One of the things that makes slotless racing what it is, would be the ability to change lanes. You change lanes to avoid a Jam Car or to pass a competitor's car. But there are other possibilities to consider, and Aurora was probably the best at dreaming up various reasons to change from one lane to the other. They made several interesting accessories and track sets with obstacles to avoid. One of the more interesting "Obstacle" tracks was the Break Out Curve, where if you didn't move quickly to the inside lane, you would go "through the fence" and off the track. Since Aurora Speedsteer and Ultra Five track is not compatable with Tyco TCR or Command Control track, I decided to make my own such obstacle track.
I started with the section of 9" radius curve track which my Yorkie had chewed when I was setting up on the floor. With some sanding and filing, and a bunch of plastic putty, I fixed most of the teeth marks. Using a Dremel rotary tool, I cut the center wall away and a section of the outside wall long enough that would allow the car in the right lane to follow the wall right off the track, yet the car in the inside lane would miss the opening, slide into the right lane, and go on. To get the kind of smooth track I wanted required a lot of filing and sanding where the center wall had been removed and to have no sharp edges at the ends of the outer wall.
The Aurora item had a short run off area, so I used Plastruct (www.plastruct.com) plastic sheet and square tubing to build such an addition to my custom track. I used the cut off section of outer wall to make a new removable wall. This is put in place and held with tape for "normal" racing, but easily removed for the break out option. You can see it as the section with red stripes painted on it in the photo.
Not having a lot of room beyond the track, I made up a padded crash box to contain the car and reduce the impact. Again I used Plastruct for the framing and floor. On both sides is a strip of packaging foam rubber, and the back had a 3M scrubbing pad covered with the foam rubber packaging material. The catch box is taped to the track for use, but easily removed for storing.
SMALL OBSTACLES
Aurora made accessory "Chicane" pieces to be set on the track, barrels, hay bales, and barricades to be avoided, "Bash Bars" that allowed the lead car to force it's following competitor to change to the other lane, and various ramps for jumping. Other manufacturers caught on with "Detour Tracks," crossings, humps, and jumps. Aurora even pioneered a pit area section.
Without a Jam Car or various obstacles, their is little reason to change lanes, and therefore little reason to buy a slotless racing set. And so all the manufacturers at least dabbled in Jam Cars, Road Blocker cars, and various obstacles. If you added a bunch of construction cones or barrels in one lane and a Jam Car runnning the other lane, you had a real challenge on your hands racing a competitor!
Because so many years have passed, many of these accessory items are long gone. But a few are still around and you can hunt them down online. However, there are some things you can make yourself. For instance, to make your own barrels, get a 1/2 inch diameter wooden dowel at a home supply, craft, or hobby store. Cut about half a dozen pieces 5/8 of an inch long. For the "ribs" around the barrel, use sewing thread or thin string glued on with common white glue such as Elmer's. Once the glue is set, paint the barrel any bright color such as yellow or orange and you have instant "Road Construction." You can make some of these up to represent a load of fuel or oil barrels that were accidently dumped on the road too. Paint them green or blue, or some basic color and paint a white or yellow band around the barrel between the two "middle" ribs. For extra detail, you might cut out a piece of paper to glue on as a "label" on the barrel. Heck, if you hate the oil companies as much as I do, you may find yourself aiming for them!
Another, even easier obstacle is "a load of pipes." I make these out of common drinking straws, cut to a length shorter than your track is wide , and painted black or gray. You can get a whole package of plastic straws at the grocery store for a buck, or save the straws you get at restuarants and fast food places and you can make pipes for free!
Construction or Police barricades can be made out of scrap thin card board, Just cut out leg strips and bend them in half for legs and glue a folded strip across the top to make cheap "saw horses." You can go alittle classier and make them out of short pieces of strip wood from the hobby shop or craft store.
Hay Bales, block ice, or boulders can be carved from styrofoam and painted to look like any of these items which might have fallen onto the road. If you can get a few scraps of extruded styrofaom insulation board, it carves VERY easily and doesn't crumble like packing "Bead Board" styrofoam.
