Mulling a track build...

[gpraceman]

There are other plans at https://grandprix-race-central.com/inde ... y/6-tracks. I rather liked the Pinewood Derby SuperSite plans.

[exoray]

There is something satisfying about engineering and building your own track, especially if you think you have specific needs that aren't quite met with any of the commercial offerings. For example, you note portability and storage. And, also there is a certain appeal about a traditional wooden running surface that you can't buy commercially anymore. Or, an interesting idea would be to have a regional "league" or large-scale competition that operates on an old-fashioned Piantedosi-style wooden track that is either unique or no longer in production. Competitors wouldn't be able to simply test-tune on a perfect replica in their basement, so it would require another level of skill to be competitive.

But based on financial considerations only, if we had to do it all over again we would just skip the homemade route and recommend a quality commercial track

I echo this, I have been looking at acquiring my own track for a few years now... I have the skills and tools to build my own out of wood, and had this idea to build one with a laminate (Formica) surface, but when I crunched all the numbers besides the joy of building it myself and possibly tweaking a few things there just wasn't the return on investment... Plus the material cost started to skyrocket as my plans kept getting tweaked to be that much nicer, to the point where even the cost of a new aluminum track was starting to be appealing vs the raw materials and labor hours of doing it myself...

I'm certainly not discouraging building your own, I still might at some point, but as FatSebastian said those commercial aluminum tracks hold their resale value, if you buy one you are basically just renting it for a small fee and will get most of your investment back... On the other hand having watched Ebay, Craigslist and Facebook for several years my observation is wood tracks have no resale appeal or value...

[gpraceman]

I'm certainly not discouraging building your own, I still might at some point, but as FatSebastian said those commercial aluminum tracks hold their resale value, if you buy one you are basically just renting it for a small fee and will get most of your investment back... On the other hand having watched Ebay, Craigslist and Facebook for several years my observation is wood tracks have no resale appeal or value...

Aluminum tracks can hold up quite well (if stored properly). I bought my Micro Wizard anodized Freedom track back in 2005. I did up to 15 races a year on it (just a few in the last few years as I "retired" from running races back when the pandemic hit). The track has seen well over 100 races and still is holding up well. Some mars to it here an there, but nothing that affects cars running down it. The anodized coating makes it quite durable. Pretty maintenance free. Just a good wipe down occasionally is all that's needed. It was well worth the investment.

That's not to say that wooden tracks won't hold up. I've seen some pretty nice old wooden tracks. But I agree that they don't have the resale value that an aluminum track has.

[Vitamin K]

For a DYI track, this surplus offering currently on ebay from Diamond Brand Gear Outlet might be of interest to someone. A ~42' 4-lane track would require 4 bundles of six aluminum lane segments for a total (right now) of $384 (plus tax) and shipped *free*. The lane material could be pretty thin ("drawing not to scale"), but if so, perhaps it could be secured to an inexpensive thin luan type plywood backing? Of course you'd have to come up with the starting gate and stop section, but one would have to do that regardless...

Looks like the old Beta Crafts track plating to go over a wood framework. The "Challenger" track system as they called it. The plating used to be sold in the BSA Scout Shop. I saw one of these tracks once, a long time ago.

https://www.oocities.org/~pack215/pwd-challenger.html

Track Plans - https://grandprix-software-central.com/ ... kPlans.pdf

Oh, very cool. I feel like I have just purchased some PWD history. This should be very interesting.

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[gpraceman]

I believe the original Piantedosi Oars wooden-track sections were 8' long, as that was the dimension of the lumber, but today you'll notice that manufacturers of metal tracks cut their sections to be less than 8' to avoid oversize shipping charges.

That might have had something to do with it, however, with sections being a tad shorter than 8', you can build a storage crate with 4'x8' plywood and the sections would fit in it. Otherwise, you would need a crate longer than 8'. That and their packing boxes came in 8' lengths. I do think that the Piantedosi wooden tracks were a tad under 8' for the same reasons.

Several years back I helped Micro Wizard do some design tweaks on their track (I had plenty of races under my belt with that track to give them feedback). Thus their "Quick Pack" track was born. Sections were shortened by 2", so you did not have to remove the joiner plates. You still have to remove the big joiner plate for the curve section, but the 4" joiner plates can remain on one end of the track section. This makes setup/teardown easier and faster and the sections will still fit in the 8' storage crate. There are other advantages of the "Quick Pack" track over the old design, but I thought I would address the length issue.

This doesn't apply to Best Track tracks, as their sections are 7' long.

[FatSebastian]

That might have had something to do with it...

I was once informed by a vendor that oversize charges / dimensional shipping costs are the primary reason for keeping their sections below 96 inches. Exactly how much shorter likely involves other aspects that you cite. (Vendors don't extrude their own aluminum in-house, but would have it shipped from a contracted metalworks, so if the track sections are shipped twice - to and from the vendor, that could be a factor too.)

I do think that the Piantedosi wooden tracks were a tad under 8' for the same reasons.

I think you are correct that Piantedosi Oars sections were not quite 8' although they were closer than today's aluminum tracks. If the raw material came in 8' lengths from the mill, then the edges would need to be squared and cleaned up, leading to some material loss. One can build a crate that is almost exactly 8' in length if the crate sides are fastened to outside edges of the plywood "floor"; I seem to recall there being almost zero clearance with our Piantedosi Oars track inside its ~8' crate (perhaps a fat finger's width IIRC). If the crate sides reside on top of the crate's plywood "floor", then the section lengths would have been something closer to 94"? , which would have been about ten inches more than an aluminum Best Track...

