Background story
In the early days of GR, I had a ”Best of” installation with the keeper tracks in dedicated track type folders. However, starting from 2003 or 2004, I had too little time and too many tracks were released to test them properly. As a result, I didn’t categorize new releases and ended up racing on other people’s tracks only in competitions and when testing for ToM/ToY. I never stopped thinking about how fun it’d be to have a ”Best of” installation as there are lots of excellent tracks that deserve to be raced. Then, enter COVID.
During the last 12 months, I’ve gone over every single .trk file in my collection to build a library of actual keepers. In total, I opened 15363 .trk files, out of which 2014 ended up in my ultimate ”Best of” installation. These 15K+ tracks included duplicates, track variations etc. but also thousands and thousands of individual tracks. I did this in three stages.
First, I went over every single track once and checked possible good ones. During this stage, I noticed a shift in my preferences and realized I had kept way too many mediocre tracks. For the second stage, I had about 5000 tracks left, which I then opened again to see whether they actually are that good. 2300+ tracks survived this stage. In the final stage, I classified the tracks and tested the AI for every one of them apart from my own* tracks (I know the AI lines for them are good) and stage rallies. Even though I’ve always thought I don’t touch other people’s tracks for my own purposes, I had come to different conclusion: I fixed the AI line of quite many tracks for my own use since these tracks are otherwise so good! Some tracks required just a bit of retouching the objects: adding/deleting sunk tyres, deleting dangerous walls. It was a tedious task but also lots of fun.
I also handpicked some nice cars to go with different tracks. Even though I’m a diehard fan of the original GR cars, some track types simply require something else. Furthermore, I remembered my early favorite, a Citycars pack by Strava, which has alternative bodies for the General, such as Minivan, Pickup and Sedan.
* I’m not sure how many tracks of my own are preserved in the Best of installation. I do know that I DQ’d 100 of them during the second stage.
My track type folders
Now, I have a Best Of folder which actually includes three separate installations: Main, Specialities, and Stage Rally.
My Main installation has track types that more or less fit the usual categories. Almost all can be driven with the original cars. It has the following folders:
- [Originals Updated]
- [World Tour Updated]
- 1 on 1 (FSR)
- 1 on 1 (Misc)
- Abstract
- Classic
- Crash
- Formula (Long)
- Formula (Medium)
- Formula (Short)
- Micro (Chaos)
- Micro (Regular)
- Offroad (Arena)
- Offroad (Nature)
- Other (Misc)
- Other (Places)
- Oval (Dirt)
- Oval (Formula)
- Oval (Grascar)
- Rally (Arcade)
- Rally (Realistic)
- Road (Arcade)
- Road (Realistic)
- RWL (Formula)
- RWL (GP67)
- Snow
- Street (Arcade)
- Street (Realistic)
- Stunt
- Classic includes a bunch of tracks done in the spirit of early GR, mostly TE only with rough hmap but lots of character
- For Formula, Short < 300 m, Long > 600 m, Medium in between.
- For Micro, I finally settled for WS70 or less.
- Art (Drivable)
- Art (Show)
- BmxSim
- Challenge
- F-Zero
- Horse
- Micro Machines
- MotoX
- Planets
- Ski
- Space
- Stunt Car Racer
- Vapor Trail Circle Cup
- Vapor Trail Square Cup
- Water (Masa)
- Water (Strava)
Finally, Stage Rally installation includes 31 stage rallies in their own folders, plus 8 separate single stages.
So, my question to you is what track folders do you have?