so ive been building out a small indoor track in a warehouse we rent on weekends and the space is maybe 30x20 meters give or take. been running 5 inch builds but honestly thinking of switching everyone to 3 inch or toothpick class just so we can actually have more than like 6 gates without it feeling like you're just flying a straight line with a couple wiggles.

current layout has gates roughly 8-10 meters apart on the longer runs and then a tight chicane section near the back wall thats maybe 4 meters between gates. people are smashing the chicane constantly and i cant tell if its the spacing or just that its a weird angle coming out of the previous turn. anyone dealt with this on small indoor setups? wondering if i should just go full toothpick and shrink everything or if theres a way to make 5inch work in that footprint without it being a disaster every lap

yeah 30x20 with 5 inch is rough, we tried it for a season and basically every race turned into a survival event rather than actual racing. switched to 3 inch and it genuinely transformed the track ? you can fit a real rhythm section, you can have sweepers that actually feel like sweepers instead of just pointing at the next gate and pinning throttle. the chicane issue youre describing sounds like an angle problem more than spacing tbh. if the approach angle is weird coming out of a banked or off-axis gate before it, pilots just dont have time to set up even at 4m. try flagging the entry line with some colored tape on the floor so people can see the ideal path, sometimes that alone cleans up crashes by like 40% just because pilots know where theyre supposed to be

whats the ceiling height like? that changes everything for indoor. we had a similar space and ended up doing a split class day, toothpicks in the morning and 5inch in the afternoon with like half the gates swapped out. more work to reset but people seemed to like having both. also the chicane thing ? we actually moved ours to the middle of the long straight instead of near the wall and it helped a lot, near the wall people panic and brake weird