Racing could soon be returning to Coquitlam’s Westwood Plateau.
But residents of the area’s luxury homes and golfers on the greens of its palatial golf course won’t have to worry about high-speed cars careening into their backyards or disrupting their putts.
An international team of historical racing enthusiasts is building a digital recreation of the plateau’s old Westwood race track that can be used in computer simulators like Assetto Corsa.
Console games fuel passion
Willem Peters, a graphic designer and care attendant for the elderly in Arnhem, Netherlands, said he’s been a fan of classic sports cars and racing history for as long as he can remember, fuelled by console games like Gran Turismo.
Peters said he started recreating historic racing liveries for cars in Assetto Corsa to be raced on digital versions of legendary circuits like LeMans, Brands Hatch and Watkins Glen.
It was while researching a classic Ferrari Dino 206 S that was once driven by late Canadian racer David Greenblatt that Peters stumbled upon photos of the old Westwood track.
Peters said the “gorgeous Coquitlam mountains vista… truly captivated me.”
He started digging into Westwood’s history, sharing it with some of his racing simulator friends.
Peters said he found an old digital recreation of the track and tried it out.
‘Each lap exciting’
“Despite spinning out multiple times, it was a very enjoyable layout to race on,” he said. “It looks deceptively simple from above, yet it has all the nuances and oddities about it to make each lap exciting.”
Looking to do the old circuit justice, Peters reached out to Sergio Loro, a fellow historical racing enthusiast who’s digitally recreated storied tracks like Nosiring and Zandvoort as well as circuits like Rouen in France and Stardust International Raceway in Las Vegas that no longer exist.
Working from old photos, videos, maps and topographical information about the surrounding terrain, Loro is able to reconstruct the base layout of the track. Details like guardrails and trackside structures are added later.
“There’s still plenty of missing info on this part of the project,” Peters said, adding the team is seeking more photos, maps, video and even personal recollections that might help fill in some of the gaps.
“To complete the 60’s look, we’ll make sure to model all the details right.”
Peters said the digital Westwood track should be ready for release on Assetto Corsa by the end of the year, with further refinements and more simulator platforms to come.
He said recreating vintage tracks gains even greater significance as many of those circuits are modernized and changed to accommodate contemporary racing or just bulldozed outright for new development.
“It isn’t just a fun playground to drive virtual cars on,” Peters said. “The loss of smaller racing venues impacts the grassroots racing communities the hardest as the modernized, high-tech race circuits of today often don’t allow the more casual, weekend racers to enjoy the tracks. It’s the closest we’ll ever likely get to getting tracks like Westwood back.”
MARIO BARTEL 