As far as I'm concerned, the four-year odyssey of track-building for GPL can
cease. The last great undeveloped track, Mellaha, active in colonial
Italy's Tripoli from 1933 to 1940, has been finally created by by Sergio
Loro, ably assisted by Pete Forster (AI, textures), Robert Zeugin (graphics,
esp. the lovely period billboards), Paul Jackson (groove), J. Basara
(animated flags), Mario Wojahn and Kevin Clark (alternative camera files),
among others. Alternative covers are provided by Zeugin and BAPOM's John
Bradley.
Like Andre Streu's Grenzlandring, the 8.165-mile Mellaha circuit (built in
the middle of the desert) is all about speed in a straight line. Although
there are nominally 15 turns, most are taken flat out in top gear. The 1967
F1 cars can barely touch 200 mph, but the single-seaters of 1938 were well
over the "double tonne" ... on 4.5-inch rims!
Loro's re-creation is meticulous. The far scenery looks straight out of
"Lawrence of Arabia" and the trackside palm and date trees appear
startlingly real at speed, particularly if you have eDimensional's 3D
glasses. The massive grandstand is faithfully reproduced, as are the
comically-antique support vehicles (ambulances dating from the 1930s, etc.).
To give you an idea of the accuracy of this effort, there is a green light
at the S/F line, which I assumed was a mistake. It isn't. The race was
started with both the light and the traditional flag (waved by Marshal
Balbo, Tripoli's equivalent of Reichsportfuehrer Huhnlein, who is accurately
depicted trackside in Loro's Mellaha).
The readme (http://www.racesimcentral.net/) gives
the more important dates for the track, but doesn't say much abt. its most
famous race, the 1939 Grande Epreuve, won by Hermann Lang in a Mercedes.
Thirty cars (!) qualified, led by Villoresi's Maserati at 3:41.8. Lang and
Caracciola in the other W165 finished 1-2, with Rudi 3-1/2 minutes behind
after 2 hours of racing.
Before the race, there was intrigue aplenty. In a desperate attempt to
derail the big Nazi-sponsored racing Mercedes-Benz and Auto Union racing
teams, the Italian organizers only weeks before the event switched the race
from the F1 cars of the day to the F2 (Voiturette) class, which favored
Maserati and Alfa Romeo. Mercedes somehow got wind of this enough in
advance to develop, in strictest secrecy, the 1.5-liter (supercharged) W165,
probably the most perfect of all the pre-war single seaters.
To test out their creation at the flat-out speeds expected at Mellaha,
Mercedes engineers laid out a high-speed track at Hockenheim, which, until
the Darmstadt autobahn cut it off, had one long straight rivalling that of
Mulsanne and another gently-curved return, terminating at both ends in
hairpins (the current F1 venue is a go-kart track by comparison).
Full specs from the '39 race here:
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
Get Tripoli at Magnus' justly famous GPL track database:
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
or here:
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
Thanks too, to Paul Jackson, for his splendid replay (included), his
comprehensive setup guide (for all GPL tracks) here:
http://gpl***s.speedgeezers.com/pjsetupguide/pjsetupguide.html
and for his luscious hi-rez texture pack, here:
http://www.racesimcentral.net/
See you at the races.
--Steve Smith