CARRERA SLOT CAR TRACK

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I grew up around HO slots. Primarily aurora A/FX pancake motored cars in the 1970s. Space being at a premium, i decided to stick w HO scale. I did a plastic sectional 4 lane HO track that i made to look like a routered track. I used Tomy AFX , soldered the rail ends together, and used plastiweld solvent adhesive to glue everything, and epoxy to fill in the gaps, i even countersunk the attach screws and epoxied over their heads. Then i used N scale model train roadbed cork for the roadbed edges, along with black lexan for retaining wall barriers. No more clickety clack around the track everything runs smooth. This was a lot of work so i did the bedding and sanding in short sections every week until i could paint the whole thing.

I used dupont grey laquer primer for painting the track and lexan barriers, then painted the barriers white. Springtime green felt was spray glued on for grass, and covers the cork roadbed bringing the grass up and level with the edge of the track. I used paint markers to color each lane its prospective color. I also painted the controller plug in plates to match the lane each one is wired to. Maybe theres some ideas here you can use.

The white U shaped thing over the track is the homemade lap timer. It uses 4 infra red LED emitters, there are 4 infra red LED collectors imbedded into the track surface. Its lap timer runs on windows 95 and is a trakmate freeware software program. I also wired in 4 22volt transformers. One for each lane, so no power surges when a car flies off. The controllers are parma 60 ohm 3 wire, and the track is wired for dynamic brakes

I used 1/8" plexiglas for a clear retainer around the table to catch flying cars. It does pretty good most of the time. Table is designed to fold up flat against the wall of the garage when not in use. Of course being 1/32" scale yours are too big to fold for storage. Pix of my track below. My little boy is maybe 1/&1/2 in those pix.

BTW dge467 i love the 1/32 scale cordoba and charger. If i was racing 1/32 scale id have to paint one up like the red 77 charger SE i owned years ago. Seeing all these pix is a treat and an inspiration to me. I intended to put trees, HO scale lighting, and grandstands and such on my layout but never got to it. Once it reached this point we started racing every friday night.

We run Tomy AFX SRT chassis on friday nights ( supermodified class) and old aurora pancake chassis for a random vintage night (modified class). All body mods are allowed. No lexan bodies. You can run any tires, windings, and magnets you want. I even have 4 identical stock SRT chassis with tomy camaro iroc bodies and we run an iroc night.

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THAT is a plastic track?????? That's amazing! I'd have sworn that had to be a router-ed track.

I grew up with HO scale also and still have a bunch of it including a drag strip project that I never finished. Aurora deserves a lot of blame for my car addiction. I seriously wanted to buy a ton of intersections and create a town that I'd criss-cross through. I figured if I combined it with some train crossings I'd have had my ultimate layout.

- If you built a small roll cage over that high chair and added a steering wheel your boy would look like he's ready to do a few laps before nap time.
 
Thanks for the kudos 1967'cuda,

Yep auroras and hot wheels started my addiction. Yessir that is a plastic track. I soldered all the ends, and used plastiweld solvent adhesive to glue it together. I could probably have used MEK and a brush and it would have prob worked just as good. The gaps between the side by side tracks needed to make it a 4 lane i used an acryllic epoxy adhesive to fill these gaps and bond it together, then sanded it smooth to make it appear as one piece. Any mismatch how the tracks fit together at the ends was sanded smooth. I widened every turn on the outside using N scale cork roadbed, and adding 1/16 lexan sheet over the top of the cork to make it level with the track surface and epoxied it to the track to make it appear as 1 piece. An awful lot of work went into bedding the track together, and sanding to get everything to run as smooth as i did. I would work maybe a 3 foot section after work every week, and spot prime just the epoxy spots because friday nights i had people over to race. I always loved the look of routed tracks but i dont work well with wood, so i went routed look with plastic. The Tomy AFX track was the best deal with the most different radius turns offered. I bought the AFX super international raceway which gave me a huge box of track, 4 super G plus cars, and 2 transformers. I added a bunch of long straights and viola instant HO layout. In hindsight, a routered track probably would have been simpler to build.

Matt
 
Thanks for the kudos 1967'cuda,

Yep auroras and hot wheels started my addiction. Yessir that is a plastic track. I soldered all the ends, and used plastiweld solvent adhesive to glue it together. I could probably have used MEK and a brush and it would have prob worked just as good. The gaps between the side by side tracks needed to make it a 4 lane i used an acryllic epoxy adhesive to fill these gaps and bond it together, then sanded it smooth to make it appear as one piece. Any mismatch how the tracks fit together at the ends was sanded smooth. I widened every turn on the outside using N scale cork roadbed, and adding 1/16 lexan sheet over the top of the cork to make it level with the track surface and epoxied it to the track to make it appear as 1 piece. An awful lot of work went into bedding the track together, and sanding to get everything to run as smooth as i did. I would work maybe a 3 foot section after work every week, and spot prime just the epoxy spots because friday nights i had people over to race. I always loved the look of routed tracks but i dont work well with wood, so i went routed look with plastic. The Tomy AFX track was the best deal with the most different radius turns offered. I bought the AFX super international raceway which gave me a huge box of track, 4 super G plus cars, and 2 transformers. I added a bunch of long straights and viola instant HO layout. In hindsight, a routered track probably would have been simpler to build.

