# Building a drag strip. Any ideas?



## NTxSlotCars (May 27, 2008)

Any drag racers out there? Me and my buddies like watching *PINKS*,(I like the _ALL OUT_ better.) We want to run the normal formats and include a *PINKS* format, racing for each others car. Is this a bad idea? We've drag raced 24th scale and some HO, but none of us have a drag strip, so, here we go. 
My thought was to have one with a REAL tree. Does some one make one of these, or have they ever been produced? I just think the computer screen tree is kinda cheesy. Second, instead of HO track, I was thinking of using Carrera GO 1/43 scale track. It's smooth, fits together nicely, and would be easy to paint. Or, I would route a track.
Any ideas or pics out there?

Rich 

www.myspace.com/northtexasslotcars


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## jstudrawa (Mar 20, 2008)

I'd wager it's a bad idea to hold money races among friends. Cars = money pretty much. Are you honestly going to expect a good buddy to give up his car if you win it? Especially when none of you have done it before?

Dragging rocks, we do it in our race days/nights. But I'd never put up my car, since I am simply not good at timing and shifting (we use a 2 section strip). I can't see a PINKS setup lasting, is all.

Otherwise, hell yeah add a drag strip!


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## munsonator008 (Jan 12, 2005)

I think it is a great idea, if you dont want to lose your car dont run it, its not like there a million dollars, A buddy of mine knows how to make a full size tree cheap with flood lights. or you can buy the whole set up at track mate .com pretty expensive like 700.00 i think here is addy http://www.trackmateracing.com/


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## NTxSlotCars (May 27, 2008)

OH, we weren't going to use REAL money. Just scale money. We all have a ton of cars, so we were going to set some up just as claimers. You know, like on PINKS when the Mustang raced the Camaro, OR WAIT, HA, Remember when the Camaro raced the Mustang?!!! Something like that, so it will probably be some cheap tyco or marchons racing for keeps. We can always trade back at the swap meet. We usually race Nascars, so it will give us something to do with all the odd bodies we have.

Any ideas on the track?

Rich

www.myspace.com/northtexasslotcars


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## munsonator008 (Jan 12, 2005)

here is more http://www.shop.speedunlimited.com/...fp/SFV/32401/vpid/4083314/vpcsid/0/rid/126429


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## jstudrawa (Mar 20, 2008)

NTxSlotCars said:


> OH, we weren't going to use REAL money. Just scale money. We all have a ton of cars, so we were going to set some up just as claimers. You know, like on PINKS when the Mustang raced the Camaro, OR WAIT, HA, Remember when the Camaro raced the Mustang?!!! Something like that, so it will probably be some cheap tyco or marchons racing for keeps. We can always trade back at the swap meet. We usually race Nascars, so it will give us something to do with all the odd bodies we have.
> 
> Any ideas on the track?
> 
> ...


Oh, well if you're not really racing for pinks or cars, cool. More like betting on a winner. Good luck! 

Not sure your budget, but a MaxTrax dragstrip isn't too expensive and would have nice long smooth sections. Or any of the other professional track guys.


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## f1nutz (Mar 26, 2007)

I built a drag strip out of some extra Tyco track I had laying around 18 ft powered with a 6 ft brake section at the end. The track wasn't perfectly smooth so sometimes the cars would hop around or deslot so it actually added a bit to the excitement. I took it to a car show and ran pinks style format for the general public to try out with JL thunderjets. It was hard to tune the cars to be exactly the same speed so I got people to run best 2 out of 3 giving lengths. It was a lot of fun and people got right into it being a custom car show with a lot of drag interest.
I couldn't afford a tree so I used trakmate 4 lane setup but used 1 pair of sensors for RT and another for ET. There is a company that makes an alarm clock with a tree that would be perfect to convert if you had the electronics know how. I suggested to Auto World after the event that they do a Pinks tie in set since they have a lot of muscle cars. They said maybe in the future.
I mounted the track on 3 8 ft. 1 by 6's so it is portable and used some plastic corner edging from Home Depot as a curb/wall all down the track.


