Opinions sought - Racing on an incomplete track?

As long as the track itself is complete, it doesn't bother me 

I always thought these were all works in progress! Always a little more to add or change around... more to upgrade as you go... more bits and pieces to get it just right... I don't think a single person here would hold that against you for a second!

I personally don't like my cars being used as Guinea pigs on tracks in progress but like was stated from others, as long as the track itself is finished then it's fine to add diorama and details afterwards. Too much work goes into building a car and I've seen some disasters in the past on test tracks. 
I would suggest though finding someone that could help you out and get a decently fast car to test with. I would test my track with the weight and type of cars I plan to race with. If you are only racing stock cars it's not as difficult but if you are racing 80g modified cars it would be good to test your track with a fast 80g car to make sure it can hold the speed in the corners. 
Thats my two cents

Agree with everything already said...if the track itself is dialed in...then have-at-er...the background details can be fiddled with once you start getting into the filming process...you might see opportunities for details as you go where you might not have thought you needed them before...and vice versa...you might spend a lot of time on some particular detail only for it to never show up once you film the race

The first torunament Mark ran at Gravity Throttle had the finished reace track but the diorama was only partially done. in fact he leant into the fact and called it the Under Construction tournament :)

Sure beaut diorama is wonderful, and I ceratainly take my hat off to those that achieve it. Icing on the cake! But do you need it for great racing, umm, no.

But I much prefer a completed track and one that has been pretty well dialled in.

(But then I do not know what the objective and style of your track is?)

Cheers, good luck

I have struggled with even building a permanent track at all. I want a variation of track lengths and styles and don't have the room to building several tracks. I typically build, modify and test with my nonracing castings before my racing entries or someone else's castings ever touch the track.

My primary goal is solid track performance (which can be very elusive)
same with trains.  
As for scenery, I "coarse do" as much as possible (ground cover, backdrop color, etc)
then I add small detailed dioramas, and flair them in, over time.
In my opinion, scenery is never done.  as your skills improve, you become dissatisfied with earlier stuff, and upgrade/change it
I also like to change up the scenery from time to time, as I find new items

with the crude coarse ground cover done, the overall mess can be cleaned up, and then the smaller detail scenes can be built off the layout/track decreasing the (at times) monumental cleanup needed

Good luck!

dr

Window dressing and modeling should always come second to a solid running track. Make sure the cars roll well and that things are as fair as you can make them.

When you say "incomplete track," I think that the track itself is incomplete...like the freeway just ends...and thought that was a question that answered itself. But once I read and you meant that the decorations are incomplete, I was like, "oh...well sure, what's that matter?" 

I just assume that decorations on a track are getting tweaked and changed all the time. No big deal. It has no bearing on the racing (or shouldn't).

Speaking from a model railroader's viewpoint, aren't ALL tracks by definition "incomplete"? Scenery really means nothing in the scope of things - it's the track itself that matters. (The Tricky Triangle was never really "complete", but there was some good racing on it.)

Dont worry about the scenery. Scenery comes later. Set up a track, run some cars, and try to make things as even as possible. Build, test, tweak, repeat. Once you get things squared away and reliable--as in at least half the cars are consistently making it down the track--then you can worry about how good it looks. Some people don't even  HAVE scenery, just the track, and that's okay, too. God knows how many times I ran a model train around in a circle before I even thought about placing buildings and such .....