ROAD ATLANTA
TURN BY TURN TRACK NOTES

Stay track left as you come down the main straight. Apply moderate brake pressure toward the end of the pit wall. On this run there was a great indicator cone on the other side of the pit exit to aim for. At that cone I turned right for a slightly late apex. Rolling back on the throttle at apex, I left the car track about 2/3rds of the way out to the left.

Use the trees on the horizon or the blend line from the inside pits as reference points to setup for turn 2. All you need is a lift of the throttle as you rotate the car to the left. Stay alongside the curbing on the left to setup turn 3.

While staying straight along the left curbing touch the brakes then turn right. The turn appears harder than it is. Be careful not to turn too much or hold the steering angle too long as you want to roll back on the throttle and let the car come back across to the curbing on the left.

Again, stay along the left curbing to setup a straight line through the “Esses.” Give a slight lift to settle the car as you turn back to the right and then drive as straight as possible getting back on the throttle.  At the end of the “Esses” you want to be on the right side of the track to setup turn 5.

At the start of the curbing on the right give the brakes a quick stab and take a bit of an early apex to the left. I was not down shift so I wanted to carry as much speed into the up hill as I could. The early apex let me get back on the throttle sooner. When I did it right I used the curbing on the right side of the track to help push the car back to the left. There is plenty of room to the right so don’t pinch the car to the left as you are applying power. This was the one place I got the car a bit out of shape during the weekend.

Coming from the right out of 5 left the car come back across to track left to setup turn 6. My tendency was to over break for 6. This turn is pretty straight forward, go from left to right through the apex and track out to the curbing on the left. Get the car straight and be ready to hit the brakes for turn 7.

Because you can carry a good bit of speed through turn 6, turn 7 comes up in a hurry. After trying several different shift points, I determined that I need to get down to 3rd coming out of this corner. So from track left, you are pretty hard on the brakes and want to get the downshift done before turning in. Turn 7 is a bit sharper than it appears and it is important to be gentle getting back on the throttle mid corner. Take this one right and it pays off as it is the entrance to the longest straight on the track.

After finishing turn 7 you should be headed flat out. I stayed track left and would up shift to 4th gear as I made way up the hill towards the pedestrian bridge. At the bottom of the hill on the other side of the bridge I would upshift again with my right foot to the floor!

Turn 9 is flat out. It can be nerve racking at first as I was well into triple digit speeds and you need to move the car from track left to track right. Not to mention that the track drops in elevation on the other side of the turn. You can stay on the throttle all the way down the hill on the other side of 9 just have faith in your brakes!

When I was really cooking it, I was approaching 140mph towards a 90 degree left turn at 10a. Stay track right, and as the car bottoms out go hard on the brakes, downshifting from 5-4 before turning left into the apex of 10 (In the future, I will try to downshift from 5-4-3 as I could use a bit more torque to get up the hill coming out of 10b). Stay to the left and come back across to the right to hit the apex of 10b while rolling back onto the throttle. Let the car track out back to the left as you come up the hill.

This isn’t so much of a turn as a leap of faith. Coming out of 10 point your car towards the yellow box that is underneath the overhead bridge. On the other side of the bridge the track drops out from underneath you, hence the leap of faith! A tip I picked up was to look at the out building on the horizon and head for the window on the right. This ended up putting me mid way through the curbing on the left and setting up turn 12 nicely.

As you come down the hill you car should be along the curbing on the left. My tendency was to lift for too long and take turn 12 too slow. A quick lift to settle the car as you turn from left to right but you want to roll back on the power quickly. There is plenty of track so let the car track out left and head down the main straight flat out.