Matt
It's obvious that your hard work payed off. It's making me consider doing something similar in the future. :thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup::thumbsup:
 
I really like the 1/32 mid 70s charger and the corboba. I wonder if somebody will make a resin cast mould of those

I've had to cut back on my slot car expenditures but seeing those cars on dge467's track makes me tempted to search for more cars.
 
I'd love to get another vintage A/FX dodge magnum stock car body. Something i could do up like pettys stock car.
 
Cool. Thank you 4 looking. I have 1 thats mint perfect and its part of my restored and NOS vintage AFX collection so i dont want to modify it and paint it.
 
The blimp looks cool! May have to get one !Keep an eye out a on Ebay for some 1/32 kits. I also find them at flea markets and swap meets.
 
I tend to post anything I'm working on - on my restoration thread. This is a copy of what's happening with the downstairs Carrera track.:)

More progress has been made on the Charger but I'll wait to post about that until after I have a chance to get some pictures taken.

Meanwhile, I do have updated pictures of the basement racetrack. Before I took Spencer's Roadrunner back to him I'd seen that someone from Iowa had posted a bunch of Carrera slot car track on Craigslist. Although it was a few more hours more out of my way, - it was a lot closer than it would have been if I wasn't already in the Des Moines area. I cringed at the thought of putting more $$ in the downstairs setup but they were selling it at pennies on the dollar. - AND IT WAS DIGITAL!!

I had dreamt of converting my track to digital but I thought the cost was way too prohibitive. This was almost everything I was going to need plus so much extra track that I could actually make a second large digital track if I wanted to.

Right now I've got it back up and running. It's a lot like building a car in that there always seems to be a few more tweaks you'd like to make. At present I've combined two layouts together. I have an oval track in the middle with a road course around it.

The oval course is an analog setup that I can only run two cars at a time on. I painted it brown to resemble a dirt track.

The road course is much longer. I love the digital setup. The ability to run eight cars concurrently is awesome. I used two lane change tracks that allow cars to swap lanes if you choose to by holding in a button on the controllers when you approach those track sections. Computer controlled 'ghost cars' change lanes randomly. You can turn the car lights on & off with the controllers as well. These cars even have brake lights! It's pretty wild.

Among the stuff I'd gotten with the track was a pair of pit lanes. - Yup. - Not one, but two. Now if I choose, the track gives you the option to run the cars in a 'real fuel mode'. That means that the cars will require you to pit and refuel. With two separate pit areas it's much easier for multiple cars to pit at the same time. The fuel mode can be disabled if you don't want to use it by flipping a switch on the track's control unit.

The maximum speed and braking strength of each car can be adjusted to suit your tastes/abilities so it's possible to slow things down for younger kids that would have difficulty keeping their cars on the track.

I haven't set up a pace car yet but it's another option. It will come out of a pit lane before a race and automatically return once the race is underway. It will also come out if you press a button to trigger a caution event and return automatically when press the button again to signal the caution is over.

I'd always enjoyed slot car ever since I was a little kid but this is WAY cooler than anything I ever had back then.

Two of the controllers that came with it are wireless and they have a recharging base that attaches to the track.

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It also came with one driver's display that allows you to see your fuel level as you race and will act as a tachometer too. With only one, you need to swap out which car's display you're viewing. It's sort of a pain in the behind so I'm hoping to add one for each driver.

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The blimp and animated signs are back but I didn't install any of the regular street lights that I'd previously ran. Drilling all those holes and wiring them was a ton of work. Instead I opted to string several strands of L E D's in strategic areas.

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I kept the cardboard grandstand that I'd made and the concessions building that I'd made out of Lexan. But - I did have to relocate them to accommodate the new layout.

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I had a ton of trees before that were scattered around the old course. After the addition of so much more track I relocated them to more of a wooded area towards the back of the layout.
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I'm not sure that painting the inside oval looks the best but I guess I'll live with it. Some of you might remember that this Carrera track is made to accept both 1/32 and 1/24 scale cars. One other thing I had wanted to do for some time was modify some 1/24 scale cars to run on my setup. I finally got that done too. In a couple of nights I whipped together a pair of Dodge Darts. I shot a light film of brown paint across the fronts of them to simulate dirt from the track and tried to make tire scuff marks on the sides
. They've got full interiors but I chose not to install the motors.

