Prinzenpark and the Return of Racing in Post-war Germany - Assetto Corsa

[@Will_au]

I'm actually so glad I started watching GPLaps, some of the best AC/Sim racing content I've ever watched

[@sergioloro]

You have moved my 81-year-old mother to tears, even though she doesn't understand a word in English, you have to be special to achieve that. Your passion is just amazing :) keep up good work, you are the GOAT jaaja

[@yhaustein38]

Hey Jake, thank you for covering the project - really glad that you did eventually decide to check it out! It is still somewhat insane to me to actually see the track in AC and the sim racing community appreciating it so much. It hasn't been that long since I had that thought of "it would be cool to have, but no one's gonna bother with an unknown track like this". Bit surreal now 😄 Your video turned out great, especially the intro. And I think you might be the first native English speaker to pronounce my name correctly on first try 😁

[@XBBBBBXx]

actually great work on that pronounciation. german do be hard like this. i live in braunschweig too, where can i find some more information about this? the library or something like a city archive ? i was a bit aswestruck when i realized braunschweig had a "racetrack".

[@yhaustein38]

@@XBBBBBXx Hello, fellow Braunschweiger! I was amazed as well when I found out 😁There were actually two more, namely the first circuit on the Autobahn 2 (as Jake mentions), as well as a triangle-shaped track not too far from the Autobahn circuit near Lehre. The latter was the successor to the Prinzenpark circuit, but did not last long despite plans of making it a semi-permanent track. It's kind of hard to find much info about the Prinzenpark track, unfortunately. There are a bunch of photos, but they are relatively small and don't show too much. Luckily, the area of the former track has not changed too much since the races took place there, so that was a good base to go off of. What helped us a lot was Eckhard Schimpf's book "Prinzenpark", as well as a chat with the man himself. We highlighted the development of the track from the idea stage right up to its release in a rather lengthy RaceDepartment article, which also features a lot of that information. Apart from this, researching old newspapers and talking to relatives who might have been there when they were kids (as it has been 72 years since the last race there) are probably your best bet.

[@rolux4853]

Hey hello from another fellow sim racer from Braunschweig who loves vintage stuff! I’d never thought for Jake to cover this amazing piece of our hometowns history!

[@MicheleLynnDullDime]

When I was younger, I raced a vintage 1959 Elva Formula Junior for a decade in real life. I loved that car. The Juniors are a sheer joy to drive, 4 wheel sliding through the turns on vintage Dunlop bias ply tires. I miss it so much, but watching your joy recreating these moments is amazing. Thank you so much. Here's a little in-car footage of me qualifying for the Pittsburgh Vintage GP several years ago: kzbin.info/www/bejne/o3-adnh8Z52qp8ksi=avckqhI8H6TQ9hxH

[@JURacing]

I can not thank Sergio enough for continuing making great tracks for Assetto Corsa (with the help of Yannick this time) and thanks again Jake for another great video. What better way to start the day like this. ☺

[@BlackCat66057]

Danke, dass Du mal bei uns in Deutschland ein Rennen gefahren bist.

[@stefanmeier235]

Greets from Braunschweig. My grand grandparents lived in the Herzogin-Elisabeth-Straße back then and my mother (born in 1942) has some weak memories of the races.

[@ajrichar0]

Yannick, Sergio and Jake - thank you for conceiving the track, the research, the modelling and development, and now a completed video showing the work off to the rest of the simracing community. It was a joy to watch. Yannick amd Sergio - thank you both for your dedication.

[@John-i9q1e]

Sergio is a master of his craft, both with cars and with tracks - to think that this is FREEWARE... Thank you Sergio and thank you Jake for helping to give Sergio's work the publicity it so richly deserves.

[@flexibly77]

Pure Love . Your Channel ist pure Love to all about racing, particularly the good old times of racing history

[@fuzzywumble]

absolute props to the guy who made this recreation and you for showcasing this amazing piece of motorsport history! so amazing to watch!

[@stenovitz]

I've VR raced this track since a few hours after Yannik presented Sergio's excellent work via main RD article, i.e. now some weeks ago. It's in the details that makes this track phenomenal. Only had a single race in post-war single seaters, mostly enjoyed in the standard Kunos work of the 1960 Porsche 718 RS 60, added with a phletoria of skin packs. I cannot find a better track for this sports car than Prinzen Park. And what a nice intro. Must've been mindblowing for Yannik doing the discovery in his own town. Both Yannik and ofcourse Sergio should be credited hugely for both investigations, interview with driver from the time and not at least at what seems to be a mammoth mod work! ♥

[@davidbarnes6410]

What a great track. Gee the hours he must put into these is astounding. And for free? What a legend.

