Turtle Dragway in Burgundy, France Options

[Mahill]

Hi everybody

Here are some pics of my track, first time it’s set up permanently, on which 2010 ESDU E.C. will be held Aug 13th to 15th.

It’s in a 80ft cellar inside a 17th century Wine house in the midle of Nuits Saint Georges, in the Burgundy wine region, of course paintings and furnitures need to be improved but I’m working on it and I couldn’t wait to post here.

It’s a state of the art scale 1/24 quartermiler so 55ft + 2ft staging + 20ft shutdown with heavy glue, was first intended to be moved to various locations so it’s in 9 x 9ft segments, surface is 1’’ thick MDF, sides & feet are ½’’ plywood, power is one Bulldog 16.2v / 80 amps power supply + 3.5 farad capacitor per lane so unlimited amps at launch. Very thick german braid, each braid is followed by a 00 US gauge main wire with taps every 5ft.

Timing system is Trackmate’s Dragpro 3000 which gives ETs (elapsed times) for the run, top speed, half track times & scale 60ft times which tell how well the car reacted at the start. All this is on the screen for both cars after a run, also can be printed, these 4 numbers help finding out how a car can be improved (wheels, chassis, gears, aero etc) and check if changes do what they’re supposed to do.

Also can do Bracket which is the backbone of club racing in that it allows any car to compete whatever the speed if racer can read the glue condition & his car setup + index where cars must reach a fixed ET (like 1’’ or 1.5’’ etc) and racer tweaks his car until it gets there.

Track is already quite quick but a lot of work ahead untill it reaches its full potential, here are pics from both sides :



Start area with screen, printer, some space for each racer to work on his car each side + a pair of staged Top Fuel Dragsters :
[img]

The 16'' Trackmate christmas Tree :


Finish line with Win light leds each side :


Power has beeen moved to mid-track rather than the starting line, they're boxed as these huge caps carry some amps :


View from starting line:


Then some cars, a Vette roadster Vs a Cobalt with my black/purple livery, my mascot Turtle (thus dragway's name) Vs a Batmobile + the TFDs in the stopping glue :




Gonna do more pics asap

Cheers
Fred

[dgersh]

Looks good Fred. Got any times yet?

Don

[Steve D]

Looking great Fred, can't wait to have a go on it!!!

Cheers

Steve D

[HauntFreaks]

beautiful track and power setup... best of luck with it....

[Mahill]

Well glad you like it, been a lot of work but as you know I love it.

Steve you're welcome anytime you care to drive (maybe wait a little until that snow melts as it's all white here)

Don I just ran some existing cars and got slightly improved ETs from my own best on the only other high power quartermiler in Europe which is in Malta so should improve that with time, best AA/FC is .508/112mph for the moment, not tried any rubber for that vintage class yet but shall do that soon.

Cheers
Fred

[dragrap]

Very nice Fred, you lucky soab.
Why can't we find accommodation like that in this country

[Mahill]

Hi Dragrap

You need to drive over with Steve and give it a try when that snow's over..

To be honest I feel good to finaly have it there but it realy hasn't been an easy route, I more/less started this quest when the big commercial raceway in rue Erlanger in Paris which had a state of the art dragstrip closed in 1970.
Too much worktime starting a business in the 70s, then at times not enough money, quite often enough money but no opportunities for a large enough building, took 3 years to build and finance the track with the low $, got quite lucky to be able to buy that long cellar for a fraction of the price with last year's ruined economy so should be cheap from now on.

The time seems right in the UK for this hobby, Steve & you even got a Championship started which France hasn't done yet, possibly some building opportunities somewhere

Cheers
Fred

[Osku]

Nice place you got there Fred.
Cannot wait to get there, meet all the friends & race

Cheers,
Osku

[Mahill]

Well still a lot of work to welcome the Elite group here but I love my new toy..

Cheers
Fred

[Dragaddict]

Fred, well done for building such a nice track, the place seems quite good too, looking forward to give it a try, well done again, Vince.

[SKYWAY]

That looks pretty awesome. Drooling over that gorgeous Batmobile.

[dragrap]

That looks pretty awesome. Drooling over that gorgeous Batmobile.

Drooling over some real life machinery the other day and happened upon.....wait for it.....the Flatmobile!

TO THE LINK ROBIN

I'd like to see someone reproduce that in a slot car

[slotmedic]

Hello Fred, That's what I call a super track, Thanks for your big effort and money spent on building such a professional track.
May you and all good hearted slot drag racers enjoy it in the coming years.

Well done
Charles

[Steve D]

I can't wait to have a go on that track it looks so smooth, roll on August!!!

Steve D

[Mahill]

Oh well guess the pics make it look good !

Glad you like it, as I mentioned in an earlier post it's been a very long process so it feels good to finaly have it here and functional, hope we'll have all the racing the track deserves.

Thanks again
Fred