2017 Demolition of the
Original Woodrum Ridge Raceway
During the Summer of 2017, my good friend Stan Shelby invited me to come and race with the Lexington Cup Series club. The Lexington group had been racing for almost 20 years and had a great program in place. To be completely honest, I had avoided organized racing since 1993. I had gotten too serious with my racing habits back then and burned out on the hobby. But Stan was persistent and I really enjoyed racing with the LCS guys. I had been bitten by the racing bug again. So after a few races on different tracks in the LCS, I realized my current version of Woodrum Ridge Raceway was not going to meet the need of hosting a race. Most of the track was not easily marshaled and the lap counting system was good, but not up to the standards needed for organized competition. To clarify on the lap counters, the Slot Race Manager (SRM) software will work perfectly fine, but the sensor system I built was a bit suspect and I would not consider it to be consistent enough. So with some serious analysis, I decided to not upgrade the existing track, but to move to the next level and build a commercial grade competition track. (Click Here to Read the Corsa Veloce Track Articles)
I did something similar with the Racing to the Future™ portable drag strip. I sent requests to all of the big name H.O. commercial routed race tracks and got tons of feedback from all of them. Dan Cronin at Viper Scale Racing came up with a great solution for the drag strip, not only routing the track, but making from a more durable solid PVC instead of the more common Sintra type material. I was so pleased with the Viper drag strip, I contacted Dan for routing my home track. Of course me being me, I wanted something unique that no one else had seen before. My basement has lots of space, so the first decision was to expand the track table to 6 feet by 24 feet. I designed the track to be fast, with broad 6 foot diameter turns and a twisty kink to keep the drivers on their toes. Dan took the initial drawing and did the CAD work. With my track design finalized and ordered it was time to build the tables. But before that could happen, the old WRR needed to be torn down.
The pictures above are the last taken before demolition began. WRR had a great 10 year run and it help me get the Speed Inc website started and allowed me to share several “How-To” articles over its lifespan.
The pictures above show the removal of track and getting the wiring pulled out from under the table. It’s a bit chaotic at this stage, but all of the parts are being marked and saved if any components can be used later.
Once all of the track and wiring was removed, the next steps involved removing the track braces and supports. Once those were out of the way, the very long process of removing the landscaping began. If you ever need to do a tear down like this and you used ceiling tiles for your landscaping, make sure to wear a mask. The dust was tremendous. Make sure to clean as you go. It’s amazing how much material was used over the years. After all of the debris was removed, I removed the particle board table surfaces and set them to side for later use. I will be using new table tops to ensure a smooth surface for the new track to rest on.
So here ends the story of the original Woodrum Ridge Raceway. But stay tuned loyal readers, we will continue onward in the articles covering the building of Corsa Veloce and what will eventually become Woodrum Ridge Raceway Park.