i am planning to buy a continuous rail track next fall and am doing the initial layout research. i will probably buy it from CNC. since i will have a choice of lane spacing i was wondering if some of those knowledgeable about it could give me some of the pros and cons of different spacing. my track will be approximately 12' x 5' with long straights and sweeping turns, and i wil be running G3 type mag-cars. any feedback would be appreciated. mj

Tyco & WIZZTRACK lane spacing are uniform @ 1.5". MAXTRAX is 1.75".
I have only seen pics of a few custom routed tracks having small portions of layout opening to 2" lane spacing.

Tyco & WIZZTRACK lane spacing are uniform @ 1.5". MAXTRAX is 1.75".
I have only seen pics of a few custom routed tracks having small portions of layout opening to 2" lane spacing.

Any feedback on the benefits or drawbacks of 1.5" vs. 1.75" spacing?? mj

To be honest, after running everything from standard MM/Tomy to custom routed with 2" lane spacing all the way around I don't really notice any difference at all with magnet cars. Cars still bump and take out the field when the inside guy loses it with cars on the outside. With sliders, yeah, the extra spacing gives you a little more breathing room when multiple cars dive into a corner all at the same time. I like the beatin' and bangin' and opening up the spacing a lot would reduce that aspect of racing, but a two-tenths difference is probably not going to be noticeable unless you are running excessively chubby bodies.

On the other hand, wide radius turns make a huge difference. Having wide berms, whether built-in or fabricated after the fact, also add a positive touch to the racing experience.

I'd go with 1.5". 1.75" would eliminate all bumping and/or nerfing, which IMO SHOULD be part of slot car racing.

I'd go with 1.5". 1.75" would eliminate all bumping and/or nerfing, which IMO SHOULD be part of slot car racing.

I agree with bemoore.... I like to see a bit of rubbin (and rubbin is racin') out there from time to time, it doesn't typically affect the lexan or hard bodied G3 cars. But you throw a fray car out there and get to sliding around with exposed wheels and it gets VERY interesting.... :)

The 3" wide track was designed in an era when the cars were T-Jet size. When Aurora moved up to the AFX, the bodies got bigger but the track stayed the same. Same with Tyco. The track may have been wider had the large body cars been the first introduced.

Some of the other brands are even a little larger than Tomy, Tyco and Lifelike. Both MicroScalextric and Marchon are slightly larger (as are Ideal and Majorette, but who races them?). I basically run cars by myself, so I can't give an opinion on what makes for the best racing. But I think if I routed a track, I would go with a wider lane spacing so the larger HO cars have a little more room.

When I look at 1/43rd track, I think that is way too narrow for the size of the car. But that might be a good size for the Marchon sized cars.

Joe

I agree that it would have been nice if Aurora had upped the ante in the move to the A/FX standard and made the track wider. They were probably very concerned about backward compatibility with the old MM track.

However, introducing larger radius turns, greater than 18", would be a huge shot in the arm for adding more realism to existing track standards, even with the existing lane spacing. You can always add a berm on the edges of the track to give the appearance of a wider track surface. In fact, road courses typically have a fairly narrow groove that the cars actually run in despite the width of the track. Some of the most visually appealing landscaped tracks, like Portugal in a Playroom, use the plastic track to create the "groove" in a wider faux track footprint. You can see from those stunning examples that the main inhibitor to scale realism is the availability of larger radius (> 18") as well as smaller incremental (< 1/8th) turns.

Give me bigger radius and smaller increments in the turn selection and I can live with the existing lane spacing forever. In fact, the relatively narrow lane spacing of set track has probably been a huge positive factor in keeping "HO" scale very stable, with only two variations on the scale: TJets and AFXs. If the track was wider we probably would have seen further fragmentation in the HO scale. I'd like HO to stay HO as we now know HO. Yo. :)

another option is to forego ho size track alltogether...go 1 43 size and the ho cars have lots of drift!but no hit to pass action.but you could rout that into the corners for fun...

I would keep straights sections as tight as possible. While first into and out of a turn a little wider then squeeze them a bit but not to the point where they can't pass.
I'm not a fan of all lanes coming together tight into any area if your going to do that then you might as well put in some lane changers too.
I know the squeeze into the apex makes for a more realistic look but it can have negative results as far a some having to slow into the squeeze to avoid contact from a racer to avoid a possible deslot.