Building A Table for a Slot Car Track

A lot has happened since my last post. During that time, I had constructed a "table" out of various spare and leftover pieces of box furniture, as well as other things that weren't being used at the time. Trouble was, the centerpiece of the "construction" was a coffee table, which my wife decided she needed to use. So I took apart the table and went back on the rug.

Time went by. I got more straights. Then more 1/60 curves. I could now go from one wall to the other on the floor.

When I was a kid, Saturday mornings meant setting up the slot car track in the living room and racing while watching cartoons. They'd start at 7:00 and run until about 2:00. Breakfast and lunch were eaten on the floor during racing, and the classic fistfight between my brother and I would usually break out at around 1:00 or so, resulting in one of us usually spending the rest of the day grounded. My Mom preferred us playing slot cars as opposed to Hot Wheels for a few reasons: slot car track, while hard plastic, doesn't fly well, isn't long enough to use as a weapon, and often needs to be disconnected properly. Hot Wheels track was long, flexible, and with a few held together could be a brutal welting machine, capable of really leaving a mark.

So that was life with slot cars. They're perfectly at home on the rug. With that said, about freakin time I did what I did.

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Building A Table

End of an era. My track's last day on the floor. The wonderful, fuzzy, back-breaking world of modern rug racing.

I'm pretty good at putting together Ikea box furniture. I can usually get through the directions well enough to make a good, sturdy whatever with no missing parts. That does not qualify me to do any kind of scratch work, though.

I had an idea of what I wanted regarding a table for my track: something semi-permanent that I could stand next to or sit at like a normal table. It would be all one fixed elevation, which further elevation changes I would add later once I got a satisfactory track design figured out. So I measured the space, worked it out on some track editing software, and called some woodworking buddies and asked for help. I couldn't get any of them to commit. Actually, that's only partially true.

I recently got a promotion at work, which happened to occur just before my scheduled 3-week vacation. To celebrate, my wife asked me if I had any projects I'd like to work on, and I told her that I wanted to [finally] build a slot car table in the attic. So I got together my notes, we went down to the lumber yard, and I picked up about 100 bucks worth of wood. Four 4x8' sheets of 1/2" plywood, about a dozen 1x3's and another dozen 1x5's [more like 1/2"x5"]. See? Just me explaining what wood I bought out to show just how little I know about all this.

And wouldn't you know it, the minute I got it home I wanted to start building. I didn't even want to bother setting up an appointment with a buddy to do it. I figured if I screw it up, I'm out a hundred bucks. Big deal. So off we go.

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The Plan

19' x 4', roof-to-roof.

4' is really narrow for Carrera track to do practically anything on. You can extend a 1/60 U-turn by adding a straight in the middle, but other than that not much else will fit. But for now I'm going to start with 19x4.

I decided I was going to build two 4'x8' tables, and join them longways with a 4' bridge piece covering the gap in the middle. This way I'd have some adjustability as to how the table sits in the room.

Those clamps are more reliable than my friends.

Woodwork isn't easy. "Measure twice - cut once" is about the best piece of advice I got. I picked up a couple of all-purpose clamps to get me started. They ended up being much more valuable than I expected.
I'm not sure what you'd call that type of construction, but I'm sure it has a name. It's nothing special, and taken from pics I saw of other tables on the internet.

I measured out the side pieces to roughly 8'. That gave me 1/2" on each side to lay the top on the end pieces. Each table had three long side pieces, and four 4' end pieces. In the middle I used slightly fatter pieces, which made it easier to attach the inside top to something.

It's coming together. The frame measures a hair over 4'x8'.

I live in a tall, narrow, 3 story house. In order to get the wood up the stairway to the attic, I had to cut the 4x8's into 4x4's. This kind of worked in my favor, as it was easier to mount them on the frames, and they felt more sturdy. Not sure if that's true, but it felt that way.

I wanted to leave one side open so I could sit at it like a regular table, but I can change that very easily by adding more cross supports. In fact, I will be changing it.

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Not There Yet

Here's what it looks like with the tables finished and the "bridge" temporarily installed. The bridge is an unused 4'x'4'. 

Let me just say right off the bat what a huge difference it is between the rug and a table. The angle of view is much better, the experience much more immediate, and the speed seems faster. The sudden fear of losing a car off the table to the floor exists. Ultimately, my track will never have guard rails attached to the side of the track, but it will have extensions in the curves with guard rails a bit further back. This brings me to my biggest gripe....

NOT ENOUGH TRACK SPACE

No matter how you design it, no matter what special track you might have, 4' is just not enough space to do anything satisfactory with unless you stack it all over itself. I've read tips and suggestions on what is right and what is wrong about designing a track/table, and I'm about to go directly against everything that I've read. The following may be the dumbest decision I've made yet, and only time and experience will tell.

