so ive been setting up a small indoor track in a warehouse space we got access to on weekends and im trying to figure out how tight to make the gate spacing. right now its maybe 8-10 meters between most gates which feels okay for 3S but anyone thats done serious indoor racing knows thats kind of loose for the space we have. the ceiling is around 6 meters so we cant really do big vertical elements but i want to make it feel like an actual race and not just a loop around the room.

the gates are the fold-flat soft ones, not sure of the brand, got them secondhand. wondering if anyone has a rough rule of thumb for spacing relative to the speed class youre targeting or if its just trial and error. also should i even bother with a chicane section or is that just gonna cause chaos with newbies crashing into everything

8-10m is actually pretty decent for indoor 3S depending on the gate width. when we did our club's warehouse series last winter we ran most sections at like 6-7m and honestly it was chaos in a good way, forces people to actually fly smooth instead of just pinning it. the chicane question is tough ? i say do it but make it wide enough that someone can actually recover if they come in a bit hot. tight chicanes in beginner-heavy sessions just mean you spend half the race waiting for someone to untangle from a flag pole.

one thing we did that helped was stagger the gate heights a bit, like alternate between low and slightly elevated, even indoors it changes the rhythm and makes it feel more like a real course. also tape your gate legs down if the surface lets you, nothing worse than a gate spinning 90 degrees after the first crash and blocking the next three people

dont overthink the spacing honestly, just fly it a couple times yourself and see where it feels boring or where youre not even thinking about the next gate yet. thats usually where you need to tighten it up. ive seen people spend like two hours measuring and then the first practice session everyone agrees it needs to be totally different anyway