Build Journal: My first track

Hi,

since I hit the wall with modding (feels like all cars I touch are worse than before) I decided to build a test track. I had a temporary hot wheels drag strip stretching from living room to bedroom I used to find out what my fastest car is (Corvette C8-R at the moment). Problem is it was without support and often moved mid testing because of that which wasn't great.

I checked all 70 something drag strips over here and read everything about track building I could find here. Armed with the newfound knowledge I started. Adding a couple of photos. It is work in progress and honestly I am shit at these things. Usually I just try to do my best learn from my mistakes. This is just the ramp. Height is 60cm which is like 2ft. Downhill lenght is 3.5ft.

It is really just a start. Now I need to figure out how to do the rest. Wood will be sanded, stained and varnished at the end.

Now I am deciding between buying some wood planks to serve as a ground level. Ramp would simply sit on one and track would continue further on the others. This would mean ground level would be, well... on the ground, which probably makes every race a hard workout.

The other idea is to make pretty much the same but add some support from the ground so track level is at 2 ft. Ramp would sit on it so it would be 4 ft at the start from the ground.

2023_08_10 update

I just ordered start and finish gates from JLHKRAFTS. So that part of the build is hopefully covered.

2023_08_16 update

I have found these in my local hardware store. They seem to be a perfect fit. 20mm x 2mm x 2 m aluminium strips. I am planning to insert them into hot wheels track. Still need to fasten tham to the wood construction under but hopefully they should make track itself rigid and bit heavier. They would probably also eliminate the need for plastic connectors. Therefore I could cut both ends of the plastic track (part with dot holes and half circle for the connector). Meaning connections would be bit smoother.

I think I have a working solution. Found these plastic strips they are very tight fit, flexible but at the same supporting the track very well. I used double sided tape for outdoors between wood and plastic strip and it holds track in place without any issues. Quite pleased with this solution. I can get rid of plastic connections now and cut the track on both sides to get rid of the holes as well. I am probably going to use plastic glue to melt separate pieces of track together when in place. Now I need to wait for my start and finish gate so I know how much space between two track lines I need so everything lines up.