How do you choose your race and track themes?

I'd say it all up to you and what you find interesting. With road style tracks you could have shifting themes at every corner.
3D Bot maker has a few different themes they do, or series I guess you could call them with KoTM, The DRC X, etc.
Junkyard Joust is another good example of a theme track.
GTR, Pikes Peek, Bay City, etc, etc, all imitate real places in a way.

Bottom line, have fun and do what you want. We will still send cars to race!

I use a little RPG in my setup as RacerGnome.  Some may not understand it, so I will post here just the highlight of the building, and not the 'story-line' explaining why.  But on my YouTube page I will continue with the story.  

My theme is 'gnomes'.  My wife and I have always liked gnomes, the avatar I use here is a drawing I paid an artist to make about 20 years ago.  He made one of me (PapaGnome), my wife (MamaGnome), and a 3rd one where I am the characture playing poker; as I used to go every year to the WSOP.  Now with my health, I don't play poker very often, and instead needed a new hobby; Hot Wheels.

So my tracks and area(room) will be decorated with gnomes, gnome themes, and the dioramas will also reflect this when the permanent structures are finalized.

I think it is great when people design their tracks with the dioramas and the themes.  Off the top of my head the Mario one setup is pretty cool and stick to a theme.  I like the one looking like a mountain.  There are others I have seen that I think is pretty cool.  I also like when the announcements for races come out by a host and they choose a theme with a story behind it.  Transformers vs their enemy,  Future cars with no oil, and themes like this.  It puts a little fun into.

Recently I saw one for old tv shows for a screen to race event, that made me think immediately of the 1970's and the Bugaloos.  I went searching all of my cars trying to find a car like this.  Tried the web, but could not find one.  But it made me want to try and do something 'different'.

Why hosts choose a theme, probably for fun.  How?  Now that means going into each person's head to figure it out, and remember, someone recently posted they were doing an Illuminati race ......  Do you want to be near this guy's head to see why? <lol>

For Diamondback Wash, the idea of a straight off-road track just popped into my head (with a little inspiration from Lakewood Trail), and I thought that the logical theme to make it would be desert.

For Pine Hill Rally Course, I haven't really decided yet. It's obviously in the mountains, but I should think of something to set it apart from the standard mountain tracks.

I go to this thread and start looking.

www.redlinederby.com/topic/race-ideas/6828

Again...if time, money, and gumption, any sort of cartoon-themed track would be pretty awesome as long as it's not too cheeky. I remembered this Wile E Coyote track from a few years ago, some good art there.

I'd probably do a GI Joe themed track as that's one of my things...racing through Cobra Temple or something like that. It was so ridiculous yet set in the "real world" that it would be fun to come up with stuff.

Some seem to be more about the show and the story, while some are just brass tacks racing down the track while recording with phone or iPad in hand. Kudos to all who host or put out racing videos, and put the time and energy in to doing so, as my motto for Life is that there's nothing more valuable than your time on this rock.

The theme for the Elevation Trail at Lakeridge Heights came from basically me wanting to build "something" and fitting it into the "space" I had...I would have loved to have done a track like Chaos Canyon, or GTR...but my space restriction limited me to come up with what I've got. A lot of credit needs to be given to Josh from RustBelt Diecast as well as it was his Frozen4Banger series that made me go for a winter "ski-hill" idea. I will also try to incorporate subtle changes to track decoration to suit the race themes as well. The race themes are just an extension of me challenging builders to step out of their comfort zone, and really try to tap into a different level of creativity. If you e ever watched any of my series...the builders have never disappointed...

I tend to go towards more realistic scenes or dioramas but I like to keep a real open mind for fun or interesting things. On my last track I had a place where there was a time bubble and a blue man and ufo sightings so I may have to revisit that. I would like to try out a skid pad so that's on the list along with a HO scale railroad or a small digital slot car track. 

I drink V-8 juice, and I thought of keeping a few empty bottles, and then making a V-8 Corner.

I have about 100 CD's that I don't listen to anymore, everything is on a flash drive and other streaming sources, and thought of lining up all the CDs next to a drag strip for the CD Derby Clash and use them as diomrama fencing.

Had a thought at one time to split a two lane road course with one car going left and the other to the right, with Orcs/Trolls on one side of the track, and have Gnomes/Elves on the other side.

Just wild thoughts....

Boss, first of course thanks for the linky-love in your post. My major point there was how the classic The Outer Limits prepped the audience from the jump to accept and get onboard with experiencing the special effects limitations of the show's budget and perhaps a similar approach could work for a host whose resources are just as strained

We have now and had some sci-fi influenced shows in racing. Rick's Diecast Racing is in outer space, Diamond Hands Racing League raced on the MOON and with a  more subtly science fiction flair The SKYWAY sold us so effectively the concept of a track suspended hundreds of feet mid-air

When a host takes that extra step in basing a show on the less conventional in choice of themes and that's communicated well in thumbnails, that only grabs firmly my clicking finger!! Different is not bad, different is interesting to me. A lot of folks today might not remember Tiny Track Cars' original Candy Mountain setup. How could I resist checking out a show where the diorama clearly is festooned with lollipops and donuts? Not to forget PottyBig Race League with garish clashing neon graphics that capture the attention at a mere glance and then jumping into a world that, pun intended, can be best described as "a TRIP!!" 

all my tracks started around Jamestown, my HO scale train layout.
I built the Jamestown bypass on the facia boards infront of the track.
wanted some offroad action and started making/experimenting with pink foam as track.
so built the return road outta scraps of foan cleaning up the shop. very detailed for good background.

I built the bent wood womp works great, but no space inside.  At this point I had watched a bunch of racing, and wanted to host racing but have no track, or space.
While shooting vids on the womp outside I was experimenting with settings/angles, came up with the hill climp perspective,
(that is for a 1/34 scale race based upon the NYC-Buffalo race 1900's, which I still haven't shot yet)
Then sitting in the gazaboo, adult beverage in hand I thought up goat hill
searched the net for anything like it, nope, ok, this is gonna be my gig...

Then started building.  Had plenty of prebent womp stock, glues, screws, foam, it was born.
Got Mrs dr to paint a 2ft tall x 10 ft backdrop, which was a super challenge.

then I built the quarry for the glamor shots.

So basicly my scenery of my train layout set the stage

90's -modern, and weird stuff, being as we have 2 "races" of people (1/64  &  1/87)

with sci fi (Imperial City of Moparnia, based upon my first post of a future city) 

and lots of retrotoys, trains, we had the klingons at the track, fantasy creatures, driving animals

all while acting (announcing) like it's a normal redneck country race camp party, bad jokes and teasing included

here is a description of the challenges, and footage from experiments
www.redlinederby.com/topic/jamestown-gets-a-beltway-bypass/5558

Almost everytrack I have built, I have also filmed a build vid.  they are on my channel
and just like my cars, my track builds are totally different than most

The one single thing, though, that made the diference,
I would never have done any of this if not for finding this welcoming vibrant community.  

Thanks to all out there

dr

I'm heavy into creating realism on a miniature scale.  It carrys over from years of model railroading. Trying to create miniatures as realistic as possible.  I'm enjoying that wth Hot Wheels racing now. Finding new ways to add the realism.  I'm not much into fantasy stuff. 
Time to find a way to a add a sound decoder to a Hot Wheels car (evil grin).   Model railroaders will know what I mean. 

=Z=