[gonegonzo]

I'm being a little on the selfish side but I just know we've all been here or will be at one time or another.

I'm going out of town for Thanksgiving here in a few weeks. We're going to my daughters . I'm looking forward to seeing her and her husband and my grandaughter and love them all to death. But after a while of playing catch up and what all we miss with 5 hours driving between us , the drama always settles with my wife , my daughter and my grandaughter participating in those boring women activities and my son - in - law and I snoozing and trying to entertain watching TV which is , well , you know or will as I said " one time or another.

This year I'm taking a stash of TYCO track and a few Magnatraction and T-Jet cars with me. Now my son-in-law and I will have some track time to be entertained with.

I really don't want to just throw up and oval as with just with two people "rug burn'n" , an oval is anticlimatic.

I need some layout ideas that can be set up on a kitchen table with no overpasses. I have 6'' - 9'' 1nd 12'' radius turns and the standard size straights. I'll splurge with one wall wart per lane and stock controllers.

Yes if need be I will take it apart if the dining room table isn't enough for the Thanksgiving meal. My selfishness does have limits ya know.

Any contributions to a layout scheme will be appreciated. I know we have some very creative mini track builders in this group.

Thnx again , Gonzo

 

[tjd241]

Micro Mini...

Here's one I toyed around with putting into a nice wooden travel case. I even tried it with 1 crossover to double the lap length... I thought maybe a "best time" situation could be the theme. Still may do this someday (landscaped and all)... Maybe when they ship me off to the nursing home!! nd

 

[NTxSlotCars]

The Ultimate in Portability!!!!!!

It's known as the most portable track in the whole world.

An smash hit at any party.....

First one to the floor wins!!!!!!!!

 

[slotnewbie69]

neat use for hairpins,nuther!i am playing around with a good coffeetable layout right now,and i thought that was small!will post pics soon.6' by 3'tyco with good lap lengths and 1 nice front straight.tyco track is the only track i have with the 1/8 radii...
hey rich ya need a couple stoplights fer yer strip!

 

[slotcarman12078]

I like the mini track idea nuther!!! Small,yet challenging!!! Rich, I could see that dragstrip working if you could set the cars up with parachutes like on them old army paratrooper guys...the ones you ball up the chute and toss up in the air. :lol:

 

[ParkRNDL]

i have a set that I made up that I use for exactly the same thing when we go to visit family for the holidays. i actually have a Joe Corbi's Pizza box that fits the set perfectly. here's the trick--i found a Tyco Doomsday Duel set with an intersection track that makes a perfect figure-8. i only have one decent picture of it set up:

an intersection track is anything but anticlimactic. don't bring your shelf queens.

there's a catch, though: this intersection track needs adapters to mate to normal Tyco track. i think they're little 3-inch sections. the curves in the center near the intersection are all 12" radius. the ones at the ends are 9" radius.

sound like fun?

--rick

 

[gonegonzo]

I like it Rick.

I also have a Doom Day Duel set in the garage still in the box. Are the track pieces in it ?

Oh , ahhhhhh , I don't own any shelf queens . lol

Gonzo

 

[gonegonzo]

PS , I like the look of intencity on the young drivers face.

Gonzo

 

[ParkRNDL]

I like it Rick.

I also have a Doom Day Duel set in the garage still in the box. Are the track pieces in it ?

Oh , ahhhhhh , I don't own any shelf queens . lol

Gonzo

ya know, it's funny, when i first posted, i thought i should include more info on that, but the fact is i wasn't sure where I got the adapters. so since you asked, i ventured down into the dungeon to look... turns out that first of all, it's not the Doomsday Duel set, it's the Battle Slam set. (sorry, i guess i've got more carp down there than i realized :freak: there's a doomsday duel set down there too, hence the confusion) If you DO happen to have a Battle Slam set, then yes, the parts are in there. the intersection is supposed to have all these freaky single-lane loops attached to it and after a while they snake around to the adaptor/connector to go back to regular 2-lane track. there are 4 three-inch adaptor tracks labeled part V. attach one to each branch of the intersection, then attach a 12" 1/8 turn to each, and you're good to go...

something to be aware of, now that i look at it. these adapters and the intersection are designed to attach to flimsy single lane track, not each other. i think that for this reason they are kinda hard to snap together, and they might not come apart once they ARE together. might be a problem if you want to keep your Battle Slam set MIB, or if you ever actually plan on setting it up the way MatTyco intended (shudder)...

lemme get a picture attached...

