Back Again!

Hey, welcome back, Stan! I was hoping you'd return, even if it's old-skool stylee.

Looks like Carrera track, but no banked turns? Man, I figured at least ONE end would be banked.

I had a chance to run BRMs recently (you might have seen my video), and they are lots of fun. Are you running lexan cars with your club, or have you come back to "scale model racing" with the hard plastic cars?

I don't see a light bridge on your track, how are you triggering laps? I'm not familiar with TrackMate, so that might explain my question.

Don't be a stranger!

Hi Greg!

Yeah, I miss the congenial chats on this forum. You are correct, Carrera flat track with a wiggle and squeeze on one end. Most of the cars we run are actually hard body classics, on home tracks. Very euro. We have many classes... lets see... Scaley NASCAR two vintages, Fly non-mag classics, Avant, BRM Porches 1/24, Slot Its, H&Rs, NSRs - non mag - wow these are nice, Sideways DPs with lights... etc. We race on Wed nites, and then one or two Saturdays a month for a year-round points race. One club member actually builds commercial type tracks for a living, and most of the wood tracks are his builds. There is also a commercial track venture as well, and they have two tracks set up with a drag strip.

The TrackMate software is more of a hardware+software combo for multi-lane analog. (Not even close to the sophistication of the SSD and tons more expensive, but necessary for racing). Not sure if you can see from this pic, but I cut slits in the rails to create a dead strip for each lane. The braids on the slot car complete the circuit and send a pulse to the computer for counting...


We run the BRMs non-mag, and they are great fun! High mass, and a lot of banging.
You still doing both digital and analog?
Stan

Ah, the dead strip method. I had forgotten about that, but am familiar with it.
Yes, I still race both digital and analog. The PSSRA is the analog club I race with, but I venture out to non-club tracks from time to time. Here is the PSSRA visiting a local 1/24 commercial track to race the BRMs:

I finally "finished" my track (table + stations, which you can see in my build thread) and had the PSSRA guys over for a night of digital racing:

I'd love to have some other SSD tracks to race on around here. There's a guy up north with a nice one, but I haven't had a chance to pay him a visit yet. Some day. After the analog guys came over, one of them started talking digital, so maybe some day we can have a mix of tracks to race on.

Let me try to post this link to a video of BRM cars on one of our home tracks, with the BRM importer Alan Smith visiting...



SF

I agree. This is easily one of my best hobbies, if not the best. My wife just doesn't get it, though.
I still love my Slot.it controller, which I use on both analog and digital. Thinking about getting their high amp cart to use at the 1/24 track (and with my 1/32 analog cars).
Great video! I see Alan there. I get to have chats with him regularly as his shop is a short half hour from me.

Hey Marcel!

I seriously do miss digital! There is so much you can do with it. Unfortunately I could only collect occasional racers for it. So for now, in order to race every week, it must be analog. Sort of a beer vs wine thing, right?

Ultimate layout--- a big analog tri-oval with a digital road course inside???!!!???

You are right, my current set up is a bit stark... although I did erect a "SAFER" type barrier along part of the back stretch. Not sure if you can see in this photo, but I took some mdf moulding (two pieces, actually) and drilled a series of matching holes in them. Then I cut pieces of wire (around 10" I think) and made a "ladder" with the wires and two boards. I rubbed some epoxy on the wires and layed aluminum screen in between the boards. Once the glue set, I carefully removed one of the boards. A slight bending motion put a curl in the top of the wires, and voila!! A racing barrier in 3-D to create a nice effect.



Stan

Good to see you back, Stan.

FYI, there is a link somewhere for converting Carrera track into Digital/Analogue switchable so you can have the best of both worlds. It looks like a DIY job which would allow you to keep your old friends and still race against Minardi!

Cheers!

I don't think they raced together, Gordon.

Just joking, Mr. F.

Cheers!

Awesome! I know you learned a lot from your SSD build, and now you race on a variety of analog tracks. I'm sure you'll come up with something cool. Looking forward to it!

Well, after a week of demolition and rebuild, I was able to take some test laps today on my reconfigured layout. Not done yet, (as if any layout is ever done!), up at least up and running!



Stan

Watching video...

VERY nice. I think the needle has been properly threaded. Maybe you'll continue tweaking with a little banking, 'cus that track looks even more like a commercial wood track, and those always have SOME banking.