Track Cleaning

Elevation Diecast put up a video outlining his maintenance regimen once, very involved and thorough for his dragstrip course. It even included cotton swabs to get into crevices between the "flat" and "walls" of his seamless orange track. Microfibre towels will carry you a long ways, finish up with baby wipes. For a dragstrip that gets a lot of use and trades on consistent runs, getting that spent graphite and dust off the course regularly appears to be key! No doubt "Dad" himself will see this post and link directly to that video in the thread

Oh, I found this one of his that I watched https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMVH1mo6ueA

@ Chris Thanks for posting this info for us to watch. This helped out a lot as Im in the process of a Drag Track build in my basement. I was starting to read up on how to clean the track without killing it.. 

Hey all,

Yes Elevation does do a great job at cleaning his track! A great video to highlight Chris! I recall Dale may have also done one on his DXP channel.

Yes the garage is a dirty place to keep a track! I know!

If you want accurate and more consistant test results from your cars, one needs to clean the track often! It only takes one grain of sand at 400 scale mph to see a car do a massive hop, or  what you don't see is the dirt/soil, etc that can potentially get onto your axles, wheel hubs.....That is until you ask yourself why has this car slowed?!

As well as the great video, some other great "house keeping" practices help.

Things l (try) and do include;

1. Keeping the garage door down when not in use.

2. Regular sweeping or using the blower to remove dust/dirt from garage.

3.I have tried to cover the track at times over the years, but never really found a good method.

4. Clean track and surrounds before use. Many items are useful for this. Including a new 4 inch paint brush, baby wipes, qtips cotton buds, microfibre towels, clean rags etc. Then there are also many products one can wipe the track down with for a final clean and polish. Just make sure whatever you use, is fit for purpose!

Cheers !

Great info everyone! My track needs a thorough cleaning before the next race!! Now I know how to do it effectively!!

Wow. I was amazed by how much dust came off the track when I cleaned it. Having chicks growing up in there is not helping, But they are moving outside next week. I will clean the track again before the tournament on the 19th.

Since I don't own a "permanent" track, I usually clean each individual track piece during assembly and then once every 2 days after it's laid out. I prefer using an aerosol foam glass cleaner. It seems to break up the accumulated graphite a bit bettter than standard windex. But, yea, rolling these little cars on a dusty track is like a full-sized cars running on gravel...it can have a huge impact on ETs.

For me it's water and Dawn Dish soap in a spray bottle. Then wipe down with a clean rinse rag after spraying a nice coat on my track  I keep wet rag  in clean water. To wipe off soap residue and wipre down during racesI have cats and dogs and even though they are always away from track. I still track up pet hairs and stuff from them. I also live next door to a concert mixing plant. I have a fair amount of dust that comes in if I have windows open.  This is what works well for me and the cars definitely perform better after using this to clean. 

Warm water and soap. Dish soap or hand soap, simple and it works.

This is what Elevation uses, I am using it as well. It will even shave off a thou or two off of a track cleaned with soap alone.