[@DragoonEnRegalia]

Definitely one of the best new tracks from this past year, and an awe-inspiring recreation based on what historic sources are still left. It's a great circuit for street cars and mini-racers, but also classic voiturettes and the emerging Assetto Corsa motorbike/sidecar mods. I've taken some Historic Sim Studios cars out on this already (the Amilcar CGSS and Ford Model T '15), just grinning from lap to lap as I vie for podium between one gorgeous corner after the other. It reminds me of the kind of city track Polyphony Digital and Turn10 used to make before graphical fidelity became too much of a bottleneck for them. As always, it comes down to great modders to fill these gaps, and they're only getting better at these out-of-left-field mods.

[@Okopant]

I live in the east of Braunschweig (Östliches Ringgebiet) and I know the area around the "Prinz Albrecht Park" very well. Even today, a lot of the house-architecture looks pretty much the same as it does in this video. Streetview from the cockpit into the Jasperallee and Karl-Marx-Straße for example. That is totally impressive and detailed...just like it is today, RESPECT! The "Matthäuskirche" (Matthäus-church) is polluted today of course because it´s 75 years later) but the architecture is on point! :D The "Riddachshäuser Weg", which was part of the race track, is today known as the "Georg Westermann Allee" (I guess) :D ...very well done, Recognizable: 100% 😃👋👌👍 Thank You !!

[@birdofprey_bird]

I don't really watch GPLaps regularly, but when I got this video recommended I was curious if it could really be about the Prinzenpark I know. I grew up in a suburb of Braunschweig and went to school in the city. A friend of mine still lives near to the park and we go there for walks sometimes. I didn't even know that there were races held there and can't imagine what it would look like, if they would still be held there. Definately a very cool racetrack and a top notch recreation!

[@gerarddip]

Just drove this one today! Deceptively hard! The surface changes are awesome.

[@buffping]

That cut from the intro to the driver was smooth! Wonderful stuff

[@slafko23]

those videos are very precious from historical point of view, not only as sim racing. Love the intro with historical details and the story behind it. Thanks to AC we can learn and feel what racing was look like in past

[@slurms777]

What a perfect video, the history is sooo cool, your passion and pure enjoyment is obvious and it seeps through in your well thought out articulation. I honestly think your one of the best youtubers. What ever the true "soul" of racing is; you have it in you brother 👍

[@natec5373]

Have a happy new year!

[@pisomark]

Sergio Lorro is the man, what a hero

[@AmbientMike]

Thank goodness AC mods are such a wealth of enjoyment, but a shame there there isnt a sim out there with any focus on pre-war/post-war racing. Absolutly great showcase Jake!

[@war5288]

Common GPLaps masterpiece.

[@OldManPlaysDrivingSims]

I love this type of content you produce, it is an absolute inspiration to me 👍🏻🏁🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

[@danieldorn9989]

This is not just a simracing channel. It is a history of motorsports channel.

[@grayfool]

Wow! Another great track for us to enjoy. Thanks to all those involved with creating this wonderful addition to AC. Still the greatest Sim racing ever.

[@dutchlinde3574]

Imagine a full game about the history of motorosport with assetto corsa driving gameplay

[@edwardburek1717]

Sergio Loro strikes again. That is a fantastic circuit, although I very much doubt it could host F1 or sports car races in real life. Not with those tramlines, that's for sure. Another sporting claim to fame for the town of Braunschweig is that - as far as I know - its resident football team, Eintracht Braunschweig, was the first professional sports club to accept a sponsorship deal in the early 1970's. For this arrangement, their shirts had to have a massive Jagermeister logo on them, and some wags suggest that such a placement has never been bettered since. The video was fantastically edited - the transition from spectator mode to the cockpit view at the start of the race was seamless.

[@yhaustein38]

The Eintracht story gets even better: Ads on jerseys weren't allowed at that point, so they just went ahead and changed their team logo to that of Jägermeister and scaled it up considerably instead of just wearing a small version as you would find today. Some clever rule dodging there 😂

[@cas5447]

As someone from the area, I was surprised to find out that this track/race ever existed, I pretty stumbled across it a couple of weeks ago by accident while browsing AC mod sites for new cars and tracks. Not even my dad (someone who also grew up here and a former race driver himself) knew a lot about it, but like you said, that's the beauty of sim racing.

