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Thanks Smooth!

My plan is to get it up and running so everyone interested can do some racing on it at its new location. After we get some run time on it I'd like to maybe do some maintenance work like rewiring the driver's stations, replacing some of the side boards, and maybe new braid. It doesn't really need anything, but I'd like to put some of my own touches into it at some point. I want it to retain its character and heritage, true to its original builder Kirk Smith, and its home clubs PASER & OSCAR it served for years. I don't want to change it into something else.

After today's work the track is all one piece again. The joints are all aligned and ready for a little finish work. Finish work means filing, sanding, and a little bondo, but it won't take much.

Here's a close up look at the upper/back straight track surface joint. It went back together very well and I'm pleased with the alignment. The gap is very narrow and the pieces are level, no drop or bump in the surface.

The lower curve where the turn marshal's hole is located was really hard to get right. I used the floor jack and post to get it level, but when I started setting the other parts of the track onto legs the joint would shift. Probably due to differences in my shop floor from Bob's. This joint took a lot of persuasion, mallet, wood, jacking, and track table leg resetting!

I used clamps underneath the track surface on the framework to hold everything together while I made minor adjustments.

More jack and post work to align the lower curve leading to the short straight.

I truly love Harbor Freight Tools, but sometimes you realize you get what you paid for!

This project could never have been completed without all the help from my friends in the slot car community!

Thanks to Bob McFarland for allowing me to be the next guardian of Checkered Flag Raceway.

Thanks to gary "Howie" Howard for his help, bringing his trailer to the party, and his support throughout this endeavor and in my slot car interests in general.

And a big thank you to everyone that cam out to help, Mitch Brooks, Chris Kouba, Jeff Fields, Amy Fields, Rico Locati, Tracy Flood, Bob Nakamura, Dennis Hart, Jeff Burns, Beau Frazier, Al Christensen, Marty Barney, and Ted (sorry Ted, I still don't know your last name). You are all AWESOME and valued friends!

Howie did an outstanding job of backing that trailer up the driveway. He had less than 3 inches clearance on each side, and overhead to get under that TV satellite dish!

Once we got the large section out of the trailer we rolled it into the shop.

Once we had close to where it would be set up, we used clamps to secure some of the legs back in position.

Ready to unload the U-Haul.

The height of the U-Haul's deck made it a chore to get the section unloaded. But thankfully we had plenty of people to handle the weight.

Once it was off the truck we walked it into the shop.

A lot of grunting, huffing, and puffing, got this section onto the trailer ramp.

The moment of truth. Push and hope!

It was really close. The track was 7 foot 9 inches wide. The door opening on Howie's trailer was 7 foot 5 inches. I had figured out on graph paper that if we took the legs off this section we would be able to tip it up and just get it through the door opening. What I didn't account for were the inner fenderwells inside the trailer.

The section slid right in. It wasn't even as close as I had feared.

The inside width of Howie's trailer was 8 feet even so I knew if we could get it in it would lay down flat in the trailer. And it did, we sat it down flat right on top of the inner fenderwells. One large tie down strap over the top to keep it from shifting forward or backward and it was ready for the ride to Vancouver.

Amy took some great photos during the move. Thought I'd share some of them here.

Thank you Amy!

The first thing we did was cover both track pieces. I did not want to take any chance of water damage if it started raining. Of course it never did start raining but, if we would not have covered the track it surely would have!

We moved the section of track that was located closest to the overhead door down the driveway and under the carport. This gave us enough room to get the larger piece loaded onto Howie's car trailer first. The plan was if it did not fit into Howie's trailer we would try to fit it into the U-Haul. I knew the smaller section would fit into the trailer or the U-Haul easily. The larder section was the wild card!

I had hoped for at least 12 people for the move. Thanks to AWESOME friends we exceeded that number!

A big thanks to Zack Morgan for these great photos from today's race!

I have my hotel reservation!

I have a vacant seat if anyone is interested in going down for this year's Fray!

More move photos from Howie:

Stan, I apologize again for having this track move scheduled for the day of your race, but I just need to get it done ASAP. I'm really going to miss this race because I was looking forward to checking out your track. Hopefully I will be able to make it next time.
=======Bill