This is from the Lime Rock Mountain Circuit readme:
--------------------------------
When Jim Vaill, whose family owned the land that Lime Rock was situated on,
was laying out the 1.53-mile track in 1956, he envisioned a 1.5-mile
addition to the main course which would extend the front straight, rise up
in the hills behind Big Bend and the Left, then plunge down to rejoin the
existing track after the exit of the Hook.
Vaill got as far as bulldozing a "rough cut" of the Mountain Circuit, as it
was called (its traces are still visible today; you can hike the trail), and
it's in an "artist's conception" of the track prepared by industrial
designer Raymond Loewy, but the MC was never built, for a variety of
reasons, among them cost...and the lack of enough corner workers to cover
the whole course.
Brent Adams' original Lime Rock remains one of the most authentic tracks in
GPL (I haven't seen every real-world track that every designer's created,
but I've seen enough), and it seemed only natural to imagine what he could
do with a real-world "fantasy" track. The Mountain Circuit remains one of
the great might-have-beens in U.S. racing. From what we can see of Brent's
realization of this dream, it would have ranked right up there with
Riverside and Bridgehampton - a world-class track.
Whereas Brent's 1.53-mile (and, with chicane, 1.54-mile) Lime Rock has been
done in the modern idiom, the 2.93-mile Mountain Circuit is presented as it
might have looked in 1957, when the track first opened to the public on the
weekend of April 27-28. Brent used Loewy's renderings, contemporary aerial
photography, an elevation of the proposed addition, topo maps, and modern 3D
satellite views to make the layout as authentic as possible.
--------------------------------
Okay, I wrote that. I also plead nolo contendre to having put Brent up to
the idea of a "prequel" to his magnificent recreation of Lime Rock in the
first place. I spent hours on the phone with Vaill, John Fitch, and
latter-day L.R. p.r. honcho Joe Corbett, who loaned me a repro of the
first-ever L.R. program. Thanks, too, to Brock Yates for loaning us a copy
of Rich Taylor's classic "Lime Rock Park" (Sharon Mountain Press, 1992).
Brent has done a bang-up job with the Mountain Circuit. It works
fantastically well with either AI or carbon-based opponents. Looks great,
drives great, a slice of heaven, as far as I'm concerned. Great job, Brent!
--Steve Smith