[@danielschnelle2498]

Great to see this Track on your channel, Braunschweig is my Birthtown, greetings from Germany

[@baronburgamot243]

There is a section of road near me, that it the most ideal road circuit ever. It's about 7.2 miles of winding British B road, with amazing views, elevation changes and me and a few friends once seriously considered petitioning the local gov to see if we could set up some sort of time trial racing there. We felt the road is too small for a car grid type start maybe bikes would work, but ideal for time trial hot lapping. I've put in a few very spirited 'laps' myself on my motorbike. . . . I have to say via your channel I have discovered some of my most favourite cars and tracks to play in Assetto. Love your content can't wait to try this one out as well!

[@yumikaru2130]

I lived in this city all my life and I never knew we had a race track here. Some things look different these days. The tram tracks for example are gone and the pond is a skate park now.

[@edteach3r]

Beautiful video, as always. Thanks to Sergio et al. for making this possible. Happy New Year, Jake!

[@laplaceoperator1345]

As a local who knows the place by heart and adores the history of these early races, I'm now waiting for a release of the Autobahn track and the Welfenring of Braunschweig. We need more after war tracks, such a unique period of racing with interesting cars too such as the VLK by Kurt Kuhnke.

[@demonsbutterfly]

That was fantastic The graphics were so good even watching from a phone.

[@GregzVR]

PEAK content!

[@StancedVacuum]

oooo an era and track I'm unfamiliar with? These are easily my favorite GPL essays.

[@Squeallyweegon]

For a while I thought you were dubbing your vocals. Watching your hands while you're talking, I realise you're talking live! The amount of detail you put into these videos, whilst racing around on these amazing recreations, driving these slippery old beasts... Really keeps it all on track. You're doing a great thing for the creators, the community and mostly yourself! Bravo!!

[@ryklatortuga4146]

Interesting Canadian Flag. - Those Star Trek guys have gone back in time again...medalling with the timeline! Roddenberry you rascal, you cad!

[@kingsmont]

The goat of sim content

[@jfrorn]

Love these older tracks so much!! Thanks for sharing with us…

[@tengusimulations]

Wow this track looks absolutely fantastic

[@TarasKuznetsovMusic]

Man you should be directing racing movies! 😁great job with the intro!!! You make this little race look and feel amazing!

[@chrisconway4906]

Love the history that comes with these vids. thank you

[@emlyndewar]

Man, this looks a great fun race. Definitely going for it myself tomorrow.

[@Argy_V]

Another masterpiece by GPLaps . Thank you Jake 👍

[@dompeha540]

GP Laps is the sim racing time machine!

[@antothemanto77]

Awesome!! Thanks for your great and continued sim racing content-it inspired me to get my own rig!

[@italotracks2277]

Spectacular video Jake, and yet another brilliant Sergio Loro masterpiece, I don't know how he does it! 💯

[@Jackal776]

Love these history videos about things I knew nothing about. You don’t know what you don’t know…

[@lewisbloom]

wonderful video, great educational piece as ever Jake!

[@PavlosLepaul]

There is so much magic around this old circuits, very good video and great job by modders

[@theartofjan5871]

spotted a little error in your description :P the city is called BrauNschweig (Brunswick in english im pretty sure) Loving your content!

[@GPLaps]

thanks!

[@roddyeskew3909]

Very cool. You've found your niche and done an excellent job with it.

[@Commander-McBragg]

Awesome work on these videos, Jake.

[@paulmason5152]

Excellent. Sounds like lot a lot of effort. Great host too.

[@jacquesperrenoud1368]

Magnifique. Merci. Meilleures salutations.

[@Sojiira]

Loved the intro! Got me hooked for the rest

[@27rood]

Again GP Laps makes it shine with an awesome video. Who could showcase Sergio Loro's Prinzenpark better ? I've been enjoying this track for a couple of weeks now and like Jake says, mind those traintracks...

[@XBBBBBXx]

yoyoyo waiiiit, this is in my home city ! what the heck ??? i didnt even know we used to have a curcuit here !

[@Maartwo]

Very nice video as usual, Jake. i didn't know about this track. I'll be giving it a spin tomorrow.

[@simonolsen9995]

Love your work Jake and this one was a beauty. But man, gotta say, I'd love to see you crank up the FFB some more. I know you know that those things didn't take corners at speed without a lot of grunting and sweating.

[@dealwolfstriked272]

0:35 looked awesome

[@axzyzzen]

Awesome video, enjoyable to watch🎉

[@84Prich]

Would be awesome if you did one on Prince George Circuit East London South Arica. Last raced here in 1963 yet circuit still is in use today as it originally was raced by the greats such as Graham Hill and Jim Clark who clenched the world title here.

