NASCAR scale track when?
Please tell me someone is planning to build a to scale replica NASCAR track. For reference Talladega is 4 miles long, (4x5280ft)/64=330ft and could easily fit in my back yard. It'd be the dominating feature and a pain in the ass to mow around, but it would fit!
Discussion
A conveyor belt type system could work well in this situation. It may also help keep the racing a little tighter because there would be a window of time for a car to get to a slot on the belt to go up, this means that if 2 or more cars were close and made it to the same row of slots, when they get to the top again they will be starting at the same line. This may help stop a car from just completing running away from the pack, which would keep it interesting. The speed of the belt could be adjusted to determine how large this window of time is.
- Not shooting down your idea, but those aren't Hot Wheels cars. They are specially made cars to fit on that track, complete with weights and magnets to ride the conveyer belt. With the wide array of Hot Wheels that people would want to send in, there is no possible way to keep each individual car from each individual builder to the standards that it would require to keep it on the track. Bottom line is, one person would have to build ALL the cars to the same specs, period, and even that did not work for the artist who created this - he had to redesign the cars over and over again until he got like an 80% continual run with no crashes. Look up Metropolis 2 on Wikipedia, and it has all the specs of this track. — SpyDude
- They tried using Hot Wheels cars, but the crash rate was so high that it was impossible to run the track for more than a few seconds at a time. — SpyDude
- Yeah, this was just to illustrate, not to copy verbatim. I think part of the difference here would be your running a lot less cars. I think you could also design the belt in a way that uses slots to receive the cars and carry them up to the top. I think part of this metropolis track and why it may have been so complicated was the fact that you're trying to run all of these cars like I finally oiled machine which is not what a racetrack with a handful of cars is trying to accomplish. You just want the cars to get to the end of the track. Go up to the top and then go back down the track again. Obviously it would still take quite a bit of engineering to get it right. But I think it would be doable. — AP3_Diecast
Inducing the airflow around the cars vs blowing the cars
the air around the track is what moves the air under it
the gate has a bunch of tubes, that send air above sonic velocity
flow is (generally) controlled by the pressure at that point
flow against a surface tends to want to stay there
under (I think) 15°
man, wish I knew an engineer...lol
I have been toying with this idea for a while
send the cars aound, 5 laps, bump the pressure, and count how many laps you survive
diags below,
dr
I see a couple of issues with using air as a booster.
First up is if the car isn't in the centre of the track and facing straight, then you will likely end up just blowing the cars sideways and possibly spinning. The other would be the required airflow to boost the cars uphill that distance would require a massive volume of air and be insanely loud - think of a bunch of leaf blowers running at once.
I've used traditional hot wheels boosters on my hill climb track and even running on power (not batteries), three of them were not enough to push two cars uphill right behind each other. The total elevation was just under a meter, or about 3 feet over a total distance of 4.8m or approx 13 feet. On my flatter stadium track, there were four boosters - two for each lane and that worked ok over that track but it was only 2400x1200 or 8'x4'.
Here's the hill climb track www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR0xHirG9_8
Here's the stadium track www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nk8WswRdtl0
Other options I've looked at is having the uphill section as more of a travellator style, so the cars roll onto the uphill section and get taken to the top in the position they arrive in, then as they hit the top they start to free roll again. You could do this with a soft flexible felt like material (as long as the slope wasn't so high it overpowered the friction of the material) that acts as a conveyor belt for the climb section. Another idea was to use a similar process but have one way blocks that the cars could roll past in one direction but stop it trying to roll back. These don't have to be huge, something half as high as a matchstick is thick would be more that enough. Then same thing, when they get to the transition point they should be able to roll off. You could keep that a little more controlled by having it funnel down to one lane at the entry to it then open it back up for the rest of the track, if needed.
- you, good sir, never cease to amaze me, I look at lots of vids every night, and never saw those. (still my rookie year, and finding this place) that's unbelievably more cool than that giant monster art thing. (and for the record, I think a laminar booster may work) it doesn't blow the cars, just the air around, nascar cars have a tall flat ass, limit it to nascar like builds, and (like nascar) a max height spoiler on a big "slingin' oval/trioval — dr_dodge
what about something out of the box like this
spin the track? just brain storming,
www.americanflyerdisplays.org/promotional/PopSci-Rotating%20Layout.pdf
I like the conveyer idea, that wouldn't be too hard to build
dr
- I'm wondering about a track on a platform with a center pivot. The operator could raise and lower it to adjust the incline. It would function sort of like that old marble labyrinth game. You could set up a shroud around the outside similar to how tiny track cars has his current track set up. It would be filmed with three or four stationary cameras located on the infield or grandstand. The main problem I see is what might happen when one or two cars fall off the pace, and or crash. I imagine you could wave the yellow flag so to speak to clear the wreck and then restart the race with some creative editing. — Milestone_Racing
- it's the carnival ride, adj incline, flatness of track, and speed, all permade of aluminum, minor metalwork required — dr_dodge
- oh, in the scrap pile currently...lol — dr_dodge
www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7FFbXfwwck
looks like a labor day weekend project
(I have a bead roller, plan on loppin' the ends off w/ band saw, and reflanging, & reassemble)
can ya tell I've looked at that mixer for years and thought...lol
and, in honor of all our Canadian friends,And tribute to Red Green,
I plan to use plenty of duct(k) tape
dr
The only two problems I see is if you want to make the turns to scale you can't really buy OR 3d print it. The other prblem is supporting the track on top of itself.