My tracks have their own peculiar style. Chances are you will either love them or despise them. I really am not into fullspeed maps, and that seems to be the most popular based on what I've seen. I think my tracks are a bit different because, for me, racing is more enjoyable when you have to make strategic decisions in the moment, such as dodging moving opponents or obstacles, and not knowing in advance how you will be going into or coming out of a turn, so you can't just memorize one optimal trajectory and repeat the same control sequence every time like a mindless trained monkey. The closest this game gets to chaos or on-the-fly strategy is with tricky shortcuts that might save you time (if you don't screw it up) and bumpy segments where you might get overturned and are more likely to have a big wipeout the faster you're going.

Those are the elements I tend to put into my tracks: some fun high-speed racing, some slamming on the brakes to make a tight corner, some bumpy terrain to see how fast you can go and get away with it, and maybe a shortcut. I also enjoy a fast zip to the finish once you've gotten past the last "obstacle" ... so it's often down a hill or through a booster and one final crazy slide around a corner to slam into the finish at reckless speeds. If your car slides safely across the finish line in mint condition without any scratches, missing doors, and not covered in dirt, it isn't one of my tracks!

My track listing is here on MX but I will also list tracks in this thread.

I've uploaded 11 tracks so far. My latest track is called Concrete Swirly. The first 20-25 seconds is almost entirely two very long drifts, one 360 degrees to the right, then one 360 degrees to the left. It also has some bumpy dirt driving just before the finish, and you'll find yourself wondering if you should take it a bit easy after a good run so you don't destroy an otherwise great time, or if you should push it harder to see if you can really squeeze a fantastic time out of it.

There's also a shortcut, and a very fast dash to the finish, which is half-buried in a mountainside so you have to aim for this one! I added some mediatracker effects to turn the headlights on/off when you're in a dark area. There's some light fog in the lower level of the track which adds a nice touch. I also tried out the "dirty lens" when you drive through the dirt, and decided it was worth keeping.



First spiral:


Cars driving the first spiral.


Second spiral is in the dark with headlights (not shown in mediatracker)


Dirt segment with just enough bumps to make it strategic.


Dirty lens and fog FX.


The finish:

I was experimenting with ideas for the November track contest, which required some 8-second-long drifts. The big sweeping wallride at the start of this was one thing I was trying out but ultimately it wasn't quite long enough and it wouldn't fit well with the flow of my MTC track. It's a lot of fun here though. Whiplash also includes some dirt and bumps. There's also a good shortcut and a better shortcut. At the start you can also choose whether to go around the turbo block to hit it from the back, or if you are feeling lucky or skillful, skid into the front end of it and rebound... thus the track's name, whiplash.

As usual, I included the author-time ghost and the track has intro/outro/signs and it's easy to find your way to the finish line.

A better view of the big sweep with the turbo to get you over the top.


Blockmixing ground road and a GP checkpoint makes things more interesting. You'll need to decide where, and just how fast to take the bumps so you can make the next corner.


I seem to prefer this style of ending, hit a boost and slide around a corner into the finish. This time there are some pillars and oil tanks in the area, and you can take several paths to get through or around them, depending on how much risk you want to take to save some time.

One of my favorite tracks in Pod was Nuke. I probably drove thousands of laps on that one. I decided to make a track like this for canyon. The two most memorable parts of driving on Nuke were the 180 turn by the big reactor, and the square angle turn going into the reactor room which was where 90% of my screwups happened. This track has a similar driving experience but the scenery is obviously in the canyon style.


Overview showing the reactors:


The 180 turn has some green haze because of a reactor leak.


The "reactor room" area, too bad TM doesn't have moving scenery. That spinning thing was cool in pod!


The start area, with that goofy alien "advertisement" billboard. (Hey, drink alien radioactive cola, it's yummy! LOL)


The map on the lower left is always there through the race, and shows you where the track goes and where you are. (Why isn't this included with the game engine?)


An overhead shot.


The "reactor room" from the other direction.

I put a video on youtube showing the two tracks (pod and tm) side by side.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg-m2hveghs&feature=mfu_in_order&list=UL