HANFORD MOTOR SPEEDWAY (AKA MARCHBANKS SPEEDWAY)
By gone-sovereign

This is my fictional modernized build of Hanford Motor Speedway, AKA Marchbanks Speedway. It was a track that had existed in real life, and hosted both NASCAR and USAC events throughout the 1950's and 1960's, but became inactive when the track promoters could no longer foot the bill for it sometime in the early 70's, and eventually it was razed completely in 1984. The speedway was located in the middle of nowhere in northeastern California, and there is quite literally nothing left of it, thus it has been all but forgotten by most. How esoteric is it? I had asked the late and great IndyCar journalist Robin Miller for details on this track years ago, and not even he had heard of it!

There's a lot of contradictory and misleading info out there about this track, and I do not trust most of it. I assembled this build based on photo and video reference, Google Earth, and this track's appearance in Indianapolis 500: Evolution for the XBOX 360, which I own a physical copy of, and is in fact how I came to know about this track's existence! My goal in doing this was simply to try and preserve this track's memory in whatever little ways I could. This is the second ever track I've made and successfully completed for NR, and the initial release of this track was a labor of love that for the most part came together in the span of a week and a half in February of 2023. Ever since then, this track has been a consistent work in progress, with exhaustive testing and effort put into small details trying to bring it as close to perfection as possible. I probably could've cut a lot of corners with it to get it done faster, but decided not to. 

This track is a 1.375-mile tri-oval (though it was billed as 1.4 miles in the 60's). Turn 1 is progressively banked from 17 to 22 degrees, with Turns 2 and 3 being banked 8 and 12 degrees, respectively. There's also an infield lake that was used for drag boats, which I had scaled down slightly. If anyone wishes to make a period-accurate version of this track, I would endorse it, but be aware that this layout is roughly accurate to the tri-oval configuration that existed prior to 1967, after which point the first turn had been reconfigured and the track was widened to 90 feet.

This track has support for 47 cars, and the infield is fully modelled. It has been tested both online and offline with CUP, GNS, and CTS physics. As of Version 3, the AI for all three of those physics types has been optimized for 110%. This track has NOT however been tested with PTA or GTP physics or in arcade mode, so use them at your own discretion.

IMPORTANT: For the sake of my own sanity, and also in the event that whatever website you're downloading this file from goes offline, below is an alternative download link for this resource. This is a download link that automatically overwrites itself every time I post changes to it, so whatever is here will probably be the more current version of this resource.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1s57N4Y6eScqwgzc5IbKgY0CWWMnQbgba/view?usp=drive_link

CREDITS

Textures and 3DOs By:
Myself
Papyrus
Cynon
Ceej
SmiffsDen
Hillcrest Racing
Mystical
Bacs
Robert Panko
John Norton
Revamped Reloaded
Realism8
Esco Trackside
Windy City Racing
Textures.com
GDubz41
ProjectShortTrack
Richard Burns Rally

Referential Material From:
Google Earth
LoganMolen.com
Indianapolis 500: Evolution
Ryan Adema
Dick Wallen (Video provided by Jeffery Stanton)

Testing:
Cynon
Ceej
Syzygy
Macchiato
historybattler
autopolis
Vaught
aria.glo
VeiledSystem
Rovenami
G_PTYNicolasCMP
Dunnl74
that.dynamo
wwwwatts2
RyanB06
TheLoneDeranger

Special thanks to Logan Molen for providing the brunt of information I could dig up about this track, and the entire EFR Discord for their support. 

Enjoy!!

VERSION 3 CHANGELOG:
-More track.INI and .LP tweaking, AI is now optimized for 110%(!!). AI tire wear balanced for racing against humans, improvements to fast setups, added setup for PTA physics, qualifying setups added for CUP, GNS, and CTS physics. Winning GNS setup from online race also included (courtesy of Macchiato).
-More TSOs and adjustments to existing ones (thanks to Cynon for the updated water object), added objects to islands on infield lake, expanse to the surrounding scenery to more closely resemble the track's surroundings in real life.
-Consolidation of traffic .PTH files, civilian traffic no longer beams INTO SPAAAAAAACE at the end of the road.
-Minor adjustments to TV1, TV2, and Spectator cameras.
-Texture updates, improvements to the lightmap, Fixed some bleed/transparency weirdness on a few objects, infield road course and half-mile are now track-side decals to cut down on number of F sections
-Various geometry edits; resolved some Z-fighting in certain places around the track, catchfences are now curved, first opening for safety vehicles moved further back.
-Overall leveling of the track elevation, smoother banking transition into Turn 1.
-New track shot from an ARSS Season 3 race, new track info screen.
-Added alternate lower-resolution asphalt textures for FPS saving, see the read me file within "fps saving" folder for directions on how to use.

VERSION 2 CHANGELOG:
-Graphics overhaul, including new pavement and grass textures, and wall signage
-Addition of a lightmap. Not much of one, but it's there. I pretty much eye-balled it for the most part
-Changes to some of the spectator cameras
-More aggressive bumpmaps
-Minor track geometry edits, including smoother banking transition into Turn 1
-Expansion of surrounding scenery, including animated civilian traffic and airborne track objects
-Continued track INI tweaking, including fixes to weirdness with the full pace lap setting
-New track shot, taken from an ARSS race held here

KNOWN BUGS:
-At far distances, the civilian traffic on the highway just beyond Turn 1 can be seen phasing in and out of the banking. I believe this is purely cosmetic, and thus not a high priority, but if this really bothers anyone, you can just remove both traffic .PTH files from the track directory. 
-AI tends to run into each other under caution. I've exhausted my knowledge trying to figure this out, but since the Better Cautions application can disable collisions under yellow it's probably not a huge deal.
-Have noticed that this track tends to eat frames. Use the textures found in the "fps saving" folder mentioned above to help, and if that doesn't work, check the alternate download URL for any and all changes to this track.