No matter what the obstacles are, they should be as light as possible to not damage the steering of the cars. You certainly wouldn't want to make them out of plaster or heavy metal! After all, the cars take plenty of abuse in normal racing to start with!
STUNT RAMPS
Unfortunately, at least one such manufactured obstacle was costly to the cars: ramps. Both Aurora Speedsteer and Tyco TCR cars have a tendancy to damage the steering with repeated ramp jumping. Bad enough while these cars were in production, but today with a limited supply of parts, this could quickly be bad news for a slotless racer!
I developed alternatives by looking back to my long career in motorsports: the Auto Thrill Show. Also known as Death Dodgers, Hell Drivers, and other colorful names, these stunt drivers opened their shows with displays of precision driving and escalated toward the more spectacular stunts. Among these were a man laying down on the hood of a speeding car and crashing through a fence or wall, often while it was on fire. Another favorite was using a wheel ramp to get the car up on two wheels and driving it as far as they could that way. But the favorites were the rollovers and the ramp jumps.
Most spectacular of all in the old days was the "Dive Bomber Crash," where a car hit the bottom of the ramp at speed and flew through the air, crashing onto a double row of other cars! In reality, the jumping car went at a precalculated speed (usually no more than 45 mph) that would carry it up the ramp and a relatively short distance through the air to land on the carefully placed "catch cars." The catch cars took up most of the impact and made the crash look more spectacular. Since then, fireworks have been added and the stunts keep getting bigger and badder.
I started with the section of 9" radius curve track which my Yorkie had chewed when I was setting up on the floor. With some sanding and filing, and a bunch of plastic putty, I fixed most of the teeth marks. Using a Dremel rotary tool, I cut the center wall away and a section of the outside wall long enough that would allow the car in the right lane to follow the wall right off the track, yet the car in the inside lane would miss the opening, slide into the right lane, and go on. To get the kind of smooth track I wanted required a lot of filing and sanding where the center wall had been removed and to have no sharp edges at the ends of the outer wall.
The Aurora item had a short run off area, so I used Plastruct (www.plastruct.com) plastic sheet and square tubing to build such an addition to my custom track. I used the cut off section of outer wall to make a new removable wall. This is put in place and held with tape for "normal" racing, but easily removed for the break out option. You can see it as the section with red stripes painted on it in the photo.
Not having a lot of room beyond the track, I made up a padded crash box to contain the car and reduce the impact. Again I used Plastruct for the framing and floor. On both sides is a strip of packaging foam rubber, and the back had a 3M scrubbing pad covered with the foam rubber packaging material. The catch box is taped to the track for use, but easily removed for storing.
SMALL OBSTACLES
Aurora made accessory "Chicane" pieces to be set on the track, barrels, hay bales, and barricades to be avoided, "Bash Bars" that allowed the lead car to force it's following competitor to change to the other lane, and various ramps for jumping. Other manufacturers caught on with "Detour Tracks," crossings, humps, and jumps. Aurora even pioneered a pit area section.
Without a Jam Car or various obstacles, their is little reason to change lanes, and therefore little reason to buy a slotless racing set. And so all the manufacturers at least dabbled in Jam Cars, Road Blocker cars, and various obstacles. If you added a bunch of construction cones or barrels in one lane and a Jam Car runnning the other lane, you had a real challenge on your hands racing a competitor!
Because so many years have passed, many of these accessory items are long gone. But a few are still around and you can hunt them down online. However, there are some things you can make yourself. For instance, to make your own barrels, get a 1/2 inch diameter wooden dowel at a home supply, craft, or hobby store. Cut about half a dozen pieces 5/8 of an inch long. For the "ribs" around the barrel, use sewing thread or thin string glued on with common white glue such as Elmer's. Once the glue is set, paint the barrel any bright color such as yellow or orange and you have instant "Road Construction." You can make some of these up to represent a load of fuel or oil barrels that were accidently dumped on the road too. Paint them green or blue, or some basic color and paint a white or yellow band around the barrel between the two "middle" ribs. For extra detail, you might cut out a piece of paper to glue on as a "label" on the barrel. Heck, if you hate the oil companies as much as I do, you may find yourself aiming for them!
