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Today John Gill and I finished up some last details on his new 3 lane routed track. John and I built this track over the last few weeks. Actual time spent to complete the construction was approximately 8 days total. The layout is a simple, with no overpass and a minimum of corners. John wanted a track for testing his 1/24 hard body race cars as well a track for racing 1/32 cars. John used recessed magnetic braid for the electrical contact.

We also added a built in test strip in one corner of the track. The test strip is controlled by a toggle switch, features a high amp potentiometer for speed control, and an indicator light to let racers know the test strip is powered up.

John used Slot Car Corner controller hook ups. When ordered as a kit it comes with terminal blocks, screws, electrical connectors, and wire. One thing to note is; if you are planning to run 1/24 cars with S16D motors, the circuit breakers supplied by Slot Car Corner will not work. They cannot handle the current needed to run super 16 Ds and will trip. We removed the circuit breakers from the positive side of the circuit, but left them in the brake circuit to protect controllers.

This is the test strip set up we built.

This is the technical end of the track.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P2uObV326aU

Saturday March 13th was the day for the first race on the newly reconfigured Checkered Flag road course. The first race held on the course was for the OSCAR club's NASCAR Class. These are most likely some of the fastest "hard body" slot cars in the nation! The racing action was spectacular with lots of door to door battles all day long!

In the OSCAR race format qualifying starts the event. We had 13 racers for this event, each got 2 minutes on the blue lane to post their best/fastest lap time. Since this was the first race after the track's reconfiguration, a new lap record was set and broken a few times over. The new lap record at Inslot's Checked Flag Raceway for the Late Model OSCAR NASCAR Class is 4.548 seconds set by John Gill. With the reconstruction the new additional lap length increased lap times by approximately three quarters of a second.

After qualifying were moved directly into the race. The race consisted of 4 minute heat races, one on each of the four lanes, which equals one round. The race length was four rounds of racing which equals 64 minutes of on track race time. There was a 2 minute intermission between each heat race to allow for lane changes and cooling of the cars.

I was very pleased with how smoothly the race went, but especially pleased with the close racing the track provided. In my opinion I believe the changes to the track made it somewhat easier to negotiate. Even the novice racers and those that had never turned a lap on the new layout did extremely well! In the end just 4 laps separated the top four, with just one lap separating the top three, with first and second on the same lap! 5 laps covered sixth through ninth.

Results:

1. Stew Meat 765 Laps
2. Touring John  765
3. Terrible Tommy 764
4. Zack Attack
5. JP-niss 747
6. Bad Billy 730
7. Michael 730
8. Korbynator 727
9. Nak Nak Bob 725
10. Gearloose Jerry 696
11. Bart Man 691
12. Professor Fate Jim 592
13. Wrong Way Jeff (with relief driver Howie) 643 = DQ*
* Correction made to finish positions. Jeff had to leave for an emergency and was replaced by Howie as a back up driver.

It was an awesome day of racing! The weather was beautiful and it was so good to be with friends again at the track! There were so many smiles and so much laughter! Thank you to everyone that made it out!

I want to thank all those that helped me with the track work, especially Howie, John Gill, Beau, and Stewart. And a great big thanks to my son Greg for saving the old computer that runs the SRT track program! I look forward to the next racing event here!