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SKIPSLEAT
INTERNATIONAL RACEWAY
by MartinT
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Since I have gotten so
much joy and inspiration from viewing many track and scenery pics
over here and on other places on the net, let me now show you some
of mine from my home track, the “Skipsleat International
Raceway” (SIR)
I owe a lot of gratitude to many of you for great ideas and
inspiration, the list of people is nearly endless, but I
especially like to thank Gerard from Racebaan.com for his great
site that got me back into this hobby after nearly 30 years…and
to the SlotMan team for making such an excellent piece of (free!!)
timing software, with many great features such as: fuel usage and
refuel options, starting lights, sounds and other user
controllable events. The Badener heimbahn site for numerous
electronic gizmos, Randy for getting me on the way with the hoist
system, And finally Tom’s Rennbahnseite for the how to make your
own pit lane lane changeover pieces.
Now let’s talk track:
Originally wanting to make it a 4 lane track , but that would have
left me with too little space for some nice scenery (1/3 of the
fun) and a working pit lane (another 1/3 of the fun), so I had to
settle for a 2 lane track. But come one day somewhere in the
future... (the final 1/3 is the actual racing itself of course!)
The Scalextric Sport track took me about 5 months to complete,
working in my spare time. Lane1 Red, Lane2 Green, average lane
length 16,60 m. (excluding the pitlane)
Since lane 2 is shorter but lane 1 has more outer(higher speed)
turns, the lap times are nearly identical and are somewhere in the
high 6 seconds.
Independent variable voltage lane power so my kids (2 and 4 years)
can safely drive dad’s cars around the circuit without too much
car damage…Everybody a happy camper!
The table measures 3,90m x 1,50m. It is a wooden honey comb
structure, with steel tensioning wires for stiffness, and since
the track is in my workshop, I sometimes need the space for other
projects as well, so it can be raised to the ceiling with an
electric winch.
Timing hardware is a combination of Racecontrol and self made
sensors for the refueling, software is SlotMan, that runs fine on
(my first PC!) an old P1 133Mhz.
The pit lane building is made from MDF, about 2m long and
currently houses 6 teams.
The track in the pit lane are all standard Sport pieces cut to
various lengths and forms, and then joined as are the lane
changeovers at the entry and exit and crossovers in the pit. (see
the excellent how to’s on “Tom’s rennbahnseite”).
There are currently over 130 team members in the pit lane , 33
marshallers, over a 140 spectators (62 above the pit boxes), 11
media people and various others, making a total of over 330
figures. They are from all different kind of brands and most of
them are (re)painted by me and or “mutilated” to a different
stance that better suits their purpose.
And now, for the important part: the pictures!
overview
looking N-E
looking S-W
Aerial shot from the starting grid and pit lane
Another aerial, the tire stacks at the pit entry are lifesaver
candies covered with heat shrink tubing, tire stacks in the
hairpin up on the left are the new soft SCX type cut in half.
Ready,steady….if a jumpstart is detected the power to that lane
is cut off for 10 seconds!
The race is safely underway, with Schumacher leading, as usual,
and...
…his brother Ralf unable to stay on the track (also as usual, ha
ha ha)
Lane 1 is leading with just a little less then half a fuel tank
left (the green portion of the bar in the display, the software
uses actual lap times to calculate fuel usage, so you can conserve
fuel by going slower if you are running up front…Olav Mol (the
Dutch much younger and much heavier version of Murray Walker) is
giving commentary on improved lap times, fuel low states and other
messages, controlled by the software.
The rearmost pit building on which the team trucks and the LCD are
standing is the leftover from my disassembled first track (the SIR
is my second track)
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As for the rest: let’s
go!