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## 1976Cordoba (Sep 20, 2000)

f1nutz said:


> I built a drag strip out of some extra Tyco track I had laying around 18 ft powered with a 6 ft brake section at the end. The track wasn't perfectly smooth so sometimes the cars would hop around or deslot so it actually added a bit to the excitement. I took it to a car show and ran pinks style format for the general public to try out with JL thunderjets. It was hard to tune the cars to be exactly the same speed so I got people to run best 2 out of 3 giving lengths. It was a lot of fun and people got right into it being a custom car show with a lot of drag interest.
> I couldn't afford a tree so I used trakmate 4 lane setup but used 1 pair of sensors for RT and another for ET. There is a company that makes an alarm clock with a tree that would be perfect to convert if you had the electronics know how. I suggested to Auto World after the event that they do a Pinks tie in set since they have a lot of muscle cars. They said maybe in the future.
> I mounted the track on 3 8 ft. 1 by 6's so it is portable and used some plastic corner edging from Home Depot as a curb/wall all down the track.


That last one needed to be be posted bigger :thumbsup:


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## NTxSlotCars (May 27, 2008)

I guess Gary#8 needs to seriously consider a drag strip in his living room. :thumbsup::thumbsup:


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## f1nutz (Mar 26, 2007)

1976Cordoba said:


> That last one needed to be be posted bigger :thumbsup:


Yes she was in the Bikini contest and came over to check it out.....she won the race......I was a little distracted.


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## redwog (Jan 3, 2004)

*'Shifting Gears' down the Drag Strip*

Im not a big drag racer but one of the best drag strips I ever raced on had a "Shift Button" that transfered the voltage at 1/3 intervals! 
I cant remember the details as to the voltage but For instance you leave the starting line at say 14volts - 1/3 way down the track you have to hit the 'Shift Button' to shift gears - by hitting the button it cuts the voltage on the first 1/3 section to 0 volts & ups the voltage to say 18 volts for the middle third. At 2/3's way you hit the button again to shift again up to say 22 volts! Again When you hit the shift button the the power was cut on the section you are leaving so if you miss hitting the button (or shift gears) just right you coast for a fraction of a second yep like missing a gear! 
Like I said Im not a big Drag Racer so this might be old news but I remember after getting used to it - it was Super Fun! 
Of course this would only work on basically stock type cars and would have to be optional for more powerful cars. Obviously for some of the World Class Big boys like Alan Gilinko - this set up would be impossible. 
It is still Hard for me to believe how they get these Unlimited Cars to go as fast as they do WOWW! 
None the less it was neat to say the least!
If anyone else has ever raced on a Strip like this I would love to hear more! I might not have the details just right but as I best remember it was basically as I described and was fun!
TG


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## waltgpierce (Jul 9, 2005)

*HO scale drag racing*

message edited/deleted by Author


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## Mexkilbee (Apr 17, 2008)

I wish I could remember REDWOG, but my freind that is a few years older than me had a Four section dragstrip, HO scale that was a Four Speed Dragstrip. It had simular controls as the TYCO 4speed controller and you had to shift to power the section of track you were on. The bettter at shifting in time with your car/section of track it was on, the faster your time. You put your car at the start, Held a button on the side of the four speed, someone yelled "Go!" and you let go of the button, and your car would go, until it hit the next section, unless you had shifted, so on and so on until you reached the finish at which time a flag fell on the car that crossed first. Manually, no electronics, and not very accurate according to my friend it caused a few scuffles as to who the real winner was. He only showed it to me once and I have been looking on the 'Bay for it ever since. I thought I got lucky when I saw a picture of one but it was a 1/24th Eldon set, I could sear it was Jonny lightning, the track was grey, then a blue section, a orange section and a red section at the end but the colors were differant from the box to the track in the package. I would like to find one, or build a routed track and incorperate this into it (Four speed shifting). Has anyone else seen this item? It has to be easy enough to rout your own dragstrip. The Max track Dragstrip is pretty nice.


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## NTxSlotCars (May 27, 2008)

I have talked with a few of my friends and one of them,[has been racing since '62] has a controller from that type of track. He said there was a resistor in the first gear and less of one in the second gear, third and forth were full power. I would like to build my own version with a chrome stick with a white knob on top. The stick would act as a conductor for each gear, and a resistor could be installed inline in the first and second sections. It sure wouldn't be hard to duplicate that on a routed, or even a sectional track. I would have a jumper to have full power down the track for more conventional racing. It would add a whole new dimension to drag racing.

Rich

www.myspace.com/northtexasslotcars


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## NTxSlotCars (May 27, 2008)

I'm figuring on how to do my drag strip. I read in one forum that one guy had an 1/8 mile track in his garage. It got me to thinking. I can make the track in sections. It would be portable! Okay, so a scale 1/4 mile track would be 17.6 feet long? An 1/8 miler would be 8.8 feet? I think I can make it in five sections. The first would include the starting area with hookups for the controllers. The first section would be a little longer because of this. The 17.6ft would be divided into four equal sections. If I want to set up an 1/8 miler, I can just use two sections instead of four. Add a run off section at the end. I can set the four sections up to be powered separately for the shifter track, or jumped for full power. I can also wire it to be a shifter for the 1/8 miler. I want to use actual LEDs on the track instead of the computer screen.

