Bathurst 1983 - historical tweaks (low priority but it'd be nice)

I remember when Bathurst 1983 was released Jake William (aka GPLaps) gave an excellent (as always) review of the track but made the comment that there seemed to be too few spectators which surprised him. He noted - God bless him - that he wasn't sure if the spectator density was accurate or not.

Reiza responded by adding more spectators (as I recall it) all along Conrod and at other places. I didn't post at the time but I remember thinking "noooooo". Spectator positions around Bathurst are (were) pretty sparse as much of the track is a public road running past private homes (this is still the case).

It's kind of bugged me ever since and I was running some races there over the weekend and finally thought I need to post about this.

Never one to do things by half, I have produced a spectator density map (below). Essentially it shows where you'll see lots of spectators (high density - deeper green), where you'll see a lower density and where you'll see the occasional stray dog and not much else (white areas). Note that at the top of the mountain its just a park / picnic areas but its very crowded on race day (the boxes are not grandstands!!).

It's a bit rough but I used a video of the 1983 Hardie Ferodo 1000 (the biggest day of the year - so spectators at maximum) to confirm the total lack of spectators around much of the circuit. Others with greater knowledge may be able to add some refinements...



My suggestion is this - when 1.6 has been triumphantly released and everyone has had a well deserved rest, maybe the Bathurst 1983 spectators could be tweaked slightly to be more accurate. Not a big priority of course - just nice to have.

And if you want to go overboard with accuracy I discovered when watching the 83 race today that the pit-lane had supermarket-carpark style speed-bumps - about three of them - at the start middle and end of the lane. EDIT: there already are speed bumps in the pits. I -ahem - assumed there weren’t. Nice detail devs!

Thanks for indulging my fussy historical anxiety.