A four lane banked, square oval. Tomy track with a little bit of a twist. The corners have a 3 inch straight in the middle of them. This makes the turns a little longer and decreases the Gforce in the turn, allowing you to go faster. It's mounted on a 4x16 table with borders on three sides. I put 24v on it. It really shows if you have a sucky car. You can go laps down in a hurry.
In the infield I put another track. Riverside Memorial Speedway. It's four lane complete with a lap counter and the esses. It has three long straights, side by side, with the esses on the front stretch. It runs clockwise. Maybe ya'll can come over and race sometime.

http://www.myspace.com/northtexasslotcars

Rich 43
Yeehaw

Hey Rich, send me an invite! Us track gotta stick together!

http://myspace.com/sequoiaspeedway

The speedway is open tomorrow night for action!

Hey guys,
It's like Doba says, 'This thread is useless without any pics!' I never got around to posting any, so here it goes...
I used sound proofing board for the top. It also looks like asphalt.
http://a964.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/83/l_2bfe48d1036223ae1039d31b53f72aab.jpg
http://a113.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/91/l_3a047854ff24c48a7cff1bca92df79b0.jpg
It's gone through some changes. This is the north end of the complex.
http://a197.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/128/l_9deafa133c6571ef0dc65060432a428c.jpg
And the south end.
http://a566.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/6/l_7ce0ab3420d6c3487e428b256ab042ad.jpg
The turns on the road coarse wind inside of each other. I thought it was a good idea so I wouldn't have to build shoulders all the way around the track. My fellow racers find it confusing to run and to corner marshall. I'm thinking about changing it, but I'm not sure.
Here are the esses......
http://a446.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/116/l_0cf57d72cea22569bd58bf53ebbe7615.jpg
The outside track is called Ontario MS, and the road coarse is called Riverside MS, both as a tribute to Nascar tracks that don't exist anymore. I was hoping to make a more realistic bank out of bending some flat turns because the radius' are better. When you figure it in 1:64 scale, it only amounts to a half mile track. :cry: I used cork road bed for the shoulders and used 2 sided foam tape underneath. It's the perfect height, bends really easy, and holds the cork good. I used very few nails in the shoulders. I like racing the 70s nascars on it.
http://a513.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/97/l_9e8559e652c36f0033ec95f8ce4dc040.jpg
I'll keep working on it and keep yall up to date. All this construction is making me hungry though. Anyone want a burger?
http://a606.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/104/l_7691e841cd9e1d48e5ff5a9cc5b1875d.jpg

Rich
www.myspace.com/northtexasslotcars

Hey guys,
The turns on the road coarse wind inside of each other. I thought it was a good idea so I wouldn't have to build shoulders all the way around the track. My fellow racers find it confusing to run and to corner marshall. I'm thinking about changing it, but I'm not sure.
http://a513.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images01/97/l_9e8559e652c36f0033ec95f8ce4dc040.jpg
I'll keep working on it and keep yall up to date. All this construction is making me hungry though. Anyone want a burger%
Rich
www.myspace.com/northtexasslotcars


Yes it is confusing actually so Much I broke backinto your house last night and returned your track... lol


Dave

That is very nice....very nice indeed...:thumbsup:

BTW...if you marshals are having problems...try a short clear plastic wall between the inner and outer tracks...

It will keep the look and the marshals can tell if the car was in the inner or outer by whether it hits the clear wall or not...

Wow.....very impressive. I like it :thumbsup:

Thanks Crim,
My idea was to use the outside direction as a shoulder for the inside direction, and not to actually come off. I reckomended crash and burn heats with laps limit and a points system, but that didnt go over too well for some reason. They may ease up on me if I crank the volts down to 18. Im using 2 12v batteries for power, so thatll cost me.

Rich

NTX I wanna come too, I wanna come too! I'll bring my Tyco stuff? PUH LEEEZE ! How long of a commute is it from Western Pa to Texas?

