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Ghost cars on HO layouts?

I am building a 4 lane 4' x 16' replica of the Daytona road course but racers are hard to come by where I live. I still like the look of multiple cars running all at once though, even if I'm technically not "racing" against them. What I want to try is to have at least one ghost car per lane (that I'm not in), and maybe even try 2 cars in some of the lanes if I can find cars that are evenly enough matched that they do not "catch" the other car in the same lane.

Anyone else ever try this for fun? Did it work? Thoughts or ideas? Thanks in advance.

If you had adjustable voltage on each lane, you would have ghost cars. However, when you set the voltage low enough to handle the turns the cars tend to be slow in the straights. And then they are not much competition.

I use the old Aurora Model Motoring controllers. The ones with the steering wheels. They work pretty well. They work great with T jets.

One way to run a ghost car faster is to put some tape on one of the rails of its lane going into a corner so it loses power briefly and slows down. You may also have to put small pieces of tape on a rail intermittently through corners so the car can't resume full speed. It will take some trial and error sessions to get the tape in the right places and cover just enough of the rail so the car is fast (full power) on the straights but is getting the right amount of pulsed power in the corners to stay on.

I was able to get a good handling car to run fast laps this way so that it took really good driving of another car to catch it. And I had to be very smooth. When I pushed my car hard and drifted too much (this was an oval too) the ghost car would pull away. Having a ghost car that's running fast and consistent laps will test your driving ability since you have to do the same to catch and pass it.

One thing though, every car is different so the tape pattern that suits one car probably won't be ideal for another one. If you put another car on that lane more or less tape at different locations may be needed so it can run fast laps. If you get this to work with a car consider putting some little marks on the track where the tape went so you can redo it easily.

If you use ghost cars with extra magnetic downforce they can corner faster and be more of a challenge. Auto World has their Ultra T-Jet and X-Traction cars with an extra neo traction magnet. For other makes of HO cars stronger polymer or neo magnets are often available.

An easy way to do it for two of the lanes is to use the AFX Tri-Power pack on the beginner setting which is 8 volts. Then just use a twist tie to keep the throttle trigger at the right speed so the cars stay on the track. You can have the power pack plugged into a switch like the ones that are used for Christmas tree lights to start and stop the cars.

The Carrera Go! Plus unit has a ghost car function that actually varies the track voltage for the ghost car. You run a couple of laps to program it then it copies the lap.
It will slow down the car before the corners and speed it up on the straights, a real ghost car, for what good the digital ghost cars are you could just as easily use a rubber band to hold the controller plunger down part way, like my ghost cars back in the olden days. I don't know if it the electronics could be switched over to a HO track but it may be worth looking at. I just got a Go unit and some cool wireless controllers for less than 30 bucks shipped on the German prime site, works good and also has bluetooth so you can use a race app.