My plans, so carefully worked out, have been thrown into disarray. "How has this happened?", you may ask. It is pretty simple. One, I don't know exactly what I want yet. Two, I saw an incredible picture on the internet. Yep, a picture on the internet wrecked my world. You see, before I built the 1/43 scale track which I was disappointed with, I was thinking about building an oval. Not just any oval, but an oval to remind me of the 1/4 mile dirt track races we went to when I was a kid. I wanted to landscape it and put up functional light poles. Somehow I got distracted from what I originally wanted and put up something else. The picture I saw was of John Peckham's home track. It was only one corner, but the picture and what it signified spoke to me.
To me this picture is so cool it got my juices flowing. I can picture Sprint car bodies, fairgrounds racers, old Willis geared up for dirt track sitting on top of T-Jet chassis. Here are three such owned by Rickie Hubbert.
Russell Rogers AMC Gremlin and Randy Ward's fairgrounds Falcon
As you can see, a track that is painted like a dirt track and landscaped with functional light poles with tires around them, dirt piles, grand stands, etc.... would really be cool. Then you get cars like these and you have a really fun replica of old time dirt track racing. Especially if you wire the track for lights in the infield. Then you could turn off most of the overhead lights and run night time races. The track would be light poorly so it has bright spots and dim spots just like the old dirt tracks did. Now, the problem is I don't have room for two tracks. So, the oval would have to be designed in such a way that it could fit under the road course then be put above it when in use. The good part is the oval layout could be put on boards that go across the top of the road course and it could share the power supplies used for the other layout. Much to figure out! I think I can work out the logistics though. Maybe my trip this weekend to the North Alabama Slot Car Association will help me figure it out.
Thunder Cave Speedway Begins Construction
The concept for the track goes back to my childhood and the races my parents took my brother and I to in the late 50's. I think about the quarter mile dirt track in Jackson, MS. It was called the Jackson Sports Arena. As far as the dirt tracks I went to, and I will openly admit my brother has been to a lot more of these tracks than I have, but in my memory this was the grandest of all the ones I went to. It had what I would consider a low banked quarter mile oval. I seem to remember the back straight being a little shorter than the front straight. This was due to the exit of turn 2 and the entrance of turn 3 being a little more sweeping than the entrance to the front straight and the entrance to turn 1 with them being pinched a little tighter. Maybe this was not the way it truly was, but that is how I remember it as a child between the ages of 5-10 years old. I invite anyone who remembers the track better to dispute my memory. It really doesn't matter though as the spirit of the track is what I am trying to capture and not the exact replication of the shape of the track.
In order to make the track have a difference between the front straight and the back straight I will be making the track in what would look more like a modified version of the Charlotte super speedway. The front straight will be 80" long followed by a 135 degree turn to the right. A normal oval would have a 180 degree turn into the back straight, but in order to make a modified oval this make up was chosen. I would like to have a corner that would lead into a curved straight making the track a "D" shaped oval, but this is impossible with the limitations of a sectional plastic track. Following the 135 degree turn there will be a 15" straight then a 45 degree corner leading into the actual back straight. The back straight will be 56" long leading into another 45 degree turn and a 15" straight going into the turn on the end of the track. Think of Charlotte having a long chute in the middle of the tri-oval part of the track instead of a short chute.
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| Early mock up of Thunder Cave Speedway. The actual track will have 20 inches added to the front and back straights. |
The plans are complete for the track and construction is now beginning. The track will be made of old Aurora track with the track clipped together on the bottom of the track holding the side by side sections together as well as the end to end sections. This will give the track a really tight feel and will do away with the need to fill the gaps with putty as I did on the last track I built. This track will be flush mounted in sanded plywood just as my other track was, however there will be one large difference. Instead of depending on my cutting skills to make the flush mount tight against the track I will be using computer cut curve borders which will fit much better. I will then cut out my top sheet of plywood for the track to fit into with the borders in place.
The electronics of the track will be quite extensive in that there will be wire soldered under the track to the exposed rails. This wire will be traveling the full route of the track and will be soldered to each section of the track. This way the track will not be dependent on the section to section connections to assure good connections. The track will consist of 42 sections so we are looking at a minimum of 168 solder joints to the track rails. The lap counting system will be a Viasue photo cell system. I have used it on my previous track and it has worked flawlessly.