[QUOTE=coach61;2512252]Yes it is confusing actually so Much I broke back into your house last night and returned your track... lol

Funny Coach I didn't see you while I was there.....Ooopps:o

NTX I wanna come too, I wanna come too! I'll bring my Tyco stuff? PUH LEEEZE ! How long of a commute is it from Western Pa to Texas?
You're one 24hr Lemans away!:hat:

Are thos banked turns or do have lifted, that is awesome.

You're one 24hr Lemans away!:hat:

Is that all? !:woohoo:

Are thos banked turns or do have lifted, that is awesome.
Theyre banked turns. The 9 and 12 inch radius sets with a 3 inch straight in the middle.

This was while under construction.
http://photos.hobbytalk.com/data/511/medium/RichsCamera_372.jpg

Love the option of two tracks in one space.


I suggest that you take VideoJimmy, give him a dremel and lock him up the room with those die-cast accessory cars. You'll have a whole new fleet of slots in a short period of time!

Jim

wow, i love your layout especially with oval on the outside, i am a newbie to building layouts trying to get ideahs, getting ready to make a ho 4-lane layout with road course and oval in my garage, where do i find the asphalt look for oval? you have done a great job, :thumbsup:

shon bates, lake elsinore, ca.

Thanks Guys,
I wish I had more time to work on it. I'm still catching up at work from my trip.

where do i find the asphalt look for oval? you have done a great job, :thumbsup:

shon bates, lake elsinore, ca.

I painted the track with Plasticote primer, and left it flat. I want to put some sort of clear coat on it, because it dusts the silicone tires up real bad. Stock tires are fine. I would paint it with gloss next time.

Because of recent discussions, I decided to post my lap counter set up too. I put the start/finish line of the oval and road coarse together and use one 40watt incondecent bulb to light the IR sensors.

http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/60/l_5137ed9750354c16872cbd487df39858.jpg

I use Slot Race Manager, a DOS program for the lap counting.

http://c1.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/44/l_d481309e8ceb4805bb911564cbab70a0.jpg

http://c3.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/48/l_08de682be1934bc9a35935d30194a822.jpg

I've been real happy with the program and only recently learned where it came from and the history behind it. It's a free download. More info here http://www.cenobyte.nl/slotracemanager/hoofdframe.html

It has a feature that lights up the starter lights. I want to figure that out and use it for a drag racing track.

The only thing about it is it doesn't have any sound. As cheap as old computers are(usually worth more as scrap), I intend to set up another set of sensors and tie them to a Laptimer 2000 set up on another computer just for sound, maybe even 2 for a stereo effect.

Rich
www.myspace.com/northtexasslotcars (http://www.myspace.com/northtexasslotcars) :thumbsup:

Well, amid a mass of complaints concerning the turns, I've been forced to do some reconstruction.

http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/55/l_1249660f09194bcf8076bdafc78bd845.jpg

The problem has been that the bottom lanes just haven't been competitive with the top two lanes. You can't drive the car in as hard into the corners, and you can't get into the gas as early. So, the challenge is to get the bottom lanes more competitive with the top lanes. The 3 inch straights seem to be the flaw. They're just not long enough to settle the lateral Gs in the corners, to even them out with the wider radius upper lanes. I played around with the straights in the corners, and this one seems to be the best. 6 inch straights in the corners, with the 15s in the middle. This set up is a half a second faster than the others I tried. The top lanes were unaffected. This set up should solve the problem. You can drive the car in almost as hard as the top lanes, and accelerate earlier.

http://c2.ac-images.myspacecdn.com/images02/15/l_14bde35194344ca1bb7cdfa445ba791d.jpg

I feel like Bruton Smith. I worked so hard on the initial track, but was dissapointed at how it turned out competitively. I thought maybe everyone just needed to learn to drive it. But after two events, I just had to face the reality that the bottom lanes just weren't competitive.
So, here's the real problem, with the new radiai of the turns, I need to shift the entire road coarse down at least 2 inches. The turns are not appearing as square anymore, so this may be the end of 'Ontario'. The turns actually look more like Texas now, and after this fiasco, I just may call it "Texas Electric Motor Speedway". What do you think?