[@Philster42]

Nice track and nice video. That’s what this subscriber likes. 😀

[@bobmcl2406]

Another top quality video, Jake. For me, your stuff is the best sim racing content on YT. BTW, as a side note, this excellent recreation must be from 1965 or later, based on the presence of the current Canadian flag (yeah, a bit of Canuck "trainspotting" 😁 )

[@jamespuff860]

Love the intros, they keep getting better

[@GhjuvanROSSI]

Stunning 😀 Very immersive 🤗 Good job 👏 Next time 👋

[@fredscratchet1355]

Wow surely one of Sergio's best yet, it looks incredible. As for the Formula Junior cars I really struggle with them, is it just me? I can't keep them going in a straight line with any sort of pace and usually make many diversions into the scenery😒

[@markusjuenemann]

This is beautiful!

[@ExiledPiasa]

Nice job driving. Love the track. How about a 1980s NASCAR race on the Nuremberg Ring?

[@cloudy6666]

I live in Braunschweig and I didn't even know this existed

[@yhaustein38]

That is one of the motivations behind the project, actually! Of course, my line of thought was "it would be cool to have that" at first, but then I realized that hardly anybody knows about the track here. There are no signs, nothing. So we kind of created a digital monument to it to make more people aware of the racing history of the park.

[@patrickcallaghan7432]

Just to add to an earlier commenter and as a heads up to the track builder, that Canadian flag didn't exist until 1967. Cheers.

[@SeyePhi]

very much my speed. I loved this video

[@ExtraWishes]

HAHAH check the right hand mirror at 6:40, we running bikes now

[@MrMiniPilote]

That's awesome! Hilarious!

[@arnoldwillemsen5642]

Hey Jake, great video again. I was wondering wat ai agression you play in AC. Because in My case i play at 60% the ai makes a mess in race. Thanks.

[@RallyAddict555]

You should definetly try out a track called feldbergring by fat alphie

[@RTPJu]

No place stands as a racing track... until someone start to race it

[@sim-racing5843]

Is the AI in AC any good? Can you change the names of the drivers and AI settings?

[@ruudw.2403]

Hope they somehow can add custom tracks in automobilista 2.

[@Just_lift_anyone]

Sorry a quick aside, years ago I bought or was given a video by Front Runner, it was the history of the Indianapolis 500, I think it was released in 1990. I can think of no better person than yourself to do a more up to date version, your narration and knowledge would be perfect.

[@RanchiYT]

guys will watch this and simply think, "hell yeah"

[@arride4590]

We would like you post video at least every other day. We hope you become full time youtuber.

[@alpha007org]

I'd rather see Kunos redo AC1 with all its modability, new graphics and CPU optimization, than I am excited for new AC2.

[@callum4122]

Would you possibly have a Ferrari 330 P3 mod? i have been looking for weeks unsuccessfully, I considered if anybody would have that mod it'd be you. (I'm trying to recreate 66' WSC on AC)

[@flip849]

Feels like a mario kart circuit

[@FormulaPenguin483]

Hey, I can't seem to get the juniors working. Every time I try to load up a car it drops me back into the menu after a few seconds of loading screen. Tried deleting folder from documents, verifying game files, etc. but nothing helped. Any idea what went wrong?

[@dinxsy8069]

Sergio giving away tracks/cars, whilst Ilja Jusupov who does CSP rakes in 30k+ a month what's essentially now only minor bug fixes now. These people need to wake up

[@whyme943]

Makes me want to see formula E race here.

[@mej6519]

thought this a was a fat alfie track at first.

[@needyranger3987]

Better than Jeddah

[@toolbaggers]

The flag of Chad 🇹🇩

[@johncitizen306]

Ffs is it 6 months between '66 season videos now? I will find you

[@RTPJu]

"Soccer" NEIN! Fußball!

[@humandroid53]

There's no atmosphere though.

[@DukeTheRebel]

So is this meant to be uploaded in 360 P?

[@RockyGordon]

it can go up to 1440p60

[@bob_._.]

KZbin does some processing to videos after upload, and makes them available at 360p while that's happening. I'm guessing Jake chose to have the video posted immediately when he sent it, and you clicked on it right away.

[@otaviorocha4156]

Track is amazing, but the AIs racing ......

[@SacWebDeveloper]

So confused right now, is this a video game you can actually play or just someone's prototype devlog? Weird channel.

[@douglasdixon524]

6:00, Sweetest move of the race.