Are border lead-ins cosmetic or actually functional?

Leading INTO the turns, not so much, but leading OUT of the turns, yes. Either use the lead-in/out borders, or regular straight borders, but cars often slide back and forth as they leave the turn, so border on both sides for at least a full straight is advised.

My take... unless there is curve shortly beforehand it's not needed. You can see in this post I had quite the number of curves and only used end pieces entering the curves and it was never an issue.

Most important, outer borders with grip is advisable, otherwise you got a car sliding on a corner and suddenly loses grip and deslots😉

Also is highly recommended that borders have no gap between them and the piece of track, otherwise the car could rollover like hitting a curb.

Cheers

GDSLOT said:

Most important, outer borders with grip is advisable, otherwise you got a car sliding on a corner and suddenly loses grip and deslots😉

Also is highly recommended that borders have no gap between them and the piece of track, otherwise the car could rollover like hitting a curb.

Cheers

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Right now I’m using the stick border / rails. Do you suggest something different?

What track are you using?
Oh I see… Carrera.

Carrra has not much grip but with the proper tires you won’t have problem, borders fit very well and track is wide so probably you will have lots of fun sliding 😉

Just use the red clips that Carrera recommends for keeping track together and you shouldn’t have problems at all.

When I had Carrera I found at times with their borders not using all of the available clips would actually make them more level with the track then if I used all of them especially with evaluated pieces. I would start with all of them and when I saw a high or low border I'd play around releasing this or that clip and see how it looked. Bottom line these guys are your friend. Order two clips per border and your lap times will drop dramatically.

It’s true that the Carrera borders are rather expensive. But like many I have quite a lot of joined up curved and straight borders, so there are lots of redundant end pieces in my ‘spares’ box. It wouldn’t be viable to send them to the US, but there must be many folk over that side of the pond that also have spare end pieces? Of all the pieces they are the ones that should sell very cheaply.
good luck in finding some…………. Maybe an appeal on here might reap rewards?

Thanks Steve. I’m actually running Scalextric. I’ll buy a few to try them out. Have to slow down spending before the boss figures out I’m not still using my old tyco stuff

jraggio said:

Thanks Steve. I’m actually running Scalextric. I’ll buy a few to try them out. Have to slow down spending before the boss figures out I’m not still using my old tyco stuff

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There must be tons of second hand stuff in the web, try searching for borders and track stuff, Scaley is actually cheaper than Carrera. Besides there are 3dp borders in Thingiverse so you can print them if you have access to a printer, also @MrFlippant takes commissions on such prints, he may be able to help you and he’s also in USA.😉

You can add only the runoffs that you need so as not to disturb a car that's drifting out of a corner, however to my mind the track looks better if there is some consistency and not just randoms here and there.

We spent lots on Scalextric barriers for our large track, most of them are now in a large cardboard box for a rainy day when we build that layout again.

However sometimes less is more, you might also want to consider shakering some of your runoffs matt black for a bit of variety, it can demark pit/F1 styles locations from other drifting/country locations.

And don't have runoffs for every corner to add variety but not too many corners that you can 'ride the barriers'.

One advantage of having runoffs everywhere is that you can run 1:24 cars for fun, even race the smaller ones.

Had a car in a race this week that went off the track because of no inside border. He thought something was in the track but on the video you could see the car sliding sideways off the track and subsequently deslotting. So they are also useful on the inside of corners.

Mike M.

Track would totally look awesome with borders everywhere and welcome all sorts of drifting, but I’d be sleeping on the couch

P944guy said:

Had a car in a race this week that went off the track because of no inside border. He thought something was in the track but on the video you could see the car sliding sideways off the track and subsequently deslotting. So they are also useful on the inside of corners.

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Was this a tight turn, an R1 or equivalent? I had a tight 3 corner hairpin in old layout, tires would catch on inside as it's a tight turn especially for longer wheelbases so yes, these area need runoffs.

Identify the crucial areas that will deslot a car on your track and add runoffs on, you can then add more at your leisure...and no couch. ;-!

You can see the track and the videos on YouTube at Road America Northwest .

Mike M.

jordan89 said:

Was this a tight turn, an R1 or equivalent? I had a tight 3 corner hairpin in old layout, tires would catch on inside as it's a tight turn especially for longer wheelbases so yes, these area need runoffs.

Identify the crucial areas that will deslot a car on your track and add runoffs on, you can then add more at your leisure...and no couch. ;-!

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No it wasn’t a tight turn. It was a radius 2 onto a short straight but he got it out of shape and it popped off when it slid back to the inside.

Mike M.

P944guy said:

No it wasn’t a tight turn. It was a radius 2 onto a short straight but he got it out of shape and it popped off when it slid back to the inside.

Mike M.

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thats just bad driving imho

if your track is made so there wont be any deslots ,cos there are boarders everywhere , then whats the point .
a race track is supposed to have variety and challenges ,track limits comes to mind

crustypop said:

if your track is made so there wont be any deslots ,cos there are boarders everywhere , then whats the point .
a race track is supposed to have variety and challenges ,track limits comes to mind

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Borders won't keep the car in the slot.