Loving the Kinks

When I had first asked for the larger-radius curves, I wasn't sure exactly how I was going to use them or whether it would matter for the most part, but I'm discovering that it's really working out. When you expand by the full set, you get hammered with all these 1/60 curves, the smallest radius curve Carrera makes, and the one that comes standard with most kits. Yeah, I understand why. Smaller radius curves mean the track can fit on a smaller overall space. But as anybody who runs on a track with only 1/60 curves can tell you, once you figure out your top speed through a 1/60 curve, set it and forget it. Go that fast through the curve every time for maximum speed without crashing. Okay, great.

But it gets boring and repetitive. When every turn's the same, there's no variety. There's especially no thrilling places to pass, or longer turns that can be taken at greater speed...none of that.

So now I've got some 2/30's and 3/30's. In case your curious, here's how the numbering for Carrera Evolution track works:

1/60 is Curve 1 at 60º
2/30 is Curve 2 at 30º
3/30 is Curve 3 at 30º
4/15 is Curve 4 at 15º

When one end of a track piece to the other is 60º, it takes three track pieces to make a 180º turn. It takes six 2/30's or 3/30's to do it. It takes twelve to make a 180º turn with 4/15's.

Curve 1, 2, 3 and 4 are meant to sit into one another. For example: four 180º turns made up of Curves 1 - 4 would all fit snugly together and produce 8 lanes of racing. So if a 1/60 is tight [it is], a 4/15 is barely a turn at all [it barely is].

The 1/60 in orange on the inside is the smallest radius Carrera makes. 

So, back to my track. Since I've gotten those new curves, I've wanted to put them into the track in a way that doesn't screw up the beauty of the right side of the layout, which I've grown to love. Yeah, it's almost all 1/60's the whole way, but it really works as a technical "hillclimb". So I don't want to screw with it, and the left side needs work anyway.

I tried something for the left side with the layout program in the computer that didn't work. Then I physically started moving pieces around and got them to fit. But I hadn't used enough new pieces yet, so I kept going. Once I had used all but one, I stopped out of fear I'd screw the whole thing up if I tried to integrate that single last piece.

Here's the new left side, with all the new curve pieces. Going counter-clockwise, you come off the backstretch to a soft left-hander, then braking a bit before a sweeping left hand curve. As you drift out, the road begins to widen just before shifting you into a harder left. Then a hard-right into the front stretch.

I'm noticing a few things now that I have this setup. The overall track speed is a lot faster, as over half the track can be taken at a much higher speed than the hillclimb section. It doesn't let you off the hook though, as you're still racing, so you have to find that edge.
I love the sweeping left hander and drifting through it. Some of the cars break out just right. The setup is five 2/30's, then one 3/30, followed by a 1/30, If you set your drift right, you'll come out of that 3/30 in the perfect position to roll through the left kink. If you miss the end of the drift due to the 3/30 taking the steam out of it, you'll hit the kink hard and have to negotiate the right kink as well. It's definitely the trickiest part of the track, and since it comes midway through the fastest part of the layout, getting through it properly can mean better lap times.

Also, the 1/30 curve, depending on the angle you look at it, looks like it's at the base of a hill that the curve is coming off, but it isn't. There's a slight difference of about an inch between it and the apex of the curve and the 1/30, but that's not nearly enough to produce that kind of effect. Anyhow, it doesn't matter much, but it does kind of throw off my perspective sometimes.

A top-down look at the new left section. The kink is a lot easier to see.

So my plan is to sit on this for awhile before going on to the next step, which is buying the wood, measuring, cutting and installing the track platform. But before I do that I want to run races...lots of races on this track. I've already started timing and the paint's barely dry. I got lots of weird results from the first gathering, and I'm still trying to understand it. After all, two cars with stock tires ran the fastest laps. One of those two cars is known around these parts to be not-the-fastest car out there. Neither car that had urethane tires did particularly well.

I'm going to run time trials of varying length. I'll tune each car for itself and run them with the tires that are on them. So no more urethane borrowing for the Ickx car. But the jury is still out whether urethane is going to outperform rubber on this track.

Coming from the kink back out to the main straight, then up the hill. If I was to change anything, it would be to replace the S-curve at the end of the front straight with something like 2/30's, but I don't have any more and won't likely be buying more soon.

My wife asked me if I got enough pieces to make the track I wanted, and I told her yes.

With a permanent layout, I'm not going to have the luxury of designing a new track each race like I used to do. So I'm going to have to flip the format a little bit and still try to keep it somewhat competitive. Not sure how I'm going to do that outside of each car just trying to set a personal best, but that's much of a competition. I could do races of different length, endurance races, there are probably other possibilities.

I've got some days off coming soon, so I'll be able to run some races. I still need to work on the Leyton House car. Another half hour or so under the knife and it should be good to go.