Rich
www.myspace.com/northtexasslotcars :thumbsup:

Cool table ya got there Rich!!! Texas Electric Motor Speedway has got a good ring to it!! Besides, the name Ontario gives me So. Cal flashbacks!! :tongue: The new plans sound like they'll work better!!


UtherJoe

Bumping this thread up for the painted track thread. Enjoy.

Bumping this up, well, just because.

You have some serious overhead going on there NTX! Hope they guys get er done soon. Hmm Texas electric motor speedway, and you live in Texas. Sounds like a good fit to me.

Rich, I have a thought for an alternate name for the new NTX HOuse of Speed. TEMS got me to thinking them might be a more fitting acronym and I just had to fit the words to the letter. So, what do ya think about this?

Texas Electric Xanadu Auto Speedway

The "x" is tough to work with but xanadu is a cool name. It was the location of Kublai Khans' summer palace in China. Orsen Wells used the name to describe the pseudo William Randolp Herst Castle in Citizen Kane. It is an awesome Rush song.

Hutt says everythings big in Texas! :drunk::hat::freak::dude::tongue:

The only thing about it is it doesn't have any sound.

I agree

I used this software my self. Very accurate, simple but easy to read screen. The only issue is the lack of sound. When you race, having a sound when someone beats the best lap for example, is a great feature. So now I'm using a windows lapcounter, ultimate racer. I use it with reed switchs : it works great. :thumbsup:

Im gonna go ahead and bump this one too.

Wow, great work!
Is each lane powered separately? did you just remove some of the metal under TOMY track connection track?
How do you step down the battery voltage?
IR sensors and 40 w. bulb, do you have any details/information on
this? Thank you

Hey Cw

Each lane was powered by a single battery pack.
The voltage was stepped down using a large rheostat, but that didn't work out.
It was fine with just one car on the track. More than one lane used created a phantom resistor.
It acted like there was a third controller, or like your 45ohm, was suddenly a 120ohm.
The IR sensors... dont remember what brand or sensitivity. This set up was cheap.
An incandescent bulb emits infrared light. This doesnt work with the new florescent type.
No need to match sensors and emitters here. I hear you can buy matched sets,
but a friend of mine had neck with his. The bulb just seems easier.

Rich,

I built up the light system in SRM for the KY STLP drag races. It worked really well and wasn't hard to do. I recommend making your own wiring harness instead of converting a printer cable, it makes things much easier. Here's a link to an article covering the racing event and I have several pics of the light system. I'll try and get some pictures of the wiring inside the X-mas tree for you.

-Paul

http://sites.google.com/site/wrrspeedinc/home/ky-stlp-race-to-the-future/past-racing-to-the-future-events/2009-2010-racing-to-the-future-state-championships

Paul,
That is way cool!!! Looks like yall really had it going on. :thumbsup:
Does SRM support the brackets? or do you have to do that manually?

SRM has an entry system that you can place cars, drivers etc into the racing system. I use that in tracking performance of certain cars on my track. But we didn't know how many students were showing for the STLP event and the entry system is a bit detailed, so we did it manually with an Access database we wrote to streamline the process. I really like the tracking of lap times and number of laps in a given time. It really helps to see what performance tweaks work and which ones don't. You can specify car type, class type, date built along with other details.
SRM was not intended as a drag system, but can be adapted with a few tweaks. I set it up with two sensors per lane (one at the start, one at the finish). The are configured in the SRM settings as a 2-sensor gap for segment timing. That gave us the elapsed time for one pass. We determined the winner by the lowest elapsed time, down to 1/1000ths of a second.

I can email you a blank copy of the bracket database if you would like to use it. We captured information about schools,students, etc, that you could easily change the fields to car type, chassis type or other info you want recorded.

-Paul

I knew I had this drawn up some where. Here's the wiring diagram for the Xmas tree lights using SRM.

http://sites.google.com/site/wrrspeedinc/home/slot-car-how-to/x-mas-tree-wiring-for-srm

Just click on the picture in the link for a larger view.

-Paul

Cool beans!!! I'm gonna try this for my lil drag strip.