A fantastic slot car F1 circuit

ajstan

ajstan

ajstan

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This is the White Lake F1 Ring, a fabulously detailed 145-foot slot car circuit. We stumbled across it while on an idle Google trawl looking for updates on the US GP circuit in Austin, Texas while trying to avoid doing some more constructive work and thought it was worth sharing.
Now, there’s no doubting that model railways aren’t particularly cool, but there’s something a bit more exciting about a properly intricate slot car circuit.

And there’s no doubting that White Lake – built by the wonderfully named James-Michael Gregory Harlan – is a proper labour of love. It has pits, it has grandstands, it has marshals, helipads, course cars and floodlights for a spot of Singapore-style night racing. In short, anything you can imagine stuffing into a GP circuit is there. Heck, the slots even tighten up on the corners so cars can’t overtake.


It’s a deeply impressive undertaking, and we can only presume that Harlan, who is an exhibit designer by trade (hence the model-making talent), is either single or has a very patient other half…
You can take a closer look at the White Lake F1 Ring on Harlan’s own blog, or by watching the video below…though we suggest that you might want to skip to 2m 41s, where the video goes ‘in car’.
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I thought it was pretty cool and worth sharing :)

http://pistonheads.com/news/default.asp?storyId=22649
 
That is awesome.

What I want to know is when the tracks "merge" (to prevent overtaking and in the pit lane etc) - how do you control the speed of your own car? I thought the speed/throttle was simply the voltage going through your tracks. If they merge two tracks, each track cant have its own voltage??
 
shifty_uk said:
He should try having sex.
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To be fair if I spent just the time that my gf spends watching drivel that I can't stand on the TV doing something productive I would have at least 8 to 10 hours a week to put into a project like that.

Lack of any kind of modelling talent would stop the results being anywhere near as impressive though!
 
megakid said:
That is awesome.

What I want to know is when the tracks "merge" (to prevent overtaking and in the pit lane etc) - how do you control the speed of your own car? I thought the speed/throttle was simply the voltage going through your tracks. If they merge two tracks, each track cant have its own voltage??
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Scalextric Digital allows all of this lane swapping trickery to take place... but I have no idea how it works!
 
megakid said:
That is awesome.

What I want to know is when the tracks "merge" (to prevent overtaking and in the pit lane etc) - how do you control the speed of your own car? I thought the speed/throttle was simply the voltage going through your tracks. If they merge two tracks, each track cant have its own voltage??
Click to expand...

Scalextric has advanced a lot since we were a kid, I believe they now use digital technology to separate the cars.
 
megakid said:
That is awesome.

What I want to know is when the tracks "merge" (to prevent overtaking and in the pit lane etc) - how do you control the speed of your own car? I thought the speed/throttle was simply the voltage going through your tracks. If they merge two tracks, each track cant have its own voltage??
Click to expand...

I believe modern systems are digital, the track always has voltage and the handset sends a signal to the corresponding car rather than controlling the voltage of the track.
 
Housey said:
Where do I buy this and when will it arrive?
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When you got buy some timber sheeting and a router. :p

Nice to see copper tape being used so magnets don't work. Means the cars are so much more pushable as they don't suddenly come off, it allows for the car to go sideways before that happens.

I'm assuming it's a Ninco digital system as they allow you to add the digital decoder chip to any car.

Edit - I'm pretty sure though that's Parma hand controllers I see in the video, certainly not Ninco ones.
 
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One of them would be the final nail in the coffin of my marriage :(
 
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