Another, even easier obstacle is "a load of pipes." I make these out of common drinking straws, cut to a length shorter than your track is wide , and painted black or gray. You can get a whole package of plastic straws at the grocery store for a buck, or save the straws you get at restuarants and fast food places and you can make pipes for free!
Construction or Police barricades can be made out of scrap thin card board, Just cut out leg strips and bend them in half for legs and glue a folded strip across the top to make cheap "saw horses." You can go alittle classier and make them out of short pieces of strip wood from the hobby shop or craft store.
Hay Bales, block ice, or boulders can be carved from styrofoam and painted to look like any of these items which might have fallen onto the road. If you can get a few scraps of extruded styrofaom insulation board, it carves VERY easily and doesn't crumble like packing "Bead Board" styrofoam.
No matter what the obstacles are, they should be as light as possible to not damage the steering of the cars. You certainly wouldn't want to make them out of plaster or heavy metal! After all, the cars take plenty of abuse in normal racing to start with!
STUNT RAMPS
Unfortunately, at least one such manufactured obstacle was costly to the cars: ramps. Both Aurora Speedsteer and Tyco TCR cars have a tendancy to damage the steering with repeated ramp jumping. Bad enough while these cars were in production, but today with a limited supply of parts, this could quickly be bad news for a slotless racer!
I developed alternatives by looking back to my long career in motorsports: the Auto Thrill Show. Also known as Death Dodgers, Hell Drivers, and other colorful names, these stunt drivers opened their shows with displays of precision driving and escalated toward the more spectacular stunts. Among these were a man laying down on the hood of a speeding car and crashing through a fence or wall, often while it was on fire. Another favorite was using a wheel ramp to get the car up on two wheels and driving it as far as they could that way. But the favorites were the rollovers and the ramp jumps.
Most spectacular of all in the old days was the "Dive Bomber Crash," where a car hit the bottom of the ramp at speed and flew through the air, crashing onto a double row of other cars! In reality, the jumping car went at a precalculated speed (usually no more than 45 mph) that would carry it up the ramp and a relatively short distance through the air to land on the carefully placed "catch cars." The catch cars took up most of the impact and made the crash look more spectacular. Since then, fireworks have been added and the stunts keep getting bigger and badder.
Rollover crashes were easier to do than the ramp jumps. The driver came at the ramp at a certain speed, ran the two wheels on one side up the "wheel ramp" (which was as high as a car was wide) and turned the steering wheel hard toward the ramp. The car HAD to roll over. Higher speeds got more rolls. "Wheel Ramps" got quite a workout in Hollywood, espcially in the "Dukes of Hazzard" and "CHIPS" TV shows!
For our use, this is one type of ramp we can use that does not damage the steering of a slotless car. The car will roll onto it's side or top, or even more than once! But there is a minimal chance of a frontal impact.
The "Wheel Ramp" I made was cut and glued together out of one stick of 1/4" wide strip wood. It inclines in two segments to a full height of 1 1/4 inches and is five inches long. it takes some filing and gluing, because you are building from scratch. But it's not really too hard.
In use, you place the ramp against either track wall and hold it in place with a little tape so that it isn't just pushed ahead by the car.
For our use, this is one type of ramp we can use that does not damage the steering of a slotless car. The car will roll onto it's side or top, or even more than once! But there is a minimal chance of a frontal impact.
The "Wheel Ramp" I made was cut and glued together out of one stick of 1/4" wide strip wood. It inclines in two segments to a full height of 1 1/4 inches and is five inches long. it takes some filing and gluing, because you are building from scratch. But it's not really too hard.
In use, you place the ramp against either track wall and hold it in place with a little tape so that it isn't just pushed ahead by the car.
The photo at left shows the "Wheel Ramp" and a full ramp designed for slotless cars. The full ramp is the same final height, but 1 3/4 inches wide to allow for the whole car to fit with a little extra room. This ramp is still narrow enough to allow a car to go past it in the other lane, of course.
