Best Tracks We've Raced Or Driven On

[BMR]

 

That's a fantastic looking track and LOVE the large prints on the wall, the entire room looks like it has a great feel of motoring history. :bday:

Them prints on the wall are hand painted , sorry can't give you the artists name look the part huh.

Shane (thunderbirds) Muggy Thanks for the compliments on my track layout guys , have to find a way to hijack you two away from the other end of town and get you onto the track

Edited February 1, 2010 by BMR

[Guest jazzbell]

 

That's a fantastic looking track and LOVE the large prints on the wall, the entire room looks like it has a great feel of motoring history. :bday:

Them prints on the wall are hand painted , sorry can't give you the artists name look the part huh.

Shane (thunderbirds) Muggy Thanks for the compliments on my track layout guys , have to find a way to hijack you two away from the other end of town and get you onto the track

Thanks for the invite.I'm not fussed how far i have to drive to get to a good track.

 

Post some details,or point me in the right direction where to look for your race program.

 

regards shane a

 

team thunderbird

[Syd]

Sorry, but I seem to be hogging this topic at the moment.

Anyway, here is a track that I run 1/24th SCALE cars on.

 

The owner has a SCALE meeting every November, where we race vintage 1/24 cars.

The cars I used last November were a Cox Lotus 40 and a Cox La Cucaracha :bday:

Track is a private track located in Blackwood, SA.

We think it is an old 'Southern Models' track, built in the late 60's.

 

Regards,

Dennis

Is that Bill Hollingsworth's track?

[neophytte]

And the old "Strombeckers" track from Perth ... this was the first track I raced on at about 9 years of age ...

 

 

Cheers

 

Richard

[kalbfellp]

Dennis: I just converted "Waiting for the Green " to DVD format for a couple of guys down here.

A friend from Launceston is in the Video!

[munter]

Richard,that looks like a fast and fun track,love it!

 

The shed is rather tasty as well.

I'm partial to corrugated iron....gets hot though.

 

regards

[SuperSlab]

I am one of the fortunate few that live in the Vancouver, Canada area and so I get to race regularly on Luf's Targa track. While known to a fair number of members I do not think Luf (AKA Oldslotracer on a number of forums) is known to everybody down under. Suffice to say I think he is the true master of the routed track. His website can be seen here with info on the build of his Targa track here

 

I will not post too many pictures: quite a few pics and video in this thread. But a few to whet your appetite:

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited February 1, 2010 by SuperSlab

[munter]

Old slotracer surely is a master.

SS can you please tell a little more about driving on a track with those heavy changes in gradient?

 

regards

[SuperSlab]

Old slotracer surely is a master.

SS can you please tell a little more about driving on a track with those heavy changes in gradient?

Lightheartedly I suppose I could say that counter-clockwise it is quite an uphill struggle.... but that isn't quite what you had in mind, is it?

 

OK, so how is it really? I suppose it bears mentioning that Luf himself prefers going counterclockwise (up the BIG hill) while I prefer going the other way around: this is probably fairly representative as opinion seems to be split which is "nicer". Generally I find that my best lap times are between 0.1 and 0.2 seconds slower going counter-clockwise.

 

Probably the best way to do this is give a bit of a commentary of what I think of the track starting from the start line and going around my favourite way:

 

The start line is at the start of the small straight at the bottom of the big grey cliff (below the jumping rally car). The start is marginally uphill but really not worth mentioning. Quick, tightish almost 180 deg left followed by an almost as tight 180 deg right hander with a slight opening radius. Then a big uphill 180 deg right hand sweep: very, very fast corner, especially in lane 1 (inside lane). In lane 1 you can really boot it up here: slightly lower powered cars you can almost go up here full throttle when the track is well rubbered up. For lane 1 you have to make up a foot or two here.

 

Part way through this corner, most disturbingly, your car disappears! The crest of the hill is blind: here you have to put your faith in your car's handling and trust it will crest the rise when you expect it to. This is complicated by the fact that there is a bit of a "squiggle" just before and on the crest of the hill. This part of the track is critical for good lap times: give it full throttle too late and you lose huge ground on the others. Boot it too early and you can anticipate a most spectacular tail whip around and catastrophic tumble down the hill, ending up either on the bottom corner (if you are lucky) or on the floor (not so lucky). This section is the site of the most spectacular slot car crashes ever witnessed by man!

