Build Journal: Ozark Mountain Speedway
Hi everyone. My name is Jarrod and I have recently started building a track in my garage with my wife. I have a large detached 2 car garage with a shop area I will be using for the build area. Its roughly 7 ft high at the start gate with a usable floor and wall area of 12ft x 12 ft.
Ill post some pictures of the space before and after.
I have a basic idea of what I want to do but nothing is set in stone yet.
I look forward to sharing this with everyone!
Discussion
First test build.
Start gate up at the top to a 9ft straight into split crossover 180, back down another 9ft straight to another split crossover 180, then 8 ft to the end for now.
Feeling good so far. Going to add lines to help measure height easier.
Got more work done today. Got turn 1 and turn 2 back up.
The view from the start gate down into turn 1, back down and into turn 2, and into the last bit of divided track before I change to an open track going into turn 3.
Still working on tweaking turn 1. Cars are not going around it like they were before the rebuild.
Fixed turn 1. Added turn 3, a 90° turn that turns the track into the open lane section of the track. Turn 4 is a 180° open track turn into another straight before going into turn 5. The straight after that will have one more 180° turn to bring it to the final sprint section before the finish.
Looking back from the last bit of track into turn 5.
Turns 3, 4, and 5.
The view from turn 2.
Turn 1 looking up to the starting gate.
I decided that because I had the parts I was going to make the last turn a 540° spiral down to the finish sprint.
I ran out of open lane track and had to improvise by cutting the inside wall off the orange track before the turn to allow cars to get to the turn without catching the edge and stopping. I was able to cover the gap with a thin clear sheet of hard plastic from the display panel of a box.
This will most likely be the final layout for the track with a few small tweaks as we go.
Ran a few test runs and most cars are coming in between 14 and 16 seconds.
- looks great! — dr_dodge
- Where in the Ozarks are you? — dr_dodge
- I'm about 20 minutes away from Lucas Oil Speedway in Missouri. — JBlotner42
- I lived 120 miles south of stl for 15 years, helped built the dcdonalds at the damn in lake of the ozarks. Beautiful country! — dr_dodge
I like the way you did the divided 180s. Hopefully it runs pretty fair to the end of the divided section. After that anything can happen
- Thanks Milestone_Racing, the first inside lane looks like it's faster but the outside lane gets a boost from the drop after the turn and will usually catch up by the time they get to turn 2. Turn 2 is about even and after that it's a sprint to the end. The lanes are identical lengths before it hits the open track. — JBlotner42
Came up with a track logo.
No new track pieces yet so I have been working on securing track in place and started building the scenery. Had to get something up in a couple of places where cars could fall off.
I bent a few axels when cars fell and hit the concrete floor. Oops.
- Looking good. And I'm looking forward to getting a chance to run on it in the future. — Dutch_Clutch_Racing
Did some testing up to the bottom of the final turn before the finish. Lighter cars seem to have issues with the first 2 turns but that may be due to the type of track it is and the fact it has holes in the bottom that catch the wheels of some cars. Looking for a good 3D-Printed file as a buddy of mine got a 3D Printer recently to replace all 4 of those turns (2 for turn 1 and 2 for turn 2).
- at first blush it appears lane 2 is problematic for most weights and lane 1 for lightest weight... if you sort your data on the weight field it will be easier to see the trends. — Stoopid_Fish_Racing
- @FredD Yep, I see that. Thanks for the feedback! So far this is just raw data, unsorted, and with just a few cars tested. Will be building this out a lot more as I get more cars tested. — JBlotner42
- Great! Good data is always helpful! The track is coming along nicely... looks like great fun! — Stoopid_Fish_Racing
- Helpfull! — LottaSpeedRacing
- https://whichiscorrect.com/helpful-or-helpfull/ — Stoopid_Fish_Racing
Two videos from the YouTube channel I just started.
youtube.com/shorts/ACbEDdNyBFs?si=FBPMqZvyQTOoVrQf
youtu.be/zkuJRk0Uc4w?si=gpGdQ4HDzd827CmI
Second video may trigger nearby dogs.
I measured the track and its 70 ft start to finish, give or take a few inches.
- he was just calling the race for all the other dogs — dr_dodge
- cool track! — dr_dodge
- Thanks dr_dodge — JBlotner42
- Someone should do dog commentary on a video once. It's a gimmick that would probably work! Track looking awesome though...keep testing and sharing — redlinederby
- I got better hits with a dumb cat vid, you are probably right...lol — dr_dodge
Ordered replacement turns from spoolheads.com for turn 1 and 2. Should be here in about 2 weeks hopefully. This should solve the problem lighter cars and cars with narrower wheel base have getting caught in the holes the current corners have.
It's been so cold the track is shrinking in spots causing gaps.
Before cleaning up.
After cleaning up.