Schumi and the Jaguar coming in for their first regular pit stop
Ralf already in the pit to repair the damage from running off the
track…(the car is a dummy from a Taiwanese company called NewRay)
The Scuderia from Lane 1 eagerly awaiting their man…(the T-car
is an old converted Williams from Cartronic, the crew are all
Scalextric)
What a paintjob and some winglet reworking can do…I’m still on
the lookout for the excellent DMC F1 tobacco decals though…(I
ordered them online once at Professor Motor, but after about a
dozen emails to them I got No (as in nada, zilz, none, nothing)
reaction or anything…
The Renault refueled and tires changed, giving them a good rub in
by leaving the pit with traction control off…
Excellent camerawork by the media team, bringing you all the
action from close up!
The turns in and out of the pit bay are all inner lanes from R1
pieces, the x-over in the left top of the pic are 4 connected
outer lanes of R1 pieces. Note in the middle of the picture the
black tube that keeps the HP airline for the Ferrari left rear
wheel gunner out of the way, the led illuminating the LDR sensor
(in the slot) can just be seen.
Montoya exiting the pit lane and slipping into second place,
however…
…all is still not well within the team with the upcoming
departure of the Colombian to McLaren next year, as can be seen on
the pit board!
Close racing through the hairpin, and this is not even a digital
track…(yet)!
Let’s just continue with the next part..
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Part 3!...
An unfortunate Arrows: engine blow up…
One marshaller signalling to the Loadall driver to come and hoist
the wreck away, while the other is testing his fire extinguisher
for if things get out of hand…
Underneath the empty SCX Arrows chassis I installed a model train
smoke generator with a small cpu fan to blow the smoke out,
operated by a hidden on/off switch; it is a great distraction for
the competitor I’m racing against (Heh, heh…)
I had this idea in my head for many months, but I first had to
finish the “big” things before going into the details…
A very disappointed Jos Verstappen, but yet still unknown to him
that the next seasons would be even worse…
Coulthard exiting the pit lane, the grandstand is made of foamed
cardboard and paint mixing sticks, the flags are cut from racing
magazines, and the vending machine (and pit interiors) from http://www.carrera4fun.de/
The back straight, running on top of the pit garages, an idea I
got from “Henk’s ninco track”
Oh no, Fernando in despair after a front suspension failure…
More misery, Barichello lost it coming up on the back straight,
and crashed into the Armco barrier…(An old Cartronic Ferrari,
you can see the radiator air inlets are different from the current
cars, I still need those decals though!)
The Jordan pit crew are 2 sets of SCX figures, the car is a
repainted dummy from NewRay
Lane 2 (jeez, how could you guess that?) controller station: Red
Flag button stops the race when pressed: track power is cut, the
red led on top starts flashing and timing is paused; Pit stop and
cancel (if you change your mind) buttons operate the changeover
mechanism, which is an electromechanical unit used from a model
train railroad
On to the last stint…
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Part 4…
Again the lifesaver tire stacks, visually very appealing, but not
very useful to do what they are supposed to, because they are much
to rigid to absorb an impact (they do however get excellent
results in “realistic wing/car damage and increasing costs in
the hobby for replacement parts and cars”)
The winner being flagged down by mr. Tony George, making a special
guest appearance. He actually waves his arm through about a 45
degree arc, the flag rotates freely around the pole, the mechanics
are adapted from the flaggers on the Yarker Memorial Raceway, a
site also somewhere on the net. (The control rod goes through his
left leg, with a pivot point in his back, ‘t was a hell of a
surgery but as you all can see: he came out better than before…
And now for the next event…
…DTM!
A “vorjahres wagen” (last year’s car) being lapped…also
note he lost the right mirror in the heat of the battle, like in
real!
Of course, we also do Vintage races! (my favourite: the GT40… I
can’t wait till Scalextric releases the new model, the Ford
GT…Ahhh)
Well, signing off from the Skipsleat International Raceway, I hope
you enjoyed the action, and do apologise for the long posts, maybe
it should have been put in the members layouts section or aah
whatever…got to get to do some more racing as this photographing
crap is taking too much time…haha
Greetings and eagerly awaiting your comments and critiques,
Martin Ton (MartinT) |
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