Curve Radius [Part 1]

 

Now that I have some of each of the varying radii of curve pieces, I thought I would mention how important I think they are. 

Normally when you buy a slot car set, you get one radius of curves, and they're the smallest radius available. This is what happened to me when I bought my first set. It was a basic extended figure-8 layout with 1/60 curves. And when I expanded, I didn't really thinking about anything else except price, so I bought even more 1/60 curves. They were incredibly cheap, costing me around 2.50 apiece opposed to the 8-10 bucks any of the larger radius pieces would cost. 

Why do I need larger radius track pieces?

As I expanded my track, I started noticing something about my layouts; it didn't matter what layout I designed and ran. All I had to do was master getting around a 1/60 curve and I could go as fast as I wanted anywhere else. Every car will have a maximum speed that can be reached to go through a curve without breaking out and crashing. If every curve in your track is the same, then all you have to do is find that maximum speed and consistently hit it while racing. That has the effect of making every layout pretty quickly boring. So what can you do to make more interesting race tracks?

Four chicanes made up of the various Carrera curves. [top-bottom] 1/60, 2/30, 3/30, 4/15.

Let's say you wanted to break up a straight somewhere and you installed a chicane. In the pic above, you can see how the different radius curve pieces can make very different chicanes, with the 1/60 at the top being the tightest and slowest. This approach can be used with a wide variety of track pieces, adding endless combinations of more challenging layouts. 

Basic Understanding of Carrera Track Pieces

Here's the breakdown:

1/60 = Curve #1 @ 60°. The tightest Carrera curve, one piece turns 60°, so it would take three pieces to make a 180° turn [3 x 60 = 180]. A Carrera 1/60 is roughly equivalent to a Scalextric R2 curve in its turn radius. This is what gives Carrera its larger layout footprint. Scalextric has R1 curves that are even tighter than the 1/60, and can therefore make tighter layouts. 

Carrera curve track pieces are designed to nest within themselves for multi-lane layout possibilities.

2/30 and 3/30 are both 30° track pieces, needing six each to make a 180° [6 x 30 = 180]. The 4/15 turns only 15°, which isn't really much. It takes a whopping twelve track pieces to make a 180° turn [12 x 15 = 180]. I seldom use them in such a uniform way, though. I prefer to mix them up as best as I can. 

Varying Radius Curves

I've been going on about these for awhile now. There's a lot more of a challenge with a varying radius curve than with your generic curve made up of matching curve pieces. 

[left] your standard 180° made up of 1/60 curve pieces. On the right, a 180° made up of varying radius curve pieces. This is a much faster turn. The larger radius turns used this way [3/30, 2/30, 1/60, 2/30, 3/30] provide longer braking opportunities, since you can carry more speed into the turn, and a great acceleration area after the peak with a gradual straightening coming out. The turn on the left offers none of those opportunities.  

It's easy to see how my transition from standard layouts made with 1/60 curves to more elaborate layouts has progressed. I've been experimenting, and I've found that the larger radius curves make great enhancers to otherwise dull straight sections as well as being great for making complex curve sections. 

The 180° curve made of 1/60 pieces drove me crazy. There are only a few real life race tracks that have anything like that. Bruxelles at Spa, Grand Hotel Hairpin at Monaco, some others. Most real life tracks have curves that can be taken at really high speeds and be much more challenging than just going straight. 

A straight going into a nicely shaped corner can carry a lot of speed.

But what if you wanted more challenge? This would be almost as fast but a lot more fun to negotiate.

For some people, the most fun thing about slot cars is hammering the throttle down a long straightaway. I like that too, but I find that having more than one of those is a bit redundant for me, much like 1/60 curves are. In reality, race tracks are vast and sweeping and rarely ever razor straight or perfectly 180°. This is what I like to think of when making a layout. 

A "straight" section doesn't necessarily have to be straight to be fast and fun. Alfa halfway down the backstretch.

If I were to break down how much maximum throttle I would use on something, it might go something like this: on a straightaway, 100% ; through a 4/15, 90% throttle ; through a 3/30, 70% ; through a 2/30, 50% ; through a 1/60, 30%. So a lot more throttle possibilities occur when you use larger radius curve pieces. 

I'm going to do a post on designing layouts on the floor without the use of software. I have a pretty easy method that works great, and can be done with whatever track pieces you have lying around. It's a sectional approach to track design. 

The original track layout from my set. It took about two minutes to completely master and run at max speed without crashing.

The racing is dry and generic on the layout that you start with. No question about it. No matter what you do with what you have, you won't be able to get away from the tight turns. 

For kicks I set this layout back up and added straights to make the length of the room, giving me a 9-piece straightaway. That's pretty long, and the best aspect of this layout. 

I raced a few laps on the layout, constantly thinking of rebuilding it with much more interesting parts. I'm going to do that next. This layout is pretty dull. The only challenging corner is the 1/60 curve coming off the overpass. Other than that it's cookie cutter stuff.

Next part will explore some alternatives to straightaways.