Tahiti Road

Paradise for Gran Turismo fans is Tahiti in French Polynesia. The road racing version of paradise was Tahiti Road. This course was a fairly simple romp around the island with very few challenging corners. It is a very beginner-friendly racing course that yields high speed thrills with only smooth corners. Of all the corners, only one requires heavy braking. The rest of the course is just smooth sailing for the most part. This blog post is my introduction to Tahiti Road. It's a one-hit-wonder, having only been in Gran Turismo 2.

--- Tahiti Road ---

Welcome to paradise:

French Polynesia's most popular island is your paradise of speed in Gran Turismo 2.

In my view, it was strange not to include a proper French venue. It was smart, however, to include Tahiti. Tahiti is the most popular of the islands which comprise French Polynesia. So therefore, it's smart that French Polynesia was featured to represent France. Tahiti Road is used as the site of the French Nationals in Gran Turismo 2. The thing that still spellbounds me is... Gran Turismo has featured Tahiti, but NEVER any Australian or New Zealand venues. That doesn't sound right.

One-Lap Description.

The track itself is nothing too challenging. If anything, a car with a poor suspension setup will find it difficult to go around this track. The first three corners are a smooth set of uphill right-left-right corners. The road from Intermediate 1 to Intermediate 2 is a chicane followed by a sharp right. As you enter the chicane, the road dips downward and has a little banking as you make the right-hand corner followed by an uphill left to complete this chicane. The sharp right hander does not really require braking- just good throttle control is just as effective as braking here. Heading into Intermediate 2, the road ahead is a very long sweeping left that leads to the toughest corner on the entire track- a very sharp right-hand corner. There are NO turn markers to help you here, so you'll need to properly judge your distance to attack the corner properly. After this decisive turn is a straight leading to Intermediate 3. An uphill left-hand kink is connected to an uphill right-hand kink. Once you go over the crest of the right-hand kink, you get a glimpse of the final corner. All you need to do here is left off the throttle and steer hard to the right. This track is all about speed. Perhaps not Test Course or Super Speedway speed, but you'll only have to do so much braking if you are in a very fast car or a powerful race car. It is very simple to learn your way around this high-speed paradise.

Video Demonstration.

Here is a video lap of this course. I must warn you- you may need to turn down the volume:






You know, I really think it's a shame this track hasn't returned for any other tours of duty. The only Tahiti action you'll get in future GTs is on the two rally courses. This track is actually quite fun. I often imagine how this would look and ride in future GT titles, and perhaps even if this was in Tourist Trophy. Yeah. Tahiti Road. Give her a try and enjoy paradise!

Thank you for reading!

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