Full downhill track conversion

redlinederby Thursday, 6/23/2011
Site manager

In the plans for next year is more variety in tracks and following Nashville I was motivated to work on my track, so after a trip to Home Depot I started to turn my track into a transformer...which, frankly, doesn't mean much.

Diecast Cars, Hot Wheels, Matchbox

I didn't want to make second track so I had to convert my track to support both the standard track and the long downhill track. The door hinge I was using to allow my track to fold was right in the middle of the board, which wasn't a problem when the board folded and the hinge "bump" was under the transition curve. But now that I need those two board to act as one, the hinge was in the way. My solution was taking two narrow hinges and putting them on the edges of the boards, letting the orange track go down the middle without any problems. The only thing left to do then was to make a support system which was just nailing together some extra wood, no biggie. Now the track can switch between the two types while still retaining its accordion feature for easy storage.

There's still a lot of work to do to get things looking nice and easy to manage. I'm not exactly a fan of needing the support system but it's not much so it should still be easy to store. I don't have any exact specs for the track yet beyond it will be 12-feet of downhill slope into 6-feet of straight. Actually, the last 6-feet will have a slight decline too but not much. If all continues to go well, we'll have another challenge track for the league.


Discussion

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WorpeX 6/23/11

Very nice! Great job making it a transformer. Will be interesting to see how different cars perform on this compared to the other track.

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Jobe 6/24/11

Brian,

That's pretty much what I did with my 25' track. I replaced the first hinge with some metal straps and screws and a new support. Works great, just takes a few extra minutes to set up, and I can convert it back to the hinged version any time...in fact I did for my hospital race...easier for the kids to get around with most of the track on the floor.

I did find the big slope kept people from cross the track so much at my pub races and tracking gravel onto the track.

It's funny how seeing another track, will always give you improvement ideas for your own.

Nice lay out on the track. I like it.

The short run out after the down hill will definitely favor the heavier cars but with the track changing configurations I'm sure it will all balance out.

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markkaz 6/25/11


I did find the big slope kept people from cross the track so much at my pub races and tracking gravel onto the track.

You need crowd control chains =)

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