Any opinions out there? Suggestions?

Is there any other drag racing program besides TrackMate?

Rich 

www.myspace.com/northtexasslotcars :thumbsup:


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## jwmoor (Mar 15, 2006)

*crazy portable drag strip*

A wee bit out of the ordinary, but I built a portable drag strip using tyco track and a VERY modified 1/64 scale diecast drag system from dragmasters.net and power the system by using parts from electric scooters, with a choice of 24v or 36v. The only thing missing is RT but for around $200 it is alot of fun. You can see it in action on youtube under jwmoor. There are some pics of it on this site also.


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## NTxSlotCars (May 27, 2008)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=itJc0MiAMYE 
Man that is cool! Where do you get the stuff?

Rich


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## NTxSlotCars (May 27, 2008)

OH I see.

Dragmasters.net
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xjdHLfxQuQ 

Great for heads up racing!

PINKS all out!


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## jwmoor (Mar 15, 2006)

*re crazy drag strip*

The tree and timing system are like I said from dragmasters.net, all the track power systems are available on ebay or at TNC scooters, the rest is just a little imagination and ALOT of spare time. PS I must admit the system might cost about $300 now cuz it was built back in 2004.


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## 440gtx (May 25, 2005)

When I built my track, I split the lanes into 4 sections. Section 1 is about 2.5 feet. Section 2 is about 4 feet. Section 3 is about 5.5 feet and the last section is about 8.5 feet. We mostly run tuff ones/JL-AW and Afx/X-Tractions. We run the cars on either 6 or 7.5 volts. At this voltage the runs take 2 to 4 seconds. So far we have just run bracket races. The winner is usually determined by who does a better job shifting. I got the idea for this from the drag racing sets that the Dodge and Plymouth dealers gave away back in the 70's. I am using a double pole double throw switch to control the power. In 4 speed mode,with the switch in one direction sections 1 and 3 are hot and in the other direction sections 2 and 4 are hot. I also have a 2 speed mode where the switch feeds sections 1 and 2 in one direction and feeds 3 and 4 the other. We use this for funny cars and dragsters. I can also remove a couple of insulators and have a continuous feed rail. I'm using the basic trackmate program for timing and an adjustable power supply.


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## jwmoor (Mar 15, 2006)

*re drag racing*

Another site you might want to check out is psychoslots.com this site is mainly dedicated to ho drag racing.


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## ScottD961 (Jan 31, 2008)

Do you guys build custom drag cars or race vintage drag cars or both ? Just Curious


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## CJ53 (Oct 30, 2007)

*Psd/ntra*

Most of the drag racing done at PSD/NTRA is tjet based,, some classes are going to run the AW/JL chassis, simply due to the fact not everyone has ready access to tjet chassis... 
Classes are drawn up with fairness in mind and not Cubic Dollars. Not that we are against the inline drag cars, we feel there is just enough racing groups running them, we wanted to be different. All of the racing is proxy, with the thought of dislocated slotters in mind...ya know, the ones with no one around or a track not available. Granted it may not be perfect, and certainly a different way to race, we still have a good time with it.. All races are reported as the runs go down. Next best thing to being there.. 
Come on over and check it out, contact any of the staff members on the board if you have questions or need help.. I am Nightrider on that board.. 
See ya at the line
Chris


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## ScottD961 (Jan 31, 2008)

Cj Yes I would be interested. I have an Aztec rail job that I just tuned up a chassis for.


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## CJ53 (Oct 30, 2007)

As of yet.. we havn't set up for AFX or Mag traction AFX type classes.. but don't get discouraged.. never know what we will come up with over there.... :thumbsup:
Chris


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## ScottD961 (Jan 31, 2008)

LOL Ok no sweat. LMK though.


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## videojimmy (Jan 12, 2006)

I think a 1/4 mile in HO scale is closer to 15 feet and a few inches.... can one of the math whiz's here tell me?


A guy on the web was selling the Dragmasters set up to any HO track you wanted for a 100 bucks.
I bought one.... but never used it. If they're going for 200-300 bucks now, maybe I should dig it out and put it up on the bay


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