--rick

edit: oh, and the kid is my son Andrew. he was 3 in that pic, he's 7 now. he still likes to come to the dungeon and race, but my 5-year-old is even more of a slothead...

 

[tjd241]

If ya get some loose Tomy Track...

You can spare yer MIB Tyco stuff. Tomy is readily available. Then get yer hands on an AW 9" Intersection... That'll get you in business for small scale figure-8 racing like Rick suggests (brillant btw :thumbsup. You could even jigsaw out some 1 piece turn aprons for each end of the track and glue some cork to 'em. Maybe figure out a way to keep them clipped tight to the curves and yer in business!! nd

 

[twolff]

There's an intersection track in the Mattel Toy Story set that directly connects to the Mattel track.

The Life-Like Demolition derby set has an intersection too and provides a use for that box of otherwise useless Life-Like track we all probably have stored in a dark corner. The problem with the cars in the set is that they are T chassis and WAAAAYYY too fast to be run into each other in the intersection. They don't last long before taking physical damage.

Any layout with an intersection is a blast with a couple T-Jet/AW runners.

 

[ParkRNDL]

There's an intersection track in the Mattel Toy Story set that directly connects to the Mattel track.

(snip)

I have one of them. Mine has a weird gap around the square "center" of the intersection. I never tried it because it looked like there was something that was supposed to fill that in and I didn't have it...

--rick

 

[twolff]

The gap is wide and the Mattel cars make a racket going through the intersection. I honestly don't recall trying a T-Jet on it.

The Life-Like set worked ok with T-Jets...etc. Some show adjustment is needed to compensate for the higher rail height on the Life-Like track.

 

[ParkRNDL]

Bump... Thanksgiving break is coming...

hey gonzo, what did you come up with? my little figure-8 with intersection is coming with us to Grandma's, along with a tackle box of cars and stuff...

--rick

 

[gonegonzo]

Hi Rick ,

I finally came up with a plan using some old lock and joiner track I had.

I wish I could send you a picture but being computer ignorent and the fact tha the computer is obolete, Thos ecombined factors won't allow me to post pics.

Anyway the track is a 2 lane - 2.5' x 4.5" feet and is an oval cutting back in the infield at turn 2 . Then , it comes back out re-connecting at turn 3. A little anti climatic but I can live with that. I cut a door slab and plugged on end of it for the table . It will allow for easy transport that way. It will hang on the wall when I return home .

PS , I'm using steering wheel controllers.

Have a happy Thanksgiving .

Gonzo

 

[T-jetjim]

Gonzo - Steering wheel controllers, temporary track set up, it's beginning to look like Christmas. Reminds me of the good ol' days. When the son-in-law is tired of losing, you can at least set the other lane with the steering wheel controller and solo race.
Jim

Rick - Gotta have the tongue out when you are running the t-jets all out!
Jim

 

[gonegonzo]

Oh yeah man , my buddy and I were doing that yesterday. I think he was so inspired he was going home to get his old track out of storage.

Ya know , it's a good way of breaking in a new T-Jet motor build too. As they say on the infomercials. Just set it and Forget it .

AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH , just bit my tongue.

Gonzo

 

[ParkRNDL]

UPDATE on travel track

so this little layout came with us to Grandma's for both Thanksgiving and Christmas. while we were there for Thanksgiving, Grandma asked if i wanted to put the leaf in the table. i didn't have any more track with me at the time, but for Christmas, i brought a couple extra 9" and 15" straights... we put the leaf in the table and built the track right to the very edges. these videos (sorry they're so blurry and grainy, they were shot with a cell phone) were taken on the Christmas trip with the bigger layout...

--rick

 

[NTxSlotCars]

Great little layout with the intersection!