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All of the fancy digital options are connected to the road course. This display tower shows which place each car is in as they race.
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I did keep the spectator 'jumbo-tron' but it got relocated also.

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The old pit area was retained inside the oval track with little change.
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It's a bit of a crowded layout. There isn't much room for other additions. I used a raised 'bridge track' section so that I had enough area to route the digital pits. They are actually below the raised track. I installed L E D's beneath the raised track to light those areas up. My camera does a poor job of showing detail and doesn't accurately show the way the lighting looks on the track. The darker images are actually much lighter in reality but when I use the camera's flash it sort of drowns out the effect of all the L E Ds. All together there are over 200 lights on the track.

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There's a 40" television/monitor hanging on the wall behind the track. I have it set up so I can run a feed from a video camera aimed at the racing OR display car themed movies from a laptop OR display data from the digital track such as drivers positions, lap times, drivers pictures, all the vehicles fuel levels, etc, etc...
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That Winnebago is cool. Dude, you have time that I envy! Too awesome!

The selection of available 1/32 scale diecast vehicles is usually limited to cars and it's not the best. Often other scales such as 1/30 or 1/35 will blend in unnoticed. I'd been looking for 1/32 scale trailers, motorhomes, campers, wreckers, haulers, etc without much luck when I came across this Winnebego. It's actually a Lego style model from the WALKING DEAD series. I may have to buy a few 1/32 scale pickup trucks and construct camper shells for them to go along with it.
 
Once I start messing with something it's hard for me to finish. - There's always more I want to modify. While surfing eBay the other day I came across some good deals that I couldn't pass up. The first was a 1/32 scale wrecker. The ad says it's 1/32 and I hope it is. Very often you can get burned by stuff that's misadvertised.
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Next I found another pair of wireless controllers. At present I've only been able to run five human controlled cars and three computer controlled ones. The maximum you can run is six (human) plus two computer controlled cars.
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THEN, I bought five more driver displays so now I'll be able to have one for every person using the track. It was a pain in the behind having to share one display. You had to toggle through the one display's settings to see what your car was doing (for speed, position, and fuel level).
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It'll be sweet to have six people sitting at the track with their own instrument panels in front of them. My early testing with this system has been a huge amount of fun. I can't wait until it's all finished and I get a group of guys down here to compete.

One thing that really had me frustrated was the computer link setup that I'd bought. I had a hard time getting everything to sync together the way it was supposed to. I don't have all the bugs worked out yet but right now it's up and running. It really is a cool addition. The 40" display on the wall shows everybody's lap times (including each driver's fastest lap) and who's in each position. It has an announcer's voice that counts down the start of each race, says who's in the lead, who's pitting, etc...

I should be able to edit each driver's name and upload pictures of them and their cars that will display on the screen. I haven't figured out how to do that stuff yet.

One other thing that had me bummed out was that my old cars weren't digital so they could only be run on the oval track in the middle of the road course. Luckily they do sell conversion kits so that those old cars can have digital capability added. I went ahead and ordered a bunch of the kits. Hopefully I won't screw up the modifications.


 
I saw something that i think will be up and coming on youtube. Its slotless 1/32 called magracing. The steel guide wires are embedded in the track, and cannot be seen. The track is unpowered. The cars are 1/32 RC cars with strong magnets to help guide the car along the embedded steel guide wires. You can run up to 15 cars at a time. When the car runs off the track, the driver can guide it via remote control back onto the track where its magnets pick up the steel guide wires again. Theres strategic lane change wires built into the track at certain points and right before you hit those pointa you steer the remote control into that lane change, and the car will follow that wire. Its sounds wierd, but you have to watch the videos. If it becomes big, i imagine companies like Scalextrics and Carrera may jump on the bandwagon.
 
I saw something that i think will be up and coming on youtube. Its slotless 1/32 called magracing. The steel guide wires are embedded in the track, and cannot be seen. The track is unpowered. The cars are 1/32 RC cars with strong magnets to help guide the car along the embedded steel guide wires. You can run up to 15 cars at a time. When the car runs off the track, the driver can guide it via remote control back onto the track where its magnets pick up the steel guide wires again. Theres strategic lane change wires built into the track at certain points and right before you hit those pointa you steer the remote control into that lane change, and the car will follow that wire. Its sounds wierd, but you have to watch the videos. If it becomes big, i imagine companies like Scalextrics and Carrera may jump on the bandwagon.

I had actually seen a few YouTube videos of those tracks before you posted. I love the idea of never having to worry about your cars coming out of their slots and the concept of being able to run that many cars together sounds great too. The only videos I found online so far show just a couple of cars running so I'm not sure if it would actually be too chaotic when there are 15 on the course. - It might seem like a demolition derby.

I never cease to be amazed at new technology though. Who knows, maybe some day I'll feel that the setup I've got now is really outdated and make the switch to slotless.
 
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