 

Not surprisingly, you tend to build up a good head of steam down the hill. More surprisingly is that a good car is not particularly slower up the hill than down: I think slots are so light and have so much power that the hill has less of an influence than one would expect.

 

However: you do need reasonable brakes at the bottom of the hill. Reasonable brakes only, mind: not humungous. This is somewhat of a surprise as one would anticipate that momentum would fling you straight into the wall, but no: not that bad at all. The right hand sweep at the bottom has a hint of bank, so you can carry great speed through here. With slower cars in lane 3 (outside here), you can just settle the car with a bit of brake and then boot it full throttle through the corner. Try it with a Slot.it Boxer and you can again witness a high speed snap spin second to none, with the car ending up almost in your lap!

 

Then into the village and beware: the 180 corner to the right is a significant closing radius one! More than one car has ended up unannounced at the door of what appears to be a house of ill repute on the corner! Fortunately it is also close to the church in the village, so you can always take your choice of location to seek succour after an off. Also note that this is a squeezed corner: you need to be careful! And BTW: if the drivers in lane 1 and 3 are very polite and very controlled, it is possible to execute a neatly synchronised side-by-side traverse of this corner with doo rhandles touching. However, sadly I have to report that this is the exception and not the rule: in most cases please refer back to my comments re house of ill repute and/or church.

 

Then exit the village up a slight uphill straight into the next 180 left sweep. This is where lane 3 shines: because lane 3 is the outside lane, it used to be a fair bit longer. Therefore you used to be at a very significant disadvantage in this lane. To even things out, Luf re-routed lane 3, cutting a big chunk of distance through this corner. This is the place in lane 3 where you can make up all the distance that the guys in lanes 1 & 2 so painstakingly built up on the rest of the track. And you do not have to kamikaze through the corner to achieve this: this corner in lane 3 can be the most satisfying one on the track if you get it right and tidy.

 

Continuing slightly uphill: short straight again and then 180 right. Lane 1 is rather tight here, so you have to watch it, but otherwise nothing strange or weird.

 

Similar short straight again and a 90+ degree left onto the start/finish straight. Lane 3 can be tricky in this corner: VERY tight! If you have a tippy car it would behoove you to opt for discretion: he who fights and runs away lives to fight another day! This is also the corner where the motorcycle policeman has made his home on the outside of the corner. Reputedly you can score bomus points in a race for knocking down the cop. I personally have never seen anyone achieve this: I believe the 1/32 policeman (about 1" high) is held down by four 6" nails!

 

And then you do it all over again!

 

Just THE most awesome slot car experience!

[neophytte]

Richard,that looks like a fast and fun track,love it!

 

The shed is rather tasty as well.

I'm partial to corrugated iron....gets hot though.

 

regards

 

Cheers - this photo wasn't taken at Strombeckers, though. The track moved from the West to the East at some stage, a guy was selling it back in '07 on eBay, so I made a PDF of the final sale ....

 

Enjoy!

 

Richard (Who wishes he had a spare $3k and some room back in '07!)

[lenny broke]

And the old "Strombeckers" track from Perth ... this was the first track I raced on at about 9 years of age ...

Cheers

Richard

Hi Richard

Did that track have the steering wheel and throttle pedal control? I can remember visiting a Strombecker's track way back in the mid 70's while on a swimming club trip to Perth. the track had the aforementioned control set up. My experience of slotcars at that time was Scalex setup on the lounge room floor at home. this thing was something else for me at the time. though I remember I didn't think much of the steering thing.

Cheers Alan

[neophytte]

And the old "Strombeckers" track from Perth ... this was the first track I raced on at about 9 years of age ...

Cheers

Richard

Hi Richard

Did that track have the steering wheel and throttle pedal control? I can remember visiting a Strombecker's track way back in the mid 70's while on a swimming club trip to Perth. the track had the aforementioned control set up. My experience of slotcars at that time was Scalex setup on the lounge room floor at home. this thing was something else for me at the time. though I remember I didn't think much of the steering thing.

Cheers Alan

 

Yep, that's the one - it was upstairs at a place in Barrack Street, there were video games downstairs, and you sat down with the steering wheel and pedals, which were the accelerator ... I seem to recall it was 20c for 5 minutes, but the memory is a bit hazy there ...

