Long oval

[HomeRacingWorld]

I think so. I have had the long ovals and prefer a shorter track. I would not go over 18 foot total. Save some space for work.storage, etc.

[HomeRacingWorld]

Tell you a story, sit back, grab a comfy chair and a warm beverage...

I built a 24+ foot plus oval. Thought it was fun...but noticed the cars would tap out 3/4 the way down. As you are well aware, there are always differences in our motors. No matter what, most motors have variances and even the slightest difference can make a difference if you ALLOW them to.

But I left it, it was fun.

Then I made a trip to Derby City, the home of Mark Thomas. He made an oval what was 16 foot. What a difference. NOW we had some REAL fun. The cars we raced were the same, but the action was closer. The motors just topped out near the entrance of the corners.

Could we re-gear them all for a larger track? Sure. But that takes time, and more importantly MONEY. Our series was based on inexpensive Artin models, Scalextric and Carrera. Why re-gear them all when the solution was simple?

I came home and took out straights to make ours nearly the same. Perfect. Now we had some great racing going on.

Some people will disagree. But for simple home based cars 16 to 18 is perfect to me.

[slotguy]

I am running a 22 foot x7.6 foot oval with 4.25 lane spacing the track works well with both scales of 1/24 &1/32 cars our bigger cars use parma 16 ds and with or 1/24 th asphalt modifieds and our 1/32 mods like the ones turbo kev showed you we run a 40.000 rpm , motor . Lots of fun and plenty of speedon the 14 foot srt8s but any oval is fun and great to race on . I would build it for the types of cars you are racing.short tracks with certain motors makes the motor run hot and also heats up a controller as well
Slotguy

[demether]

I would build a 13 or 14' 3 or 4 lanes 1/32 oval, and keep the other 10' for a 4lanes road course HO track ;)

[woodman]

This oval is 10' wide and 16' straights makin it 26' long....to big for a home track, great for this commercial setup..
download/file.php?id=26

I wouldn't go over 16' either...
I wish I had pics. of my 4 lane try oval. I had VHS video of it running those sprint cars I made nearly 20 yrs ago it was 9' wide at the dog leg and 14-16 foot long 4'' lane spacing.....


If I build another straight section for the modular track I could have a 5 section 3 lane 17'X6' oval, or as is I could set up 3 panel sections for a small 10' long X 6' wide 3 lane oval....
Just need to clear out this pesky bunch of cabinets clogging up the shop floor space....

[btaylor]

Mine is also 16x6. Would not add another inch, nor would I loose any unless I had to. the most part, I Find that what everyone has already stated is true. most motors that we all run, are great in that length. Even the new Piranha motor with 9/27 gearing is topped out just about time to hang a quick left!

Bob

[waaytoomuchintothis]

One of our guys built a huge long oval, and the very same thing Harry was talking about happened. The next time I saw it, it had been shortened to 16 feet overall, including the turns. Another design I saw was many years ago in Canada at our LHS. They had a much larger 8 lane road track, but they made a three lane along a spare wall that didn't take up much space. It had a 16 foot long straight up the middle, and an elevated straight that made a huge hump from one end turn all the way to the other. It was essentially a looong figure-8. I had a ball on that thing. If you went too fast on that long hump, the car lost traction and could even deslot, but regardless of that, the end turn would wipe you out.

[slothead]

26' length isn't needed for a great home oval. Mine is 14' long with 8' straights and while most cars don't max out speed-wise, the key on this track is being able to blip the controller (off-on) and have the car back under power before entering the turn - otherwise it's going to get wildly out of shape or deslot. No need carrying more speed into a corner than a car can handle.

When I built the oval I had no interest in a road course, all I wanted was a way to simulate short track dirt racing. But, last summer the images of road courses on HRW combined with getting a bad case of Trans Am fever due to all the RTR liveries from the 60's and early 70's that are available, caused me to start work on a 6' x 14' road course on the other side of the barn. Wow - what a great project and even though only one lane is powered up I run cars on it every chance I get. My point is you have room enough for 2 tracks, which might not be in your plans now, but a 6' x 14' oval would give you a great track and leave you room to diversify in the future, if ever so inclined.

Slothead

[RichD]

One problem that I have seen with long paperclip type ovals is that it is sometimes hard to find the right braking points because you will be looking at the cars from the back.

[Lotus56]

Before I hijack this thread with my own question about ovals. I will address the question that Old Johnny asked. I had years ago a 4 X 12 oval that was kind of shaped like Phoenix. I now have a 7 X 20 oval. Guess which one is/was more fun ?. Yep, the little one. What good racing I had on it. A lot better than my current track, but I like to go fast, so won't be cutting it down. But that 4 x 12 was a fun track.
Now for my question. Harry said that he redlined at 3/4 down the straight, How did you do that. I have to shut down about halfway to get slowed enough to enter the turn with out crashing. I know there is more Rpm left to go. For you to run that deep into a corner did your cars have super braking or low RPM motors. I am using 40,000 rpm motors with power turned down just enough to keep from lighting up the tires all the way down the straight. Just wondering.............
Sorry for the hijack,

Lotus 56

[RichD]

The better your cars are hooked up the deeper you can go into the corners. We run with the brakes dialed back. I can't imagine using a 40K motor on a 1/32nd wood track no matter how long the straights are. We use 20-22K motors at 10 volts for the most part and those are plenty fast enough, even on big tracks like Area 51. There is just a limit to how much power you can put down, if you are getting wheel spin and the cars slide a lot you lap times will be higher than they would be with less power. It is difficult to race a car that is right on the edge all of the time. If you mostly run by yourself a car that is too stuck down will usually get to be boring, so that is when you need to get more power either by going to a stronger motor or cranking up the voltage.