That One Level/Real Life

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Examples of That One Level in Real Life include:

Racing

  • Truth in Television: Monaco is the Scrappy Level in Formula One. It's the only track where drivers have made it onto the podium without ever finishing the race simply because everyone else crashed before they did.
    • Many Formula One drivers liken driving Monaco to "flying a helicopter in your living room." That's because it's a tight-turning city track, i.e. the exact kind of course that high-speed F1 cars are not designed for.
  • The San Jose Grand Prix, a Champ Car World Series course consisting of streets in downtown San Jose, Calfornia, wasn't too popular either. San Jose is notorious for its bumpy, cracked, pothole-filled streets, and to add on to the problem, two sections of the course required cars to drive over light rail tracks at high speed; for reference, the top speed of a car in the CCWS is typically around 220-230 mph. On top of that, the course was very tight and narrow, and half the starting grid dropped out in mid-race in 2005, the first year of the SJGP.
  • The Toronto circuit (back on the list this year, thankfully) has what can only be described as a Scrappy Turn: after hitting a car's top speed for several seconds on one of the longest street course straightaways in the world, cars have to navigate a double-hairpin. Carnage inevitably results as two cars enter the turn and, without fail, wind up taking each other out.
  • Let's not forget the two Scrappy Levels in NASCAR: Daytona International Speedway and Talladega Superspeedway. Don't let the long oval layouts fool you into thinking it's easy. Nine times out of ten, races at the two aforementioned tracks WILL have a big wreck taking out at least 10-15 cars, usually more...
    • Two factors here. One, remember that an "easy" course is easy for everybody, meaning that even a slight slipup can be incredibly costly and there is NO margin of error for making passes. Two, Daytona and Talladega are the two courses were the cars are required to have restrictor plates to limit their speed. Trouble is, this limits acceleration as well, making it easy for a driver to get caught in a wreck he'd otherwise be able to speed away from...and it just snowballs from there.
      • If there's a particular 'one level' of NASCAR, it was most definitely Darlington International. The track is laid out and shaped very differently at either end, thanks to obstacles that couldn't be relocated when the track was built, making car setup nearly impossible. The track surface was extremely abrasive and rough on tires, in addition to being very bumpy, which negatively affected car handling. When Darlington was built it's 1.4 mile length made it the longest NASCAR oval on the season calendar, which meant that in addition to the problems already posed by it's layout and construction it allowed the cars to reach previously unheard of speeds, making it even more dangerous. The track is called 'The Lady in Black' because it's white walls are typically quite blackened by the end of the race, thanks to the racer's tires hitting the wall. Slapping one's car into the wall at Darlington was long considered a 'rite of passage' for rookie NASCAR drivers.
  • And then there's Laguna Seca Raceway, the bane of any racer who can't turn on a dime. Andretti Hairpin right out of the starting block, sharp 90+ degree turns all over the place, sand all around, and the corkscrew. Dear God, the corkscrew! You practically need to stop dead on your approach, as trying to go through it at anything faster than 10 mph will send you into a wall.
  • Nurburgring Nordschleife, the world's most dangerous racetrack; there's a good reason why it's not used for F1 racing anymore (that's done on the adjoining Nurburgring GP).
    • This is what the new, 3.2 mile GP course looks: Map
    • And, on the same scale, what the Nordschleife looks: Map
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