bit!