My 1st Track attempt. Pics and Vids included.
 

Here's my first attempt. The track is not yet completed, but you'll get a good idea how it'll end up. I got a lot of help from my friends in putting this together. So I can't take all the credit. I wanted the course to be very similiar to a real road course with grass n such on the side of the road. So I came up with the carpet on the side idea.

I'll post the pics and explain how we made it below.

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/neogtr...ks/Track_1.JPG

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/neogtr...ks/Track_2.JPG

http://mywebpages.comcast.net/neogtr...ks/Track_3.JPG

Here's a short video: (You'll need realplayer to view em.)
Click here to view the video.

My friends n I spent quite a bit of time in Home Depot scopin out the parts. At first I was gonna go with the foam mat idea. But that wasn't cost effectice ($25 for 4 2ft x 2ft blocks) Plus I wanted to keep the squares as small as the ones used in the TrackMaker software. After some searching my friend found the tiles. I noticed someone else on this board used the same tiles too. Our part numbers are different, but I'm sure the pretty much the same. ($25 for 49 tiles) I bought a 12 ft x 1 ft strip of carpet. ($10) We used caulk to make a slight ramp from the road to the carpet. And tubing for the rails, which are held by nails from underneath the carpet. We used glue to attach the carpet to the tile. I'll post the part number when I get home.

The track design was taken straight from Trackmaker so all my friends could easily make new ones. So far it's been comin alonf pretty well, tho I must admit i've gotten lazy and need to finish it up already. I'll post more pics and vids when it's complete.

The surface looks slippery. I like the idea with the tiles, and the carpet and tube railing looks great. I saw the picture with the caulk, doesn't the car stick to instead of rubbing along it?

The caulk doesn't slow down the cars at all. It actually helps a lot, just takes more time to lay down on the tile. As far as the tile surface, as long as it's clean it works great. Probably not as grippy as, say foam tiles, but it works well.

thats awsome. does the carpet "grass" slow you down much? I can see myself running my sister off the road into the grass slowing her down, lol

Most of the time u hit the rails which is what slow u down the most. I'd say when u get off the road u slow down about 25-30%. Not quite as slow as i'd like but it sorta works. I wanted to use thicker carpet but it'd be too high for the road.