I am now firmly entrenched into my new digs, a 1,200 sq. ft. 2 bedroom apartment in "the city" of Fresno, with a nice overlook of the Sierra Nevada Mountains. That is when the rest of California is burning and filling the San Joaquin Valley with smoke. While I have been able to retain my HO layout I have but 2 magnet cars to race on it, which is still fun but I'm usually racing myself or my daughter. This was my daughters old apartment so it's familar to me and adjusting has been fairly easy.

I have in my possession a goodly amount of 1/32nd track donated by Martin, and have over the last month or so set up a few different layouts on my floor and played with it. Over this last weekend Martin also game me a $150 Home Depot gift card so that I can build the collapsable layout I designed for my 1/32nd scale dream track, which I will begin doing the middle of next month. The layout is essentially two 6' X 4' sections bolted together and set on 4 saw horses, the overall length being 12'. Here's the final track diagram:

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z262/FresnoPete/12X4A1GP.gif

I can bolt another section to the middle of those two essentially creating new acerage in which to lay out more track when needed. I will make a blank section to do just that with the track, which could give me a main straight length of up to 14'.

The main straight here is 10' long, and timed laps have been in the 4.25 second range with SCX sports cars and just under 4 seconds with open wheel cars. The first race scheduled will be a Scalextric IRL event on Halloween night. One of the good things about being single is I can set my layout up in the living room on the floor, leave it there for days and nobody will b!#@h at me about it. I mean, I even use it as entertainment and exercise for the cat.

After the IRL even I'm planning on getting down to some serious landscaping and detailing. Since the layout is designed to be split in half that leaves my infield section also split in half and will result in some creative building layouts. Eventually the short chute will have a pit road running parallel to it with garages and grandstands from Scalextric. There will be a bridge over the pits and short chute to the island in between the straights and the flagstand will be on the inside of the main straight on the right half. I plan to have some low bleachers along the main straight but we will have to see, I don't want anything in the way of the marshalls putting cars back on the track. I will be using the SCX Evo lap counter, starting system and lap timer once racing begins.

Our first series will begin New Years Day (once we sober up enough) and will be an weekly 8-race series using the A1GP cars from Scalextric. I'm going to buy all 10 cars a couple at a time over the next few months, keep them impounded between races and the points winner will get to keep his or her car. We'll change the direction of travel for the first and last race of the series, and for the other 6 I'll be inserting another 4' X 6' module in the middle of the layout and create a temporary addition to the track.

After the A1 series we'll have a few weeks layoff and then get into the A1USA series, where I repaint the cars into flags of the US States instead of world countries. I'm going to pick easy states (California, New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, etc) so it won't take a lot of time to redo them. The A1USA will be the standard series for my track and one other that may be built in March. I'm hoping to have my adaptable road course and an oval (banked prefered) to hold the A1USA on.

I'll try to get pictures online as I can. I don't own a digital camera anymore but I've seen some cheap ones at Wal-Mart. As soon as we start nailing boards together I'll get some images up.

Cool Pete!...glad to see you can still run some laps!

Get us some pics when you get it built up!

The track has now been renamed Effin Raceway, in recognition of the Bob and Tom bit about a city somewhere in the midwest of the same name. Many of us will be racing this Effin track in the near future, and the first Effin Fun Series is just around the corner. There will be close to a dozen Effin drivers on Sunday for the Colin McRae Memorial Rally, to be held on the Effin Rally Circuit. We invite anyone from Bakersfield to Stockton to come on down and compete to the an Effin Champion.

The track has now been renamed Effin Raceway, in recognition of the Bob and Tom bit about a city somewhere in the midwest of the same name.

It was Effingham I believe, not Effin. I know there's an Effin's Restaurant in San Diego and a bar on Long Island called Effin Gruvin, but no real city called Effin. But hey, you pretty much sponsored the track with that $150, I'll call it whatever you like until a better corporate sponsor steps up.

For it to be a real Effin Raceway we need to have racing going on in opposite directions in each lane. Then people could talk about the big Effin racing accident on Monday.