Overlook Raceway Park

[dwdirks]

Here's a pretty amateur composite photo of my basement slot car track, Overlook Raceway Park. I used PowerPoint to put together 5 separate photos.




I used SCX Classic, Scalextric Classic and Scalextric Sport track, painted it gray with water based house paint and put copper tape on the rails for better conductivity. The copper tape works great. The best lap time so far is slightly under 6 seconds.

[arroldn]

Looking good.


Arrold

[Broman62]

WOW...how the help did I miss this one...very cool layout with awesome scenery!!

[dwdirks]

Overlook Raceway Park is getting busier and decided that a new safety truck was badly needed. So, I dug out an old 1/32 scale die-cast mid-fifties Ford pickup (cheap $5 toy store variety) and started working on tools, equipment and safety workers. Here are some photos of the basic raw materials near the start of this process:


The safety workers are from a Marx toy set that were called NASA workers. I will restyle them to look like race track safety personnel. The jack and part of the fire extinguisher are from an old Scalextric pit box set. The light bar is from a rally slot car. The broom is cobbled together from bits of wood and a slice of foam sheet. The gas can is a rectangular piece from an electrical board with some wire insulation for the filler neck. The hose in the truck bed is some insulated wire with a scrounged metal fitting on the end that I thought looked like a hose end. Balsa wood push bars were added to the front and rear bumpers.




The race flags are made from bits of stiff wire with shiny paper flags in red, green, yellow, black and white.


The truck is getting pretty full of safety gear.




Our safety truck is now nearing completion. Now we need to hire some workers to operate the truck.

[chappy]

Nice work DW.
Your attention to detail is really what finishes a traxk off , and you are
doing a great job of bringing it to life.
Kudos
Bob

[BARC 1]

The difference is in the details. Nice work

[ourwayband]

Great looking track and Truck.Some neat ideas too!!

Rusty

[dwdirks]

I got the safety truck finished up and hired a couple of crew members too.


The truck is pretty much ready to go but the new crew members are still a little bit up in the air while their uniforms get the finishing touch.


They don't look too happy right now.


Some safety gear. Flags made of shiny paper and bits of wire. Safety cones made of bits and pieces of plastic and craft foam. The cone with the ridges is actually from an old window blind pull.


Completed truck with lots of scratch built gear in the bed.








The crew members are finally on the job.


We hope they absorbed all of their training and know how to operate the truck and the equipment.


Ready to go.


Ready for action at the highest point of Overlook Raceway Park.


The green flag is out and Trans Am historic cars are racing by.


The no. 38 Mustang is leading the no. 88 Camaro as they fly by the Safety Truck and crew.




Joe Safety has got the yellow flag and is ready to jump off of the tailgate as soon a trouble arises on the track.


The no. 2 Mustang is gaining from the rear and when he catches the front-runners there might be trouble and Joe will get to use his yellow flag.


Looks like trouble might be coming. Let's hope the new safety crew is ready for some real action.

[indybob009]

Excellent work and detail. You would be a great Train guy to. :text-bravo:

[dge467]

Nice job on the truck!! Track looks great too!!

[dwdirks]

Thanks for the nice comments, guys. It is fun working on the track and getting it to look better and perform better as well. Lots of good and inspiring ideas to learn from here on HRW.

[vonsirius]

Getting better each time!

A fantastic track :text-bravo:

[73emgee]

Exceptional detail on the track and safety truck, Well Done!!!

[dwdirks]

Recently, a couple of new pit crew members have been recruited at Overlook Raceway Park. It all started with a bag of unpainted slot car figures purchased online.

I picked 2 from the crowd that looked like they would make good pit crew guys.

Then we outfitted them with coveralls, a big gas can and a pit board. We put them in charge of a few barrels of oil and other lubricants and stacked them on wood pallets so they can be moved around by a forklift.


Finally, they got placed at the far end of pit row and were put to work for an historic Trans Am Mustang.





The next project will be to work at some badly needed lighting for Overlook Raceway Park.

[dwdirks]

Over the past couple of months I've added a couple of new trees, widened the pit lane a bit and added some lights around the track. Here are some photos:


I scratch built a couple of large trees to go on either side of the main straight at Overlook Raceway Park. Used some dried flower stalks for the trunk and branches and model railroad clump foliage for the leaves.





I moved the pit building back about the width of one slot car so that cars now have room to stop for fuel and tire changes and other cars have room to drive by on the pit lane.





I also added some lights at various places around the track. Some battery operated flood lights from a 'Christmas Village' at the local craft store. A couple of LED flashlights, dismantled and wired up to use under the bridge and under the pedestrian walkway over the main straight. A string of LED Christmas tree lights for the pits and a few LED strip lights for billboards, control tower, grandstand, etc. Looks okay for a start but still need to do more work to make it lit well enough for night racing.























I am working on a couple more large trees and also working on a 1957 Ford Fairlane slot car (car I first learned to drive) and tuning some of my slot car collection so I can do more racing. Thanks for looking and thanks to all of you who post all your great slot car ideas and tips to this forum.