See that pole holding up the roof on the left side of this shot? It's a little over 2' from the edge of the table to the pole, and I'm planning on putting an extension there. 2' deep by 4' wide. And to prove I'm crazy, I'm going to do one on the other side too. I'll finish them off with nice transitional triangle-shaped pieces.

I had originally thought about building two wing-like extensions, each adding 5' depth and 7' across. They'd ultimately form a U-shape. Then my buddy Frank came over for a weekend of hanging out, and we did lots of slot car racing. That's when I realized that if I extended the two sides to right where the posts are, I don't lose any sightline. Any further back and I wouldn't be able to see the cars unless I was racing by myself. And although that happens more often than not, it would make my track unworkable if anybody showed up to race. That would be a different level of stupid.

When we raced, we instinctively stood about two feet away from the track. I think that was likely due to it's width. It cut down on the tennis-head-swivel thing. But it also left plenty of room to see not only the whole track, but the big empty spots on the sides.

Here's what I have now, size-wise. Counter-clockwise.

Something like this. While there are still 1/60 turns, there are plenty of other radius curves used as transitions. I'm trying not to use any overpasses, and I probably wont go with two giant S features, but this is an idea of what can be done.

I'm willing to sacrifice a little obstructed view for more space, and I think going right up to the posts will do just that. There's a huge bit of difference between those two table sizes, and I'm not going to build something that I'm not satisfied with. And right now I'm not satisfied. I need more.

I'm okay with not having a track design yet. That's the part of rug racing I enjoyed most: constant changing of track design. Once I have settled on my final track design, my plan is to add an underlayer to much of the track, cut in a similar but wider shape. Then I'll elevate that instead of just the track. That'll allow me to control overall elevation and give everything more depth, as well as make the track that much smoother. And since Carrera track flexes enough to add 4˚- 6˚ or so of banking, I'll get better transitions. Then when it comes to adding scenery and stuff, the track bed will make a nice basis on which to work. Add a bit of runoff on the curves, followed by fencing or guard rails or hay bales or some such thing, then grass and trees. A well-placed building or two.

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Getting What I Want

I'd ultimately like it to look a little like Le Mans in the 60's. The track design won't resemble it at all, but I'd like the theme to be that. I'd really love a section through tall trees. My wife wants some craft challenges, so I'm thinking of a hillside forest in the back right corner. Oh, and the backstretch will be raised by a good 10" over the rest of the race track. So there will be some transitions. I'm thinking a long uphill on the right, with cliffside switchbacks. A nice long radius curve going into the elevated back straight, which comes out of the forest and down the hill, to a long radius curve getting progressively tighter. This will cut off my far corners a bit, which is okay, as the added soft banking will mean less cars off the track in that hard-to-reach corner. I'll probably even elevate the corners with scenery to stop cars from making it all the way back there.

In the end, the whole thing will likely be quite scenery heavy. If that means the track doesn't take up every square inch of the table, then so be it. I had even thought of a big floppy-eared oval for awhile, with R4 curves and everything. But I'd like a little infield action, while having plenty of room for vistas and somewhat hilly forest racing. Curve selection is going to be important, so that's the next step in track acquirement.

Here is the track with the curve color codes. K1 Orange. K2 Yellow. K3 Green. K4 Blue. The larger the number, the larger the radius. Even with this track design, there are way too many K1's for my taste. I don't mind using two together, but I'm going to try to make that the most, and figure out better use of each side.

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I know. There are loads of flaws in my idea. I can sense them. But I think I have some ways around them, and once they're tried they'll be okay. I really want a nice long 9+ second lap. If that means having a few kooky design ideas, then so be it. The track comes apart, as does the table.

I'm probably going to do the extension work rather soon, so I'm not sure when the next race will be. I'm considering running one with what I have set up for now, so I'll have a reference when I expand. If the extensions don't work out...if I decide that I can't see as well as I thought, so that I have to do too much looking around, or something else, then I'll take them off. My only other option would be to widen the entire track to about 5'. As it is now I can lean over and put my hand flat on the back stretch. So far I haven't had to reach to the farthest corners, but even with my current track design, they aren't really in the line of fire unless you brazenly punch the car without stopping.


The plan going forward is to add six K2 and six K3 track pieces. I'll probably need more, but they're a whole lot more pricey than K1 tracks are, which is why I have so many. Once I have them, I'll work on some design ideas. Chances are the first designs will be something along the lines of a big floppy-eared oval, so I'll get an opportunity to see how that works.