Comparing the tracks

How the six different tracks in Revs compare to each other

There are six different tracks that you can race around in Revs. The original 1985 game came with just one track, Silverstone, but later in the same year, just in time for Christmas, Acornsoft added Brands Hatch, Donington Park, Oulton Park and Snetterton in the form of the Revs 4 Tracks expansion pack. This enabled owners of the original Revs to choose from four new track data files when firing up the game, taking full advantage of the software hook that Geoff Crammond had cleverly built into the game code of the original release (see the deep dive on secrets of the extra tracks for more details).

The sixth Revs track, the Nürburgring, was released on the Commodore 64 as part of Firebird's 1987 release Revs+, which bundled all six tracks with an enhanced version of the game (when compared to the original Firebird release). The improvements in Revs+, which included computer assisted steering (CAS) and joystick support, were already supported on the BBC Micro, but the Nürburgring track was unique to the Commodore platform and was never released for the game's original platform. (Happily, it has now been backported to the BBC as part of this very project; see the deep dive on backporting the Nürburgring track for details.)

This article compares the main statistics for all six tracks, and at the end you can find links to individual articles on each of the tracks that contain detailed maps, elevation profiles and more.

The main statistics
-------------------

Let's start by comparing the main statistics for each track. Note that in the tables below, we use the following abbreviations to save space:

• BH = Brands Hatch
• DP = Donington Park
• OP = Oulton Park
• SL = Silverstone
• SN = Snetterton
• NU = Nürburgring

Track	BH	DP	NU	OP	SL	SN
Section count	29	25	27	27	24	24
Segment count	914	719	982	819	1024	686
Start segment	0	209	38	807	181	434
Segment generation	Dynamic	Dynamic	Dynamic	Dynamic	Static	Dynamic
Segment vector table	40	40	40	40	255	40
Novice lap time	>= 1:33	>= 1:18	>= 1:46	>= 1:23	>= 1:34	>= 1:10
Amateur lap time	<= 1:32	<= 1:17	<= 1:45	<= 1:22	<= 1:33	<= 1:09
Professional lap time	<= 1:28	<= 1:13	<= 1:41	<= 1:18	<= 1:29	<= 1:05
1st gear ratio	103	104	104	104	103	104
1st gear power	161	161	168	161	161	161
2nd gear ratio	74	69	68	80	66	69
2nd gear power	116	106	111	125	104	106
3rd gear ratio	60	60	58	64	53	53
3rd gear power	93	93	93	99	82	82
4th gear ratio	50	51	51	53	46	47
4th gear power	79	79	82	82	72	72
5th gear ratio	44	44	43	44	42	42
5th gear power	68	69	70	69	65	65
Novice base speed	134	134	130	134	134	134
Amateur base speed	146	146	140	146	146	146
Professional base speed	152	152	145	152	152	152
Start position	5	4	4	3	4	8
Car spacing	37	33	33	33	40	33
Timer adjust	70	20	50	93	24	45
Race slowdown	0	0	0	0	0	0
Track hook	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes

Comparing the track sizes
-------------------------

Now let's compare the track sizes. Putting all the tracks onto the same graph shows their relative sizes:

The following table shows the dimensions of each track in terms of longitude (x-coordinate) and latitude (z-coordinate):

Track	BH	DP	NU	OP	SL	SN
Min longitude (x)	-12,256	-12,252	4,396	-13,932	-19,906	-14,628
Max longitude (x)	16,001	-191	22,209	6,239	12,327	-2,977
Longitude span	28,257	12,061	17,813	20,171	32,233	11,651
Min latitude (z)	-5,608	-15,344	-1,506	-22,664	-24,079	-21,945
Max latitude (z)	12,261	22,618	47,123	13,120	21,179	12,299
Latitude span	17,869	37,962	48,629	35,784	45,258	34,244

These coordinates are internal to Revs, but in the deep dive on building a 3D track from sections and segments we estimated that Silverstone is about 1.1km wide and 1.7km tall, so that should give you a sense of scale for the above diagram.

Comparing the track elevations
------------------------------

We can also analyse the y-axis, which gives us the height of the track above the ground (also known as its elevation). Specifically, we can use the y-coordinate data to plot an elevation profile for each track onto the same graph, to give a comparison of the gradient of each track. The graph starts from segment 0 on the left, though note this is not necessarily the same as the starting line:

You can clearly see the difference between the hilly Nürburgring track in green, and the much flatter Silverstone in red. It's perhaps no surprise to learn that Silverstone was built on the site of an old airfield; the gradient gives this away nicely.

The following table shows the dimensions of each track in terms of elevation (y-coordinate):

Track	BH	DP	NU	OP	SL	SN
Min height (y)	1,515	1,596	142	2,935	2,000	3,223
Max height (y)	6,492	7,830	8,729	5,364	3,709	5,120
Height span	4,977	6,234	8,587	2,429	1,709	1,897

More track data
---------------

For more statistics and maps for the individual tracks, see the following deep dives:

• The Brands Hatch track
• The Donington Park track
• The Nürburgring track
• The Oulton Park track
• The Silverstone track
• The Snetterton track

After all, it wouldn't be motor racing without a mountain of stats...