First day of Building my first Track....
So like many others it seems, I came accross 3D's youtube channel and before long couldn't believe how much I was enjoying watching it and how mesmerizing it was to watch, and how much entertainment it offered me. So I dug out my old boxes of HotWheels that my parents had finally dropped off at my house (to free up some room in theirs) And was amazed at the memories that came flooding back and how many of the cars I recognized and remembered playing with. So within a couple days I had picked up a big box of orange track and parts from a Marketplace ad, and had a Crash Racers track ordered up off eBay (shipping and exchange rate *ouch*) anyways I started thinking about where in my house I had some room, and how to make the track as long as possible without taking up too much room.... my house is small lol. The finished part of my basement is already a big putting green/rec room/golf club storage racks, other diecast stuff like Heavy Equipment, and my Star Wars toys ect ect. The other half of my basement is laundry room/weight room, so my spare bedroom upstairs was the winning location. All I really use that room for is storage and my treadmill is in there, So I was racking my brain about building a wooden structure to hold it and it hit me, I had all this old school track shelving and a bunch of the brackets, Bingo!
So I got to work on it this weekend, and Saturday night hit a couple local WalMarts and picked up a mess of new Hot Wheels lol. So heres where it stands now, I picked up the only "coroplast" pieces that I could find, these 20"x30" pieces from Micheals (craft/art supply store) and using 3D's method make up some of the sections of track that will fill in between sections where the Crash Racers straightaway sections wont make it. I think I'm gonna go the paper bag route and attempt to make the mountain side visual affect. My dad build a cool trainset a couple years ago but took it down, so hes got a bunch of various small scale buildings/trees/ decorations ect. Which I hope to try and get off him if I can get his interest a bit into my track. (he also enjoys watching 3D's channel, as well as some others) I'm still making my way through the other content creators in the Diecast space trying to learn what I can and gain inspiration for my track.
Anyways heres where we sit as of right now, think its going to be around 3 weeks til my Crash Racers set shows up.... so I've just grabbed some more large cardboard sections now from work to bring home later and finish off the structure. I will continue to update this thread as I work my way along and hopefully in the end have some fun and run some races! At least hopefully my little nephews will like it when they visit their uncle haha.
Cheers for the inspiration guys and any advice/suggestions!
Discussion
Couple updates, drop in was way fast and wild and the orange first turn was resulting in alot of mixed results, so I decided to make up a new 180 turn from corrugated plastic and got in in place and running pretty well. Then I used the same general method and dimensions to build a 90 degree turn as well, so the 90 is now where my start was before, with alot of the slope taken out, and the track will now start on the other wall, run down through the 90, and then enter the first downhill straight. I now have to get that new starting section up in place and will at least have the top section pretty dialed for now until I get more track in the mail. I also got rid of the blue hot wheels connectors, and made up a bunch using the jumbo popsicle sticks from walmart, nice and tight and longer to support the track and have less "sag" between sections. I am now tempted to replace that first straight with coroplast track with a center dividing wall but we'll see.
Couple updates, got the new starting area started, and the new 90* first turn is in place. The transition from the first turn to the orange track can be a bit hairy, cars on the inside are liking to jump the wall and get the passenger side wheels up over the wall of the orange track.... making me want to just eliminate the orange track all together and use coroplast track sections I've already made just add a center divider. Crash racers set still hasnt shown up, shiping estimate Sept 20 so I'm not too worried yet, but the tracking number shows "label created, not yet in system" and the eBay user I bought it from is now "no longer a registered user" So looks like I maybe got scammed.... I'll wait til the estimated arrival date before I file a dispute claim. Gonna suck if I've waited a month for this thing to show, which cost me a pretty penny after shipping, duties, and the conversion to Canadian money lol. Anyways heres an updated pic.
- FYI the crash racers track was a scam, made the inquiry with eBay and within hours they issued me a full refund. Thats great I got my money back, but still doesn't help me finish my track haha. — BattleStreet
Whoo, that's going to be a wicked first drop from the gate. Hopefully those corners will stand up to the speed. Looking good so far though - gotta work with what you got.