 

Cheers

 

Richard

[wizardgm]

Dennis: I just converted "Waiting for the Green " to DVD format for a couple of guys down here.

A friend from Launceston is in the Video!

Yep, I know who you are talking about. Seen him a couple of times in the background of some DUPR pics

Can't think of his name though !

Ask him if he remembers this track ?

A 6 lane track in a back-yard shed. Also a 3 lane 1/32 and a 1/32 rally track in same shed

Mr Sunset (Bob Crawford) sitting in the centre. Mr MJK in top left corner.

 

Same track, different day and different angle. Mr Sunset likes that chair

[Chadly]

hahaha. I won the 1995 overall WA state champs on that track.

It was bought for $1000 in 1990 by Des Dunsire and co and put upstairs in the Whitfords sports pavillion (next to Cheroke village).

Many 1/24 racers say this is the best circuit design they have raced on (including King racers), although it was very deteriorated and near the end of its life in 2002. Some of the slots were 1/4" wide in some places!

It was an American black.

 

Hey, I'll help in setting up the old Redline king too!

 

 

Syd - Yeah, thats Bills

[Guest jazzbell]

Dennis: I just converted "Waiting for the Green " to DVD format for a couple of guys down here.

A friend from Launceston is in the Video!

Yep, I know who you are talking about. Seen him a couple of times in the background of some DUPR pics

Can't think of his name though !

Ask him if he remembers this track ?

A 6 lane track in a back-yard shed. Also a 3 lane 1/32 and a 1/32 rally track in same shed

Mr Sunset (Bob Crawford) sitting in the centre. Mr MJK in top left corner.

 

Same track, different day and different angle. Mr Sunset likes that chair

This guy has the best shed set ups any slot racer would die to have.

 

One of the fastest,smoothest 6 lane tracks i've driven.The 32 scale tracks,just awesome

 

regards shane a

 

team thunderbird

[Chadly]

bit different now shane.........the first 3 corner complex has been replaced with a big bank!

First meet for 1/24 cars on this track in a couple weeks.

 

msg BMR for details

[wizardgm]

You planning on dusting off all those 0.6 ohm parma controllers Dennis??

Nope

 

 

 

 

My electronic one even works with the GRP15 winged car

 

When you building your's ?

[wizardgm]

bit different now shane.........the first 3 corner complex has been replaced with a big bank!

 

Picture of what Chadley is talking about. This shows what the top part of the second picture, now looks like and the 1/32 track in back right corner.

The original three corners had to go to make room for the 1/32 track

 

And a picture of the 1/32 track

 

Dennis

[Chadly]

...they use electronic controllers for 27 and open nowdays too

 

need the bigger ones than the mj15004's

[wizardgm]

Sorry, but I seem to be hogging this topic at the moment.

Anyway, here is a track that I run 1/24th SCALE cars on.

 

The owner has a SCALE meeting every November, where we race vintage 1/24 cars.

The cars I used last November were a Cox Lotus 40 and a Cox La Cucaracha

Track is a private track located in Blackwood, SA.

We think it is an old 'Southern Models' track, built in the late 60's.

 

Regards,

Dennis

Is that Bill Hollingsworth's track?

Yep, sure is.

 

And

 

Those pictures were hand painted back in the sixties.

 

Strange thing about them, is that where-ever you walk in the room, the drivers eye's seem to be following you

 

Weird !

[BMR]

Sorry, but I seem to be hogging this topic at the moment.

Anyway, here is a track that I run 1/24th SCALE cars on.

 

The owner has a SCALE meeting every November, where we race vintage 1/24 cars.

The cars I used last November were a Cox Lotus 40 and a Cox La Cucaracha

Track is a private track located in Blackwood, SA.

We think it is an old 'Southern Models' track, built in the late 60's.

 

Regards,

Dennis

Is that Bill Hollingsworth's track?

Yep, sure is.

 

And

 

Those pictures were hand painted back in the sixties.

 

Strange thing about them, is that where-ever you walk in the room, the drivers eye's seem to be following you

 

 

 

 

Weird !

 

" Strange thing about them, is that where-ever you walk in the room, the drivers eye's seem to be following you "

 

Dennis - Especially if you attended the drivers red eye conference downstairs before the racing gets started .

 

Shane (T Birds) 19th of Feb at Neil's 6 lane track season start test n tune night then a week or two after that its at at my track - welcome to come along

 

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