With plenty of other tasks to do the rains have been keeping me indoors. When that happens, I usually play with slot car stuff or hack on computer stuff. This week has been all SR3 construction.
With the table completed, I started laying down the track and completed the oval course placement. Once you get that set, you can go ahead and lay down the road course pieces. While I didn’t achieve perfection with the oval pieces fitting together perfectly, it was good enough. So I decided to keep going and get the road course pieces fastened to the table.
It’s quite an interesting operation if you’ve not done it
before. Brad Bowman’s tracks are tongue and groove, which is really cool. However, you still have to fit the pieces together very precisely. Like a plastic sectional track, you don’t fasten any pieces until you’ve put it all together and made sure everything lines up–end-to-end.
In the case of a convertible oval-to-road course track, you have to get the oval layout dialed first. Then you have a fixed starting point for the rest of the puzzle. I didn’t get the oval to align together perfectly but it was extremely close and I didn’t have time to start over and get it perfect. These shots show the track in various stages of placement completion and the complete placement of the entire course.
The next steps are to set the banking angles of the oval and elevate the overpass section. I may also elevate or bank other sections of the road course as I evaluate the course complexity and funness.
on the system the only modifications I’ll add are extra horizontal and vertical bracing to the garage joists and some sort of safety straps to prevent a pulley mount from failing. Yea, I didn’t do that with SR2 but this beast makes me nervous to get under for any length of time.
The wet weather continues but progress is still being made. We’re almost ready to start laying down track after finishing the table over the weekend.
After that, it’s all about laying out the track and getting it placed perfectly on the table. The SR3 table is much larger than SR2 at 16×6 vs. 14×5, which suggested the table sides should be a bit higher due to the increased speeds and velocity in the corners.
Excavation and geology work has been difficult with all the much needed rain. But construction is progressing and we’re on schedule!
The base table is almost complete now as you can see. I just need to finish fastening the table top sheets to the frame, cut and route the side and end panels, then paint and assemble. After that, it’s all about laying out the track, oval first, and securing anchor points to keep it in position as the wiring and electronics are installed.
Lots of decisions to be made so I’m anxious to get some veteran racers over to comment on things. A couple key decision needed are what side of the garage the main start/finish straight will be on, what pit spacing to try first, and what layout to employ for the grand opening race day.
All construction materials arrived today, December 20, 2021. But not without drama, of course. I won’t bore you with the details but I did have some issues with the lumber supplier.
In any case, all the lumber products
I’m also considering flush-mount driver’s stations instead of the horizontal platforms that SR2 has. I really like the platform-style stations but SR3 is over a foot wider as it is. Adding the platforms would make it almost 8-feet wide! So, bring your Fray pit-box hanger and deal with it! Sides will be 3/4 MDF. More construction reports to come as construction proceeds. Oh, and I’ll have Bowman or Viper controller holsters, haven’t decided on that yet.