Oversteer

The end is near! For this track, at least Take a look at some screenies in the screenshot forum in this thread right here

And don't forget to leave feedback if you can.

Thanks!

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Manuel.

Driver-of-another-era Froil?n Gonzalez: "In my day, the drivers were fat and the tires were skinny"

jetman

awssum oversteer, any e.t.a. announcement ? can't wait to race on it.

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crashing sucks

Christian

waaaaouu. you did a very good job on this one. Yesterday I
did some laps at the Scott Avus and thought about the fact
that the track is not very accurate....and today....yeeehhhh
what a good surprise.

thank very much. I will wait for this one.

an idea : is it possible to make a second shorter version (something like 4 km, cut the long straights) it could be a very
popular version.

But personnaly I prefer something very accurate. You made a great search work, can you give some links you used ?

Greg Longfield

great news Oversteer

Greg

Aldo Regozani

woohoo mr oversteer! great news, i allways liked this track and now we?ll get an ass-accurate version of it. thanks a mil. seems like australia and germany have something in common: weird places where people like to race with cars on

Stewart Fisher

Excellent stuff! The screenshots are superb.

I have some stuff which might interest you. My family went to Berlin a couple of years ago and I managed to persuade my mother to take me to the remains of the NordCurve in south-west Berlin. Got some good photos of the Mercedes building (now a hotel - had a drink in the cafe there) and the main grandstand. i got a few of the surrounding bits of track but I don't know how useful those would be.

I scanned them in a while ago but never got round to posting them. I'll search around my hard drive and post them in this thread.

Stewart

Stewart Fisher

This is a view from the outside of the NordCurve with the Mercedes building on the right and the grandstand just visible through the trees on the left.

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Stewart Fisher

View from inside the fence you saw on the previous shot, looking at the Mercedes building.

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Stewart Fisher

View of the back of the Mercedes building.

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Stewart Fisher

View of the Mercedes building from near the grandstand.

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Stewart Fisher

View of the front of the Mercedes building from the exit of the NordCurve. I have walked up that tower .

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Stewart Fisher

View of the back of the grandstands. This was the first thing I saw when I got out of the train station.

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Stewart Fisher

View of the grandstands from the other end. The bit of road in the centre of the photo is the old start/finish area.

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Stewart Fisher

View of the right-hand kink at the entry to the NordCurve. This was taken from the corner looking back at the long back straight.

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Stewart Fisher

This is a view of the front of the grandstand from the exit of the NordCurve (the Mercedes building is off the right-hand side of the photo). Hope these are helpful!

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Dan Murray

Damn, when was the banking destroyed?

Werent the remains of the Nordcurve used in a DTM event a few years back?

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Stewart Fisher

The banking was demolished in 1967 but, as you mentioned, the track was still used for DTM races until some time in the 1990's. The death of Keith Odor at the track hastened it's end I believe.

There were still DTM posters advertising the race on the grandstands when I was there but I can't remember the year on them.

OK - did a little bit of searching. This is a (slightly dodgy) translation of a German site about AVUS:

The race programmes available at the Programme Covers Project don't include any DTM covers after 1996, so I assume that was the last race there. There is a 1999 cover, but that appears to be from the closure of the circuit, dated 1st May 1999 and titled 'AVUS-FINALE'.

Stewart

Oversteer

Stewart! Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! I remember your thread from way back and always wanted to see the building pics! Got any from inside? Not that I'm modelling it for GPL or anything!

Those are amazing pictures! They will be a great help when making the final textures for the Merc. hotel. I can fully see now how big the extentions they made to it are, specially to the rear. They seem to have cut the viewing balcony too, where the blue structure is now. Still, it's amazing that the Berliners have decided to keep this building as a historical monument, as well as the tribune.

Speaking of which, awesome! I'm glad I wasn't far off in its appearance from the rear, since it will be visible from a camera "mounted" on top of the funkturm, the radio tower. heh heh

It's incredible how tiny the north banking area seems to be, the banking sure gave it a dimension! You can't imagine how I wish to visit this place.

Don't hesitate to post more if you got 'em!

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Manuel.

Driver-of-another-era Froil?n Gonzalez: "In my day, the drivers were fat and the tires were skinny"

bob_hund

yeah, feels great when you drive into town, seeing the tower and grandstand from far away - whoo, i'm on a race track!

great shots Stewart!

Oversteer: i live just a few kms from the avus, so i could have a bicycle ride thru town (don't have a car of my own atm). to what's left of the suedkehre maybe. there's actually not much left but it's clearly visible. part of it is used to store old traffic signs now. and there's a piece of the old banking behind the grandstand, used as a AVUS-memorial thingy. maybe for brick textures?

