Is this the best drag track invention?
I recently desinged and printed a start, custom finish gate and timing system for Mike at Enzed Racing for his new 2 lane drag track he was building. It is about 6m long, which is almost a scale 1/4 mile, and the problem is the cars finish the track in 2 seconds or less then it takes at least four times that to walk down to the end, get the cars and bring them back for the next run. on top of that, stopping fast cars at the end of a drag strip usually requires a cushion or something soft that can bury the cars - although I've also seen a few tracks with hard stops, which I know racers hate.
So I said what if I also make you a return system, so the cars finish the race and then drive all the way back to the start so you can race from one spot the whole time. He was keen so I set to work. Version one had about a 40-50% return rate cause the cars were going so fast into the banked turn, they would fly out. This was mostly an issue for the light/stock cars as the ones with weight usually made it, but I wanted something to work all the time (if possible). Well, I think I nailed it in V2.
Here's a short video of version 2. Some single lane testing in my shed with cars that would always tip out of the corners normally plus a foodtruck and some semi trucks. Then the end is Mike's actual track in use.
What do you think? Good idea or couldn't care?
Discussion
Sorry, let me clarify about the box at the end - that is just a temp setup for now. It's more about getting the cars back to the start area. Technically you can stop each car by hand with no collision at all as they are moving much slower by that point. Plus they have bought themselves all the way back to you while you wait patiently for their arrival
The finish gate c/- Chaos Canyons design team.
- Looks awesome, if I do say so myself :) — Chaos_Canyon
- Imagine Mark Hamill with an evil character voice over after a run, cackling "Winner, lane two! Muahahahaa" — Chris_Hood
Yes, I've seen a similar tack taken on a small channel. Fetching cars from the finish each run wasn't in the cards for health reasons. Many benefits baked in with the return lane, notably it cuts down the time to starting the next race, a boon for live streams
The finish gate, it's bringing up dim memories I can't place yet. Part clown, part Sweet Tooth from "Twisted Metal" on PlayStation. I see the sensors in the gate, do these trip indicator lights in the face? Are there plans for a timer display to the side or integrated in the gate design?
Probably too early to press on with questions about camera placement; doesn't stop my genial curiosity
- Yes it is sweet tooth. There are no lights in his face but there is a display with a timer and lane winner which now sits close to the start so when racing you can just turn and see who won while the cars return to you — Chaos_Canyon
Absolutely brilliant! The finish line is wickedly cool! Those high walled turns look perfect too. I wish I had the space to widen my track base to add this. My back is trash and even though it's only 23 feet, doing it 100 or more times while racing can be overwhelming. As it is I use memory foam and about 70 percent of the time I get perfect bounce back that I only have to walk to the bottom of the incline. Solaire imbeds under the foam every time. I tried another incline at the finish like Bugwood has and put a thinner strip of foam there as well, it worked great until Solaire hot ones went right under it and sailed like the Duke boys off the end and onto the concrete. It was a really beautiful sight until the impact. Luckily it survived without much damage amazingly. Can't wait to see your track in action!
I've been pretty much doing the same thing for about a year, except I have a longer and steeper transition that leads into the turn so the cars don't enter it too fast and possibly move the axles over on older castings with a metal base which, at times, are a little difficult to recenter. The worst case scenario was with my mods hitting the turn too fast and actually knocking the axle free and I would have to disassemble the mod and hopefully be able to reattach the axle properly. It happened once on a mod where I had moved an axle forward and the entire fitting broke loose and I was never able to get the alignment right again, which slowed the car enough to where I couldn't send it off to the race it was intended for. Since the cars slow so much before and through the turns, I have a slight decline on the return to bring the cars back to me slowly. For faster mods I raise the curve slightly and for slower cars I lower it just a bit. Works flawlessly with only a funny car and a noodle fly off before I raised it again. At the end of the track I have a 5' section of lint free fine astro turf to stop the cars. I never understand why racers have stop bags and towels that are made out of any sort of fabric which creates lint that will 100% get into the axles and hubs and slow the cars, especially with so many guys using liquid lubes nowadays.
- That’s one of the other reasons to get away from any fabric, lint. In all the testing the turns don’t seem to cause any major shock to the cars, even open wheelers, as they are moving curve is fairly gentle and they glide along the sidewall as opposed to hitting into it but time will tell. — Chaos_Canyon
while talking track stuff. a real drag strip has time, and speed.
could do it with optics, but what if you ran a car thru a 
powered off, and short the motor, or better yet,
could you measure it's true trap speed (voltage spike from spinning the wheel) while slowing it down?
an electric brake sensor
just tossing it out to the crazy minds in this place...lol
dr
- Having these on numerous tracks I have, I can tell you cars don’t got through them, they stop and quite abruptly. I get what you’re going for and you could custom make a series of spring loaded run down wheels to stop the cars but it would vary greatly depending on the mass and velocity of the incoming vehicle as to how successful it is — Chaos_Canyon
Hey Thom! Chris Kester, here in Wichita, modified his fully portable open track to do the same thing. I'm for it. In fact, I'm really happy you share this because I picked up 4-single lane 180's 4 years ago. They look like they belong on a bobsled track. The single lane is highly banked with high sidewalls for a quick return.
All this to say, keep it!
Cheers, Mark H.
- The only negative is you are cutting back on doing 10000 steps a day ;-) — EnZedRacing
- The best thing with this turn is it can be made so incredibly easily. I literally glued a high wall around a flat piece of palight, taped some track to the front of it and put the palight section on about a 30 degree angle and it worked flawlessly straight away. Normally I try to add a twist to help angle the cars over but it turns out that seems to be one of the things contributing to roll overs and throwing cars out of the corner — Chaos_Canyon
I would have thought my Kiwi mate Mike would have needed the exercise! Ha!
Ha! Good idea, he must be preparing for retirement!
Cheers have a great Christmas!
Nice setup. I like it.
And that finish gate is super cool!