The supporting structure is about the same with two wheel ramps connected by sheet balsa on top of them. The "wings" on each side align with the tops of the track walls so that a car will not "turn off" before reaching the top of the ramp.
As usual, you place the full ramp against either wall and tape it in place. Auto Thrill Shows often painted their equipment white or yellow to make it visible during night time shows at poorly lighted speedways or fairgrounds. Red was a popular trim color.
By now, you're asking why I made a full ramp if the steering of these cars is so fragile? Well, refer back to the chassis on PAGE 2 with the steering locked. This is the car in the above photo with the ramps. The body was pretty bad and so messed up that it HAD to be glued to the chassis when finished! Using address label stickers, it says "Stumpy's HELLDRIVERS" on it. Since the steering was already a write off, this car runs along the left wall, up the ramp, flies through the air , and lands on four catch cars made out of junk slot car bodies. It's fun to do from time to time, and my four year old grandnephew loves it!
The supporting structure is about the same with two wheel ramps connected by sheet balsa on top of them. The "wings" on each side align with the tops of the track walls so that a car will not "turn off" before reaching the top of the ramp.
As usual, you place the full ramp against either wall and tape it in place. Auto Thrill Shows often painted their equipment white or yellow to make it visible during night time shows at poorly lighted speedways or fairgrounds. Red was a popular trim color.
By now, you're asking why I made a full ramp if the steering of these cars is so fragile? Well, refer back to the chassis on PAGE 2 with the steering locked. This is the car in the above photo with the ramps. The body was pretty bad and so messed up that it HAD to be glued to the chassis when finished! Using address label stickers, it says "Stumpy's HELLDRIVERS" on it. Since the steering was already a write off, this car runs along the left wall, up the ramp, flies through the air , and lands on four catch cars made out of junk slot car bodies. It's fun to do from time to time, and my four year old grandnephew loves it!
From time to time during a race, a car will "stall" or "spin out" becoming an obstacle. Sometimes they might crash and get hung up on the wall, and are a "crashed car." I decided not to wait for that during a race and made up some "Stalled Car Obstacles!" This type of car can also be used as catch cars during a miniature Auto Thrill Show, or to stage other crashes.
Again, years of HO slot car racing and messed up slotless bodies provided the basic car body. For a "chassis" I made a couple of wooden blocks and attached old T-jet wheels to them. Then I glued the wooden blocks into the bodies. They work okay and I thought about making a few more until I hit upon another plan.
Again, years of HO slot car racing and messed up slotless bodies provided the basic car body. For a "chassis" I made a couple of wooden blocks and attached old T-jet wheels to them. Then I glued the wooden blocks into the bodies. They work okay and I thought about making a few more until I hit upon another plan.
I had some junk T-jet chassis and used them to make a couple of free rolling cars. The advantage of the free rolling chasis is that when you use them as a racing obstacle, once they're hit, they roll, becoming a "new" obstacle farther down the track! Since most people concentrate on their own car while racing, they don't always notice that an obstacle car has moved! The new obstacle comes as unwelcomed surprise!
The T-jet based cars roll so well that I have thought about making up something simlar out of a slotless chassis and have a powered car push it around the track and use it to jump the ramp.
When it comes to moving obstacles, Jam Cars were first of course. One interesting and somewhat diabolical vehicle that Tyco made was a Jam Truck. If you hit it, there is a trigger in the back of the trailer that releases a load of "barrels" onto your car and the track. Since they then roll all over the place, you have released MANY obstacles to avoid! I've been thinking about getting a second one of these to double the racers' troubles!
The T-jet based cars roll so well that I have thought about making up something simlar out of a slotless chassis and have a powered car push it around the track and use it to jump the ramp.
When it comes to moving obstacles, Jam Cars were first of course. One interesting and somewhat diabolical vehicle that Tyco made was a Jam Truck. If you hit it, there is a trigger in the back of the trailer that releases a load of "barrels" onto your car and the track. Since they then roll all over the place, you have released MANY obstacles to avoid! I've been thinking about getting a second one of these to double the racers' troubles!