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what's the point in going 'round in circles, at diabolical speeds, knowing from the start that you will never leave that particular spot under the sun? can anyone explain the exalted beauty of a fast car designed to exist only as a dog in pursuit of it's own tail? - Francesc Torres

Get obsessed ...and stay obsessed - Iowa Bob

Oversteer

Greg, hello man! I'm sorry for not answering your last PM, I was computerless for long time!

Ha ha ha! I've thought of it ocasionally, but trust me, you do get used to the rythm -or rather lack of it- of this track. Still, could be a possibility for one the 1980's layouts. We could "accidentally" leave the banking there and, uh, hope no one will notice. And I have fantasies about building the 19Km pre-war with the wider, shallower banking too.


Links? Google! I lost all my bookmarks a while ago, but I'll have to compile them again for a credits page. Of course, Leif Snellman's site is probably the most important:
http://www.kolumbus.fi/leif.snellman/t.htm

And then:
http://8w.forix.com/avus.html
http://www.motorsnippets.com/cars/avus/index.htm
http://www.berlin.de/ba-charlottenb...ikon/messe.html
The Nostalgia Forum at AtlasF1.


There was a German photo-site that had these BIG, mind-blowing, high-res vintage B&W pics of the banking in the 50's and 30's period, I wish I could find it again; but basically, Googling the hell of it. Any combinations of Avus and Nordkurve, Nordtor, sudkurve, Motel, Grunewald, Eichkamp, Von Opel, Behra, Carel Godin, etc. and following all the leads! Mostly German pages, thank god for altavista translator!


As for DTM and other events during the 80's, I found this in www.ebay.de wich can be a surprising source of, admitedly small, pictures:

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Manuel.

Driver-of-another-era Froil?n Gonzalez: "In my day, the drivers were fat and the tires were skinny"

Stewart Fisher

Oversteer,

No probs - I have a few more which I will post later. Didn't get any shots inside the building, but the area of the hotel which I saw (which was mainly in the tower area) was full of motor-racing memorabilia, posters and pictures. All the place mats in the cafe/restaurant had newspaper clippings and photos of the circuit, from what I can remember.

The corner was actually quite large but it is difficult to see exactly where the old banking was - I would imagine that the current corner is smaller than the banking used to be.

If you ever go to Berlin the NordCurve is very easy to find. There is a train station right behind the grandstand which makes getting there easy too. If you want more detailed information I'm sure a resident could help - it's been a couple of years since I was there.

bob_hund,

Yes, I got a couple of photos of the memorial with the red brick. I'll post them later too. I wasn't sure if the bricks were from the banking or not, but the colour was certainly correct. The memorial is not behind the grandstand though, it is much closer to the Mercedes building. I cannot quite remember the exact location, but I think it is on a corner where the road which goes behind the grandstand meets the main dual-carriageway road.

Stewart

Oversteer

Bob, that would be fantastic! Thanks! I assume you would take the road that runs parallel? Additionally , any description or images of the underpasses or bridges, specially at the Grunewald station, would be a great help. Even, with the present appearance, it would give a hint of how it looked back then.

Can you cross to the station itself? I'd also like to know how it looks. I have good pics of the station building and the short piece of track that remains as a memorial; but I don't know what's their angle or position relative to the autobahn or how it all looks from there, if at all (lots of trees, I assume)

Also very important, there used to be some sort of control tower at the rarilroad yard next to the banking, at the opposite side of the tribune. It was visible in old pictures, but it's far away and with little detail, and I can't find any modern pics of it. Is it still there? See the attach.

I have a very small pic of the memorial with the two bikes, if you can take a good pic of the bricks would be fantastic.

Thanks!

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Manuel.

Driver-of-another-era Froil?n Gonzalez: "In my day, the drivers were fat and the tires were skinny"

bob_hund

i'll have a ride down there on the weekend. pics will take some time, no digicam, wednesday next week they should be ready

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what's the point in going 'round in circles, at diabolical speeds, knowing from the start that you will never leave that particular spot under the sun? can anyone explain the exalted beauty of a fast car designed to exist only as a dog in pursuit of it's own tail? - Francesc Torres

Get obsessed ...and stay obsessed - Iowa Bob

Oversteer

Stewart, I thik the memorial is very near of where the old north gate used to be, that old toll-booth building with arches behind, and to the left of the hotel.

I've read (it was in German, so I could be wrong) that the north curve follows the exact layout of the banking, extended inside to cover a bit of the old gutter, which was in a bit of a sunken bowl in the infield. I expect this sunken terrain to be gone, levelled as seems apparent in the images. Exactly what portion is represented by the current tarmac, I'm not sure though.

and then you have to consider what was behind the bricks, the earth ennbankment itself, which it's supposed to be represented by the green area in your pics but god knows if its 100% the size. All in all, I guess we could say it's at least a smaller inner radius today.

Re the 80's events, there were some F3000 and other open wheel races as well.:

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Manuel.

Driver-of-another-era Froil?n Gonzalez: "In my day, the drivers were fat and the tires were skinny"