There are other advantages of the "Quick Pack" track over the old design, but I thought I would address the length issue.

Your informative review can be found here.

[gpraceman]

There are other advantages of the "Quick Pack" track over the old design, but I thought I would address the length issue.

Your informative review can be found here.

I guess that I didn't disclose the extent of my involvement in that redesign back then.

[Vitamin K]

There are other plans at https://grandprix-race-central.com/inde ... y/6-tracks. I rather liked the Pinewood Derby SuperSite plans.

The "Challenger" looks like the clearest plan and easiest to follow, especially since it assumes the use of the betacraft track segments. I'm not quite sure how it handles curving the segments, though.

I wonder how hard it would be to adapt the Challenger plans to a curve design that mimics the Microwizard curve.

[gpraceman]

The "Challenger" looks like the clearest plan and easiest to follow, especially since it assumes the use of the betacraft track segments. I'm not quite sure how it handles curving the segments, though.

I wonder how hard it would be to adapt the Challenger plans to a curve design that mimics the Microwizard curve.

I do think that you will have to manually bend the lane segments to fit the curve of the framework. The aluminum alloy that the Freedom track uses has some flexibility to it, so it is gravity that provides the curve (for the most part) and then 20 lbs of weights to make sure that the front legs of the track are firmly sitting on the floor. The Beta Crafts lane segments are not of a flexible alloy, so you will have to actually bend the segments to fit the intended curve. This makes storage more of an issue, like with Best Track's permanently bent curve. The Freedom track's gentle curve is nice in that it does not provide as much of a deceleration to the cars as does a much tighter curve.

[Vitamin K]

The "Challenger" looks like the clearest plan and easiest to follow, especially since it assumes the use of the betacraft track segments. I'm not quite sure how it handles curving the segments, though.

I wonder how hard it would be to adapt the Challenger plans to a curve design that mimics the Microwizard curve.

I do think that you will have to manually bend the lane segments to fit the curve of the framework. The aluminum alloy that the Freedom track uses has some flexibility to it, so it is gravity that provides the curve (for the most part) and then 20 lbs of weights to make sure that the front legs of the track are firmly sitting on the floor. The Beta Crafts lane segments are not of a flexible alloy, so you will have to actually bend the segments to fit the intended curve. This makes storage more of an issue, like with Best Track's permanently bent curve. The Freedom track's gentle curve is nice in that it does not provide as much of a deceleration to the cars as does a much tighter curve.

Do you have any information regarding how the curve is bent? There's something on the challenger track plans about a template, but it doesn't seem to be in the PDF. I'd hate to destroy the lanes attempting to bend them.

[gpraceman]

Do you have any information regarding how the curve is bent? There's something on the challenger track plans about a template, but it doesn't seem to be in the PDF. I'd hate to destroy the lanes attempting to bend them.

Sorry, I posted all of the information that I have on that track.

It does mention a template included in the "kit". Maybe that will come with the sections that you ordered.

[Vitamin K]

Do you have any information regarding how the curve is bent? There's something on the challenger track plans about a template, but it doesn't seem to be in the PDF. I'd hate to destroy the lanes attempting to bend them.

Sorry, I posted all of the information that I have on that track.

It does mention a template included in the "kit". Maybe that will come with the sections that you ordered.

Here's hoping! I'll have to post the results of the unboxing when they come in.

[FatSebastian]

I do think that you will have to manually bend the lane segments to fit the curve of the framework. ... The Freedom track's gentle curve is nice...

Do you have any information regarding how the curve is bent? ... I'd hate to destroy the lanes...

Off the top of my head, the way I'd probably want to approach it is to first build a track frame that conforms to the desired Freedom track curvature, and then clamp the plating to it (starting from one end). This ensures that the sections are not bent too much. To see how this curved framework might be done, I'd consider the schematics of Jobe's cycloid ramp for gravity race cars.

[Vitamin K]

This sounds like it would give me a permanent Microwizard sized curve section which seems like the worst of both worlds? At least as far as storage or transport goes?

On the other hand, mimicing the Best Track curve seems like it would require cutting the aluminum track section..?

Be nice if I could find someone who had used these things before.

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[FatSebastian]

mimicking the Best Track curve seems like it would require cutting the aluminum track section..?

Why? I'd imagine the Best Track approach would involve something like mild brake bending in the desired location...

In Jobe's schematic, it may not be necessary for Freedom-like bending to be totally permanent, if a curve can be induced by pulling the framework under tension into the desired shape using truss work or something like an adjustable turnbuckle. An outstanding question is how the metal plating responds to mild bending (does it "bounce back" when disassembled?), something you won't know for sure until you have it in hand...

This sounds like it would give me a permanent Microwizard sized curve section which seems like the worst of both worlds? At least as far as storage or transport goes?

Regardless of whether you have a track section that is permanently curved, or the size of it, a stowed 4-lane track will have a footprint of about 8 x 1.5 feet at minimum. This would be true even for a commercial track. The curvature affects how tall the case needs to be (and possibly whether there'd be two cases, as recommended by Best Track). Yes, a taller case will be heavier, which affects portability, but a stowed derby track is going to take up a fair amount of real estate anyway...