New Routed Track Build

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I first met Butch Dunaway (HRW forum member "Pappy") several years ago at the Michigan 24 Hour Endurance Race and have raced with him several times since. Even though Butch is from Ohio, I count him as a good friend - he is an outstanding racer who also excels at building routed tracks. Butch is a bit uncomfortable posting pictures so I volunteered to help him out. Butch has provided descriptions and accompanying pictures to document many of the steps in his current track build. Note the track build is still underway so I'll update this thread as Butch works his way through the build. Here we go...

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Every project starts with a plan. Here's the drawing for the track I'm building. It's going to be a six lane Hillclimb with a footprint of 12' x 30'. Average lap length about 105'. The track surface will be 30" wide, 6" outer gutter, 4" lane spacing and 4" inside gutter. The track will be on a pedestal base on fifteen casters. It will be powered by a 50 amp variable voltage power pack up to 15 volts. The lap counter will be a LapMaster. I designed it to have a technical section with ess's and couple of little kinks. Then a section with larger sweeping turns and on to a 20' long top straightaway into a 9' diameter turn leading back downhill to the drivers stations.

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This is a drawing of the base. It's 16" wide, 10 1/4" tall sitting on 9" tall casters. The lower level of the track will be 24" off of the floor and the top level will be 48" of the floor. The back part of the base is designed for a place to put the upper level supports on.

[mattb]

I've seen enough of this build to warn any beginners to remember this man made a living build cabinetry. His skill is way beyond about 95% or us.

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I started out by building a cut-out grid to support 4' x 8' sheets of material. The grid it 5' wide x 8' long made of two by 2 x 4's on edge. They are notched to hold them in place with no screws or nails so you can cut or route into the 2 x 4's and not worry about hitting a screw or nail. It also gives you plenty of places to clamp or screw your material to so it doesn't move around while routing or cutting.

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Next step was to make my bar for a router to cut all my arcs.

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Here' the bar in action on my grid. You can see how easy it is to clamp your material to the grid so it doesn't move around. All the holes in the bar for the different radius' were marked and color coded so I know which two holes were for the inner and out cuts on the same piece.

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This is how I marked and color coded each radius.

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To make a long straight cut I used my 3 1/4 hp router on a plunger base with a template guide and a straight piece of wood as the guide.

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These are all my arcs for the base. The base is made out of 5/8" industrial particle board.

[WB2]

Looking forward to the progress.
If I may add a suggestion, overlay your grid with a sheet of builders foam. Any oops muck up the foam and not your grid.

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The first sections I built were the large sections. I put a particle board partition every 16" and covered the sides with 1/8" baltic birch plywood. Here's the two large sections bolted together with a caster.

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Top view showing access holes to bolt them together and install caster.

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The ess's under construction.

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This is how I cut all my access holes. I made a templet out of scrap wood and used my 3 1/4 hp router with a templet guide.
Attachments area.

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The two large sections with a short straight and the corner piece bolted on. When I got enough sections built with casters where it would balance I turned it up the wheels.

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From this point it's just a matter of keep adding sections to complete the base.