# More photos - Evolution (dial-up warning)



## 1976Cordoba (Sep 20, 2000)

Thanks for all the positive comments on the work I've accomplished on my track -- A lot of hours have been put into it but it is paying off now.

OK -- now some photos from the start:

After buying our house in May 2005, this 8'x16' area was designated for the track:








The blue taped area in the middle of the box is the "No-Turns" zone as that would be the area hardest to reach for corner marshalling.

This early design never made it past the floor stage:









Four sheets of 4'x8' plywood, about 25 2"x4"s and a few hundred screws later and we have ourselves a big-a$$ table:









More in a minute.

'doba


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## 1976Cordoba (Sep 20, 2000)

This was the first official design for the track. We ran two events on this lay-out but I felt it was too technical with the S-turns and chicanes (even with 15" & 18" radius). Even the kinks leading into and out of the big turn in the middle were causing too many offs. This was completely ripped up and we started over again with Tracker 2000:









After I re-did the layout to a better design, on a fluke I found some of my old Legos in the stuff we had moved. After discovering, to my delight, that a plate piece with a tile over the top was the same height as the track surface, I thought, "Hey -- I can use Legos to make a pit building." That soon spiraled into a full-on Formula 1-style garage / paddock complex. This is a shot of the early construction of the garages. The roof panels are already completed and are seen as grey in the pic:









I gave each garage its own color to represent the various F1 teams (current and historic), i.e. Red for Ferrari, Blue for Renault, Yellow for Jordan, Green for Jaguar, Grey for McLaren, White for Honda, etc. I used white for the outer walls and colored Legos for the interior walls and tiles:









More in a minute.

'doba


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## 1976Cordoba (Sep 20, 2000)

I left skylights in the tops of the garages so I could work in lighting. After considering model railroad building lights, I opted to use clear Christmas tree lights instead. I used the Lego Technic bricks with the holes in the sides as a place to anchor the end of the lights:









I used small arches to contain the wiring, and also used stacked bricks (represented in blue) to halp keep the wire routed and firmly lined up so as to not flop around inside the structure and possibly cause a light to pop out of the Technic brick:









The floor panels of the top section would eventually cover up the lighting area of the structure. The Legos worked great for this, I must say, as everything can be anchored together so long as you get the fit correct:









More in a minute.

'doba


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## 1976Cordoba (Sep 20, 2000)

A nice top-down shot of the way I worked the wiring out:









The last garage stall on each side got the drop wires that would feed through the table top. I used a 1x2x5 column brick and drilled two holes through the top of it and ceiling panel. The wires dropped down through the column where they were fed through two holes in the floor panel. From there they got fed through the table top and spliced back to the plug end:









The end result exceeded my expectations by a wide margin:









More in a minute.

'doba


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## 1976Cordoba (Sep 20, 2000)

Finally, the two garage structures were tied together with a series of Technic beams that would be used to also support the media center and race control module (see separate thread entitle New Photos):









The Lego part of this project cost a pretty penny but in the end it was worth it because I never would have been able to replicate the look of an F1 pit / garage / paddock using model railroad buildings. Plus, I have never seen anyone use Legos for this kind of project before, so it makes my track kind of unique in that aspect.

I should mention that I sourced the Legos through www.bricklink.com. I had enough of my original Legos from when I was a kid to prototype one garage -- from there I started ordering pieces through BrickLink. I also discovered many of the neat smoked glass panels that I would eventually use in the media center.

Thanks,
'doba


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## coach61 (Sep 6, 2004)

Again WOW...thanks for sharing how you did it.. its been facinating to watch it take place like that.. I hope you plan on showing us the next steps.. But heck thanks for whatyou have shown so far!


Dave


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## Bill Hall (Jan 6, 2007)

Doba! Oh my freakin gawd. Our daughter is a Lego packrat so I know about how many pretty pennies were spent. 

I'm blown away at the this gorgeous set of structures you created. The detail and symetry is outstanding. I've used the christmas string myself in model railroading for bulk lighting. 

The fit and finish of the Legos provide such neat seams and lines that could never be duplicated otherwise. This is a classic. I'm dumbfounded and my hats off to you!

Bill


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## coach61 (Sep 6, 2004)

BTW 'Doba, Glad you chose not to keep that wandering Gnome statue in the third pic on the layout, its kinda ugly...lol( 3rd pic on the new table....JK

Coach


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## 1976Cordoba (Sep 20, 2000)

coach61 said:


> BTW 'Doba, Glad you chose not to keep that wandering Gnome statue in the third pic on the layout, its kinda ugly...lol( 3rd pic on the new table....JK
> 
> Coach


Yeah -- the funny looking German / Irish guy is just there for scale :lol:

'doba


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## Ragnar (Aug 22, 2006)

Cordoba, the idea of Lego block garages is real cool! If you don't mind, I think I'll copy them. They would look great on my Catalunya circuit. Show us more as you build it! :thumbsup:


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## TX Street Racer (May 8, 2004)

WOW,simply WOW!!!! I used to build ALOT of Lego creations a couple years ago....and used to be active in several Lego style forums. I've spent many a dollar at Bricklink.com it's an invaluable resource for anyone working with Lego.

I never would have imagined that Lego's could have blended so well with slot cars....but as you've shown, they can....and look incredible!


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## roadrner (Jul 21, 1999)

Now what did I do with those two containers full of lego that the kids had? :freak: 


Looks great Doba! :thumbsup: rr


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## Scafremon (Dec 11, 2006)

Legos are a great idea, but I am bummed they are so expensive (how expensive are they?)


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## fsmra (Feb 28, 2005)

Great Stuff - Looks great - Mind if we "try" to copy it?

Would like to have that in my shop in Ixonia when it opens

You didn't happen to track how many and what type of legos used, did you
Not being that talented at "legos" any help or ideas would be great!

FSMRA
www.lakecountryslots.com
www.slotcartracks.net
www.moonstonebodies.com
www.slottrak.com
www.thequarrel.com


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## mking (Apr 25, 2000)

*for those who might have missed this...*

another vision of legos and slots:

http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=153793


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## zanza (Sep 23, 2005)

Simply brilliant use of the old bricks.... Hats off 'Doba


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## 1976Cordoba (Sep 20, 2000)

fsmra said:


> Great Stuff - Looks great - Mind if we "try" to copy it?
> 
> Would like to have that in my shop in Ixonia when it opens
> 
> ...


I have NO IDEA how many Legos I used in building the pit complex. If I wanted to do it in just white, without the colored garage bays, I could have saved a lot of extra bricks, however. But in the end I wanted the different colors.

I can measue the garages and give you an idea of how big they are -- I think the entire structure was something like 80 inches long from the first garage to the last.

'doba


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## fsmra (Feb 28, 2005)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MLCAD

Maybe this would have helped


Enjoy

Mike


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