Keeping with the concept of Saturday Night Dirt Track Racing, I have decided to paint this track. After searching for the proper paint I have selected on Rustoleum 2X which will adhere to plastic. I had planned to use Kyrlon Fusion but the colors just did not seem right for a dirt track. The Rustoleum offered a very nice color, Nutmeg, to represent the dirt surface. I have tested this paint on a couple spare pieces of track and it seems to adhere very well and it really looks good. Learning from my last experience painting a track I have decided to spend the extra time masking the rails so I will not have to scrape them clean after painting. The infield will be painted green with texturing on it to represent grass. Also on the infield will be a painted pit area with modeling grit to simulate a dirt surface. What dirt track would be complete without lights! If I am to represent Saturday night at a dirt track I simply must have lights on light poles. I am currently looking at the l.e.d. possibilities versus the old style light bulbs. Although the l.e.d. lights would be easier to use, more readily available, and more dependable, I am considering the old style lights to get a warmer light that is not as bright. Anyone who has ever been to a night race at a quarter mile dirt track may have experienced the spotty lighting making areas between the lights a little less bright. After all this is not a football stadium, the lighting will be a little less than perfect. Of course the light poles will have tractor tires stacked up with the light pole standing in the middle of them. Any respectable dirt track has three pieces of equipment, a water truck, road grader, and a roller to pack the track down. This dirt work will be represented by piles of dirt in the infield and along the inside edge of the track where it has been graded off to the side. Modeling grit will be used to add the proper texture and color for dirt.
I thought about having bleachers, a concession stand, and other such items on the table but quickly dismissed this as it may be an obstacle for corner marshals getting to cars. I have considered building a flagman's stand to be on the front straight, but am also considering a place on the side of the track on the infield where a flagman would stand. This was the way it was at the Jackson Sports Arena. You can get carried away with landscaping and get things in the way of racing if you are not careful. This is an area where I will have to be very careful. Another decision to be made is about the lane stripes. It would be awful painting Red, White, Blue, and Yellow lane stripes on what is supposed to be a dirt track, but I am afraid there is no way around it considering having races on it. I am thinking about just trying to make the stripes as thin as possible. They would be there but not as noticeable.
The track has been thoroughly cleaned and the next step is to prepare for painting. This will include using a wire brush on a dremel tool to clean any electrical contact areas and sanding the rails. Following this I will be masking the rails for painting the connecting the track sections into 5 or 6 sections for painting. After painting the track will be fully assembled and turned upside down to begin the process of soldering the wires to the rails.
A note...This track was donated by Kevin Riggs of North Alabama Slotcar Association in Huntsville, AL. The track was originally wired the way I described and was a fantastic job the took endless hours of dedicated work to accomplish. Unfortunately some of the solder joints had come loose after years of sitting up and I had to strip a lot of it out from under the track. Also to change the layout of the track a lot of the wiring had to be cut to separate the sections from their last configuration. Kevin had done such a wonderful job on this wiring it really hurt removing any of it. I do promise Kevin I will use the same dedication in this build as he did in the original build. Thanks Kevin, you showed me the way!
I will be posting as the progress of the build moves forward.
The "Dirt" at Thunder Cave
The new track "The Dirt", is an oval track on a 4'x10' table. The track is somewhat of a "D" shaped track. The track itself was a donor track from Kevin Riggs of the North Alabama Slotcar Association. His donor track was broken up into pieces and actually created two tracks. The other track it was used to create was the Clintonapolis Slot Car Speedway. Clintonapolis is a replica of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway on a 4'x8' table.
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| Clintonapolis Slot Car Speedway, Clinton, MS |
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| The beginnings of the "Dirt" |
Once the track was designed I decided to take it to the next level by adding distinctive landscaping. The entire Aurora lock and joiner track had been painted Nutmeg Brown and it had a good look for a dirt track. Before painting the track was thoroughly cleaned, scrubbed, and sanded so the paint (Rustoleum 2X for plastic) would stick properly. The power rails were painstakingly masked off with tape. This process involved covering the rails then using a razor blade to cut the tape along the bottom of the rails. It did make the after painting process a lot easier but it took over 20 hours to mask the rails after the track had been completely cleaned. The paint went down on the track very easily a few pieces at a time and the masking was removed about an hour after painting. The track was then left alone for the paint to "cure" for a solid week before it was touched again. The paint on the test pieces I had done prior held up in a variety of stress test including beating on the track with a heavy set of keys and a screw driver scratch test.
Once the track was painted I began the process of building a new table for the track. Once the table was built, minus the side walls, I started the layout process. I began by actually assembling the track in 3 sections. Each of these sections were then worked on individually to adjust the track if any rails didn't meet up properly. If one end of a track section had rail height a little taller than the other I would adjust by rotating or swapping pieces so there was not a "bump" between rail connections but a "drop" if necessary.
I must say it took a little longer than I thought it would take to build the track as I had to rewire the track due to an unexplained phenomenon that allowed older controllers to work on the track but not the more modern controllers...DiFalco controllers to be precise. This was worked out by taking some of the load off the main power and ground lines and spreading the load a little. To this day I still can't figure it out, but it works! The track was set up with three....count 'em, three.....power taps. The power is spread on the track extremely well and there are no weak points in the current to the rails.
End result is the track is up and running and is really fast. All of the turns having 15" outside radius makes for a lot of speed through the turns and into the straights. So far everyone who has run on it seems to really enjoy it.
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