What a difference a track makes!

Jobe Saturday, 8/14/2010

This morning I loaded up my two boys and some Hot Wheels and headed to the local Austin HW club, the Bat City Hot Wheels Club. Variation Jason came to the meeting from out of town with his race track, which was my main reason for attending. And his track couldn't have been more different from mine!

It wasn't the full length, I think it was set up to be about 35' or so because of room size constraints. He has a full blown Judge finish line which was cool to experience, it works very nice. His track starts about 5' or so off the floor with a steady slant to the floor then a short flat run to the finish line, I forgot to take a photo...sorry. My cars behaved quite differently, the heavier cars took longer to get going and if you're car didn't roll very well you were out of luck!

We raced a stock class with 16 cars, 2 for everyone. One of my cars made it to the second round but all four of my boys cars were out. One of the kids there had a really really fast Batmobile FTE. My friend Morgan from my car night races came out with his family as well. We raced some of our modified cars against each other for fun. Soccer Mom (my dodge caravan) was still pretty fast on that track, think I built a winner!

It was fun racing on another track, look forward to doing again.


Discussion

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redlinederby 8/15/10
Site manager

Tracks make ALL the difference if you ask me. My track is a very short track compared to most, less than 20-feet. Last season I took the last race outside and extended the track to 25-feet. It was only an extra 5 or 6 feet, but what a difference it made.

Some cars that are demons on the short track couldn't chug the extra mileage...and vice versa. I think length is the biggest factor, but you also have track joints (if there are any) drop angle and whether or not the transition is soft or hard. My track has a rather hard transition only because I don't have the length to do so otherwise.

Great to hear some of you guys got a chance to meet in person, that's really cool.

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markkaz 8/15/10

There has been some people who wanted to make a standardized
ramp for nationwide competitions but there isn't enough interest.

I think it is better to have different ramps because you never know
how your car is going to do on any given track so it makes it more
interesting.

Not only that but everybody has their own take on how they want
their ramp to look as well as what resources they have to build one.

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redlinederby 8/16/10
Site manager

A national diecast racing organization would be awesome. I'd throw my hat in the ring to help set that up in a heartbeat. I'm hoping to start in on my super racing database project soon, which will pull from the League stats but also let clubs submit their own results.

Environment just plays such a factor with tracks I think. I mean, I'd love a 25+ foot track but I just don't have the space. After doing the long track last season I really liked it, so come the fall when the temperatures cool down a bit I hope to maybe do more long track racing.

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