I work for Geographic Data Technology, we supply Mapquest, Mapinfo, etc.
with their data. I have aerial photography for the entire country. If
anyone would like a picture of a particular track, give me as much info as
you can about the location (zip code is easiest) and I'll send you a pic.
SS
----- Original Message -----
From: "Mark Palmer" <mgvrmark@hotmail.com>
To: <MGVR@yahoogroups.com>; <vintage-race@autox.team.net>
Sent: Sunday, October 28, 2001 10:54 AM
Subject: Aerial photos
> I just discovered that Mapquest has added aerial photos of many locations
to
> their web site. Some race circuits are shown, such as Lime Rock, Road
> America, and probably many others (haven't had time to look for too many
> yet).
>
> Anyone interested, go to mapquest.com, key in the address of the track,
and
> if you see a "aerial photo" tab at the top of the map, you may be in luck.
> I found it easiest to zoom & pan using the graphical map until I zeroed in
> on the track location (some of the tracks are actually shown graphically
on
> the "map"). Once I had the track in my sights, I switched to aerial photo
> (click on the tab). Some "maps" don't show the track location, so
sometimes
> I had to switch to photo & search for the track that way. It sorta feels
> like planning a bombing mission in Afghanistan ...
>
> Tracks I've looked at so far: Lime Rock -- excellent photo; Pocono --
fair
> photo; Summit Point, NHIS -- no photo available; Watkins Glen -- photo,
but
> you can't zoom in far enough to see much; Mid-Ohio -- the aerial photo is
> missing the section where the track would appear, I suspect the Porsche
> drivers have undertaken some secret operations here; Road America --
> excellent photo.
>
> Unfortunately, mapquest won't let you print the map, probably due to
> copyright issues. I couldn't even do a screen print (maybe someone else
can
> figure out how to get around this & let us know).
>
> Why bother looking at aerial photos? Because, in my experience, nearly
> every graphical "track map" I've ever seen, of any track, is wrong. The
> accuracy of "track maps" is really awful, and makes it so much harder to
> learn the proper line. There are NO accurate maps of Lime Rock, NHIS, or
> Pocono for instance -- they all have very serious errors in many critical
> locations. The only thing you can trust for accuracy is an aerial photo.
>
> Mark Palmer
///
/// vintage-race@autox.team.net mailing list
/// or go to http://www.team.net/cgi-bin/majorcool
///
|