Woodland Trace Raceway

[slothead]

What would you guys recommend for designing a routed track layout? I have the Scalextric track designer program, but my routed layout won't be constrained by track pieces and will have many increasing or decreasing radii for corners, plus changes in the distance between lanes. I have a drawing on graph paper, but would like to plot it and scale it up so I can print out templates to try out on my table.

Slothead

[Mseitz]

Nice photography, Steve. I can attest that this track is as fun as it looks.
M seitz :text-coolphotos:

[Fast Co.]

Slothead,

I used Adobe Illustrator to create a drawing of what I wanted. I'm not suggesting you or anyone else use Illustrator. It's a difficult program to use for this purpose and not exactly ideal. I tried to draw the track as close to scale as I could get it and it does not show each individual lane. It's just an approximation. But that's my point. An approximation is all you really need. You may be able to use plastic track design software to get a good approximation and change it up a bit as you go along. I think your idea of plotting the track out on graph paper and then scaling it up to layout on your table as a template is a good one. I found during various stages of my build that occasionally small issues would arise that made me rethink how I wanted to progress. It started with penciling in the track edges and individual lanes onto the mdf. Things were a bit tighter on the mdf than they appeared in my drawing (ie. my scaling was a bit off). I also got a better feel for the "flow" of the track as I was routing it and decided to make small changes to the radius and general shape of some of the turns before actually routing them. And some changes were just the result of boneheaded mistakes I made along the way. So in the end although the track is very similar to what I had drawn it took on some characteristics that are not in the original plan. Here's the drawing. Hope this helps.



And here are some lessons I learned during the routing of the track:

http://homeracingworld.us/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=277

Thanks all for you kind comments!

[Ember]

Pencil and paper is the best way to start. Refinements and such can be made from there.

[dreinecke]

One of my favorite tracks!!!

[Fast Co.]

Thanks David, but it pales in comparison to your Palmer Divide Raceway. Not to mention your awesome resin casting and car building skills.

[dreinecke]

Thanks but mine doesn't have the extra candy parked next to it either... ;)

[slothead]

Thanks for the link and the tips. Eight years ago I built my oval as a test track, and never moved on to another one. Building a road course will be a lot harder to make, with elevation changes and perhaps even some banking. But with the tips you folks are offering it's on the winter to-do list.

So far it will be 2 lanes with 10" - 12" track width for realistic racing lines and a decent lap length on a 6' x 14' table. If I find more racers than me and my grandson I'll convert to digital and add lane change switches so passing will be possible, but not without a lot of following slower cars through narrow turns before having to time a pass almost perfectly. That's realistic racing to me.

Slothead

[Wolseley Hornet]

[Dundee Denny]

The Can Am shots are my favorite!!

What kind of lap times are you clockin on that fabulous track you have created?

Dundee Denny

[Fast Co.]

It depends on the car. Fastest recorded lap is around 5.8 sec - clocked by my NSR Corvette C6R on NSR Super Grips. Most of my Slot.Its get down in the low 6's running C1s. A Fly Classic with Paul Gage rubber will do mid 7's. I've got all of the Can Am cars (Carrera, Monogram and MRRC) running competitively in the 7's (The Slot.It Chaparral blows the rest of my Can Am cars away with times in the low 6's). A stock Ninco Classic out of the box with Ninco rubber will turn laps in the 8's

[Fast Co.]

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[Fast Co.]

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[Fast Co.]

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[dreinecke]

Great shots there!!!