New Track

[mattb]

I finished my new track today and ran some laps on each lane. All is fine, it works as planned (big surprise!). I spent about 2 months on this working 25 hours a week or so. I got tremendous advice from Steve Ogilvie and followed his guidelines for track building mostly. I changed some stuff due to my limited skills. I found that screws thru the track surface were necessary in some places. I started out doing everything from the bottom side, but that was not strong enough in places.

I routed it in separate pieces and then assembled it. I would build the road surface completely and then rout next time. That would eliminate fine tuning joints. I tried the triangular commercial slot track legs, but that wasn't solid enough to suit me, so I used 2 X 6's.

Router bit came from Slot Car Corner as did the pre-taped braid. That made it really easy.

I got advice from Harry and followed his tutorial on track building which helped a lot. It would be much easier to build a table top track and if I ever go to 1/32 cars, that is what I will do with some landscaping and scale realism. All previous tracks I've built, 4 of them, used tape. Tape works great, as most everybody knows, but the braid was so easy that I would not go back to tape unless it was money issue or the track was not made to last a long time.

I took pix all the way thru and made notes on what I did or had to re-do. I may put that all together somewhere if anyone is interested.

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[chappyman66]

Hey Matt....
Awesome track! That looks like darn near commercial quality to me. It's certainly going to be very fast!
I am looking forward to seeing videos of the racing!
Excellent job for sure!

[SRQSloter]

Great job on the track build matt. Like the 2x6 idea also. Those triangle stands never did look very stable to me either. Even though I have never run on any. Nice job!

:music-rockout:

[SlotCarCorner]

Nice track build - well done! Always smile when I see organized wiring!

:text-bravo:

[HomeRacingWorld]

Yes indeed, looks like a fast mover. That elevation change is going to make a fun stretch I imagine.

Your comment on braid is about as accurate as it gets.

[mattb]

I was trying to design something that would fast and fairly easy to drive. None of our group are very good drivers. I figured the flat curve would add the challenging part to it. The change in elevation always makes a track look fun!

So far the cars are really loose on the flat curve. Running silicones, I wonder if it will build up some rubber? If it doesn't I may add some kind of grit/texture to that area.

Paul, it was either build a track like this for our guys to play on or make a trip to Minn and buy a track!!!

Thanks for the comments and for the great products SCC has made available.

That is a professor Motor wiring kit. I got it thru Ebay quite a few years ago and have used it on all my track builds the last 6 years or so.

[bigman]

[Lou E]

That looks awesome and the craftsmanship appears to be top notch, very nice work!!

[slothead]

Matt - since you said "If I ever go to 1/32 scale cars", I'm wondering what scale cars this track was designed for? Are you running HO or 1/43 scale? What type of cars do you expect will run on it?

[Fathead59]

Very nice looking track , planning on building a track but going to use Scaletrix wireless track sets on a break down table, still in the planning stage now, all I need to do is all of the plans I have in my head onto paper , happy slotting men.

[mattb]

Actually my slot car interest is a little different than most of this forum. I am a 1/24 vintage collector. That's been my main interest the last 30 years or so. I have always had a running track of some sort, usually plastic, although early on I built a couple routed tracks mostly for 1/32 cars. Never really had any kind of race group, so I went thru lots of tracks (sets, routed, old 1/24, new 1/24), I like all tracks and enjoy track building, which is what you do when you don't have a race group!

About 5 years ago, I got together with another local guy that had a Carrera oval who ran 1/24 cars on it and at the track in L'ville. These cars were hard body 1/24 with H&R chassis and mild motors. Not sophisticated at all, a real throwback to the 60's. I built a car and another old racer I knew built a car and from there we got several of our hot rod buddies interested and now have 4-10 guys involved off and on. Only 3 of us are old slot heads, they other guys are new to the hobby. We are re-living what slot car racing was to us in 1965.

This new track is 4 inch lane centers, designed for 1/24. I could easily go to 1/32 and run a more table top, landscaped track if the 1/24 crowd ever goes away. Not sure I would consider running rtr cars, but I would sure use the bodies and make my own metal chassis for them.

While the main interest on this forum is not about what I race, the forum itself is made up of so many do it yourselfers that I find all that in common with my interests in making and doing it myself. This attitude was prevalent back in the 80's when a few of us got together in the AOL hobby forums. We found out there were other guys that had old slot cars and we exchanged info and were able to keep our hobby going thru resin work, tires, motors, tracks and wiring. We all learned so much from each other, we had a great source of info.

This forum and it's members are the same. That same spirit is alive in this forum. For the number of members, I bet the % that have built tracks, tried resin casting, or made tires is higher than any forum out there! That is why I'm here!

[Cincyslots]

That looks great Matt. That elevation looks fun.

Bruce

[TuscoTodd]

Looks like a fun track to run on and bravo on the craftsmanship - very nice! :D

[hillbilly]

Nice track Matt, good looking job on the banking. hillbilly

[slothead]

I raced 1/24th scale model kit cars with custom chassis back in the 70's - 80's too, at a commercial track and in a club setting. We used Womp running gear parts and cut up the chassis for motor mounts and guide tongues. Those were good time for sure.

Best thing about HRW for me is the variety of interests and ways of doing things. I probably would have lost interest again after my grandsons (racing buddies) grew up and headed off to college if it wasn't for someone on HRW posting a link to Barry Boor's website and me learning about his method for simulating F1 races. I've learned so much here and am constantly inspired by what other slotters are up to.