It’s been three years since I have made any significant changes to the Woodrum Ridge tracks. Between just not feeling well (I had heart surgery in April of 2016) and not certain what I wanted to do with the track design, it sort of just hung in limbo. But since the heart surgery and recovery, I have tons of energy and motivation that just wasn’t there before. So the race track started receiving some much needed attention. The track had become a collection point for everything that made it’s way to the basement, that was supposed to be put away or built during some project I had planned. Remember that lack of motivation thing? The track became a stack, then a pile and eventually a mound of slot car parts, model kits, boxes and whatever gathered. I spent 2 weeks sorting, shifting good stuff and tossing out the junk (to the tune of 14 contractor bags of stuff). Once cleared, I could assess the status of the track and the scenery. Nothing was damaged, just really dirty and largely unused. After a good vacuuming, all of the scenery buildings and whatever else was not secured or fixed was carefully boxed up and stored off to the side while I made my mind up on the next move…literally, moving the track from one area of the basement to another.
There were several additions of track-side buildings over this time and they can be seen in detail in the review articles for SlotStructures linked here.
A mild example of a track in disrepair in mid 2014. Note the stacks of junk piled around. If you look close, on top of the pit garages are several of the limited edition ’48 Tuckers that Speed Inc produced.
The diagram below shows the overall game plan for current and future tracks. The red area is where the HO track was originally located and it was moved to the green area. The orange area will be a future 1/32 – 1/24 scale track and the blue area is the HO portable drag strip. The drag strip is the Racing to the Future™ portable track and I keep it up and running in this basement location when not traveling to visit schools or other events. This was the plan in 2016. As we will see later, this was all subject to change!
The original HO track table design was intended to be stationary. I needed to figure out how to move this huge table. It is 6 ft by 16 ft and weighs a ton (or it felt like it). I did not want to have to do any demolition on the scenery work or shift the track, so I focused on making the table mobile. I mounted a series of roller/casters on 2 x 4 blocks. I then used a floor jack to raise each leg a few inches and then mounted the block to the leg. I repeated the process for all 12 legs until the table could roll freely.
Once I could moved the table to the new location, I realized that having the table on wheels would make basement maintenance (changing light bulbs for example) much easier. Move the track, change the light bulbs, move the track back. No more crawling on the table and possibly damaging the scenery or track. Just a note, it was quite the comedy to watch me move this huge table around by myself and avoiding the support poles that run throughout my basement. But nothing was hit and the table made it to it’s new locale. Now that it’s in the new spot, it was time to update the leg structure and add permanent roller/casters to the legs. The table was braced and each leg was removed, one at a time. A roller/caster was added to the bottom of the leg and a new pair of braces were added at 45° angles on each side. Once all 12 legs were updated I noticed the table was several colors and looked piecemeal. Time for some paint.
The picture above shows the 2 x 4 blocks with the roller casters. These were temporary add-ons to get the table moved. Once in the new location, the permanent casters (on right legs) were added and the new braces were placed. You can see the old bracing on the left.
Most of the wood was raw, so a good coat of primer was laid down first. Notice that I removed all of the retaining walls around the oval’s banked turns. This allowed for the table’s top surfaces to be painted and run up and under the track areas. Time to add the finish color, a nice bright red.
A couple of coats of Valspar Bright Red Furniture paint will insure a long life and durable surface finish. Note in the top picture, that I doubled the front fascia of the table with a second 2 x 4 that runs the length of the table. That will hold the driver station shelves and add some reinforcement to the stations.
Once the second coat of red paint was dry, the retaining walls were cleaned and went back up around the banking. Although the pictures show the driver stations in place, they were not quite ready yet and the wiring was the next step. This will involve a complete re-wire of both the oval and road course, driver stations and the lap counter sensors and light bridges. In fact, all new light bridges will be built with dimable Xenon lighting to better serve the lap counter sensors. A new Race Director’s Station will also be created to house the light bridge controls, computer for the lap counter software and power supplies for the track. All of that was set up under the table prior to this rebuild.
The connections to the track sections remained the same. But I did gather the wires and bundled them with zip ties and secured them to the underside of the table with cable clips and screws. New lines from the power supply to the driver’s station were added and new lines from the lap counter sensors in the track were ran back to the new Race Director’s Station area at the end of the track table. Once everything was tested and the wire bundles secured, I started connecting the driver’s stations.
The driver stations are tradition 3-pole configured wiring with a power-ground-brake connections. Because Woodrum Ridge Raceway has two tracks, an oval and a road course, I separated the connections with a double pole-double throw switch. This allows power to go to only one track or the other. The center position shuts power off completely. Each station shelf was painted according to the lane color and clear coated with polyurethane. The controller holder is a modified automobile cup holder with a section of a plastic drinking cup cut out and inserted in place. The bottom is left open so dust bunnies don’t gather, but keeps the controller from slipping through the sides.
The light bridges are simple wooden boxes with extended sides and dowel pins to hold them in place. By using the dowel pins, I can lift the unit and change bulbs when eventually needed. I used a section of ceiling tile light defuser to spread the light evenly from the fixture to the all of the track sensors. The top of the unit has several holes drilled through for ventilation. The Xenon light is connected to a dimmer switch so I can reduce the light to the minimum required for the sensors and reduce heat. It also prolongs the life of the bulb. The DPDT switch controls which light bridge is turned on.
The power supply is a commercial unit that can dial the voltage from 0-30 Volts and can set the Amperage from 0-10 Amps. That in turn is connected to a solid state switch that is controlled by the SRM (Slot Race Manager) software. The switch allows the race manager software to shut off power to the track when the timer reaches 0 seconds in a race segment. The Race Director’s station is compact and sits at the end of the track. The SRM software is set up for track calls and is operated from the keyboard. A second, mirrored display is set up across from the driver’s stations so the racers can see what is going on during the race. The SRM software runs on FreeDOS and can run on older hardware. This system is running on an Intel 150 Mhz CPU and 256 MB of Ram.