so ive been building out a small indoor track in a warehouse space we rent on weekends and the main problem ive run into is the gate spacing feels totally off depending on who's flying. like when i set it up for myself (mostly doing 3s 5inch) it feels good but then my buddy shows up on a more locked-in 4inch and says the gates are too close together and he keeps clipping the inside of turns.

the space is roughly 40x60 feet which i know isnt huge but we've managed to fit 8 gates and two dive gates in there. im using the roto style flag gates mostly because they're easy to store. wondering if anyone has a rough formula or just general advice for gate spacing relative to the size of the quad youre designing for ? or do you just kind of eyeball it and iterate

honestly there's no real formula, it's mostly feel and iteration. what i do is fly it solo first with whatever class i expect most people to run then walk through the rhythm of the course on foot. if i find myself mentally rushing between two gates when walking it, the spacing is probably too tight when flying at speed.

for a 40x60 space 8 gates might actually be one or two too many depending on how you're routing. tight courses can be fun but if everyone's clipping the same gate every lap it stops being a race and starts being a obstacle avoidance exercise. might be worth pulling out two gates and seeing if the flow improves before messing with the spacing on individual sections.

we had the same problem at our spot. what ended up working was making the course modular ? basically we marked the floor with tape for two different layouts, one tighter for 3inch class days and one more open for open class. takes like 20 minutes to switch over. not a perfect solution but it made everyone less annoyed lol