[Talk-us] Race Tracks!

[Richard Welty]

[this message is essentially the same as my new diary entry, feel free
to ignore both]

i've started working on adding Auto Racing venues in the US & Canada to
the map, and improving those that are already in the map.

this exercise is in two parts; for those tracks that are still clearly 
visible (active
or inactive) i will add the tracks to OSM. For those which are more 
doubtful,
or which will never return to service, i am adding them to OHM. Examples of
the latter include tracks like the first and second circuits at Watkins 
Glen.
hopefully, when the site of an inactive track is redeveloped, we'll reach a
state where instead of deleting tracks, they get moved to OHM.

for tagging, i am mostly using ways with highway=raceway. if a direction
is discernible (ovals are usually counter clockwise), i set oneway as 
well. I
try to identify the bounding area for the facility and create a
landuse=recreation_ground poly with the name and address of the site.

I have largely completed Alaska, am currently nearly done with Arizona,
and have also done several examples of historic tracks in upstate New York.
i will be working on the south and southwest for the time being, as that is
where people are racing at this time of year.

in Arizona i have seen a couple of examples where the race track was done
as a multi polygon relation tagged as leisure=track. this tag is for
non-motorized racing, not for auto racing. although in the 20s and 30s
there were some dual purpose tracks (horses and cars), this practice was
abandoned before WWII. i am changing the tags to highway=raceway, but
the current mapnik style sheet doesn't render highway=raceway on
relations, so as a temporary expedient i am adding ways in the center,
which i will go back and remove when the style sheet is updates (and yes,
there is a tracker on this in the mapnik queue).

i have a leaflet example of an OHM/OSM mashup here showing the
modern Watkins Glen circuit (the 4th circuit) overlaid with the OHM
representation of the 2nd Watkins Glen circuit (the first Glen circuit is up
and to the right): http://www.na-motorsports.com/test/test.html

richard

-- 
rwelty at averillpark.net
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