Perhaps the most detailed component of slot car racing is the track layout. While the main objective of the hobby is to race, collect gorgeous slot cars, and enhance these cars' performance and capacity, there are plenty of enthusiasts who take pains to build elaborate slot car tracks with layouts that would cause even the best drivers to be envious. As if the layouts for the track weren't elaborate enough, many track builders go so far as integrate very intricate details into the race track, making these look as realistic as possible.

But designing the track isn’t just for making it look cool. Enthusiasts build highly detailed tracks to make them more competitive for the racers. For instance, builders would often design, build or buy track pieces that can bring the cars closer together. Doing so will inevitably cause the racers to fight for the advantageous lane, motivating them to speed up and speed past other cars.

Otherwise, they could be pushed off of the track. There are also other track pieces that can be built from scratch or can be bought from stores that will create steep inclines and sharp curves which could test the skills of the driver.

For builders who want to simulate real racing experience, creating a realistic track is an option. Those who don’t mind their slot cars getting dirty would build real rally course-like environments, complete with elements typically associated with tracks used for this type of race. The off-road conditions of rally courses can be simulated by adding elements such as cocoa powered for dirt and flour for snow. There are cars available in the market that are especially built for off-road course-like tracks. These have optimized performance to deliver better performance in these courses.

Those drivers who prefer to race on traditional courses will find that conventional courses are not lacking. Most of these, for the sake of keeping the cars from crashes, have altered layouts. Others, however, who enjoy watching their cars crash into the trees or into each other could change the layout of the courses a bit to enhance racing experience.

Big fans of NASCAR, Formula 1, rally courses and many other enthusiasts take cues from actual racetracks and bring the details of real-world tracks to their own layout. This allows them to bring their favorite racetracks to their garage or basement. This also gives them a pre-made layout which they could follow without having to design the layout themselves.

In creating layouts, most builders often rely on paper and pencil. Recent developments in slot car technology, however, have brought forth computer programs that allow builders to create their layouts on computer. Among the top choices are the Ultimate Race 3.0 and the Tracker 2000. Both offers excellent track layout editing tools that can do layout designing as well as race management.

Ultimate Race 3.0 can be downloaded for free from its website. It is an all-in-one management system that has layout editing tools besides inventory management and other functions. Tracker 2000, on the other hand, has top-notch layout editing tools that can be adjusted to different brands of slot car.

Readying the slot car for a race is, without a doubt, crucial to winning. Sometimes, it's all that separates one car from another in the race track in terms of performance. So how to you ready the car for a race? Here is a 7-step guide.

Inspection
The first step is to inspect the entire car, the moving and non-moving components. Look the under garage and replace or enhance anything that can be changed. For example, if you know of a better-performing motor, replacing the existing motor of your slot car is a good idea.

Check all car parts. Inspect how they fit with one another. If they're loose, tighten them. If they're very tight, loosen them up a bit. Take a mental note of all the parts and test drive the car. If it performs according to your expectations, you're done with inspection. If not, make some more adjustments.


Motor Burn-In Like in any car, real or miniature, burning-in the motor is critical to the car's performance. Some drivers like to do it the conventional way – that is racing a few laps; some prefer to do it underwater. If you are leaning towards the latter, follow the steps below:

First, remove the car's shell then attach the power source to the car's braids and submerge it underwater. You can use a bowl of distilled water for this. Run the car in the water for approximately 20 minutes while changing the voltage from lowest to the maximum speed the transformer could give. Hold the speed at slow, mid and high for about 5 minutes each. Now, for the final part, simulate the actual speed you run during an actual race.

Drying and Lubrication
The next step is to remove the water from every nook and cranny of the car then lubricating it. Use a spray lube on the motor, a door opener lube on the gears and light lube on the axles and bushings.

Wheel and Tire Tuning
Truing the tire, a process that involves polishing the surface of the tire on sandpaper, is a process that shouldn’t be missed when fine tuning a slot car.

Do this by first removing the tires from the rims and run these on 220 grit sandpaper. This should remove any burr that is created by the mold. Sand the cars down until the general profile becomes similar. For further polishing, use 220 to 800 grit sandpaper. You can see that they are ready for racing once they shine.

Braid and Guide Tuning

Inspect the guide and braids and remove them when you see that they need some polishing. The key here is to make these components as optimized for racing as possible by allowing them better contact with the groove on the track.

Axle Polishing and Gear Meshing

Before fixing the axles and the gears, it is advisable to glue the motor in place to prevent it from moving while on the track. Once you're done with that, you can look to the car's axles and gears and see where improvements can be made.

Now you're ready for the race. Put all the disassembled components of the car back in place and test-drive it. Learn how you can best control it by making further changes on its setting.

Slot car racing is a competitive hobby which makes use of miniature replicas of genuine race cars. These mock-ups are guided by slots or grooves so they stay on track as they race against each other. This hobby of slot car racing ranges from usual family gatherings around home tracks to serious competitions wherein contenders carefully make or modify their own race cars for superb performance. Some competitions are even made up of series of races to determine the ones who qualify for the national championship.


Slot Car Tacks 

Home Racetracks

Racetracks for home use are built using injection-molded plastic snapped together to form tracks. Such courses are dubbed as plastic tracks. Home tracks usually have features that increase the racing challenge. Among such features are slots that wiggle or join lanes together, airborne jumps, bumps, and uneven surfaces. These features are typically found on toy tracks.

Tracks for Competition

Race tracks used for serious competition are built by hands and are called routed tracks. In such tracks, guide slots used for the whole racecourse are sliced into a few large sheets to offer smooth surface which allows slot cars to perform at their best. Tracks for competitions are made very much like road courses with twists and turns although ovals and trapezoidal ovals are commonly used.

Tracks for formal slot car racing competitions can be built with banked corners and may connect one portion to another without using trick configurations. Among the common tracks used for slot car racing are:
• 1:24 Scale tracks These tracks, which are used for competitions, are normally six to eight lane routed tracks with retaining walls that are made from wood or flexible plastic. The said tracks are usually seen in commercial racing centers.

• HO Scale tracks These competition tracks are usually 60 to 100 feet long and four to six lanes wide.

Slot car tracks are powered by a power supply that's being plug into a wall outlet. The power supply converts the alternating current coming from the wall outlet into direct current. The voltage delivered to the track usually ranges from twelve to eighteen volts and one or two amps. Slot car racers may increase the power supplied to the track by employing separate power supplies for every racing lane. If additional power supplies are used, the powerbase sometimes require modification to deal with the extra power used.

Track Layout 

While many slot car racers concentrate on upgrading and modifying their cars to improve their speed and racing performance, some spend their time making elaborate tracks with landscaping and other details. There are in fact, a variety of special track segments that can be added to a race track to realize a more competitive racing.
There are track pieces made to bring cars closer to each other, forcing the racer to increase speed so his car can run ahead of the other car or to avoid the dangers of being pushed off the track. There are also pieces that make sharp turns and inclines, making the racer think as to when the right time to slow down or to speed up is.

The current advancements on slot car racing are the digital tracks which enable racers to transfer from one lane to another. Digital tracks and slot cars usually employ microchips which make it possible for several racers to run on the same lane.

Without the slot car track, all slot cars are nothing more than beautiful recreation of the actual model of cars on the road. The track is what gives the slot car reason to exist. The racetrack of slot cars clearly defines what slot cars are. The 'slot' in the name refers to the shallow groves or channels on the racetrack which guide the cars as they race.


What constitute the slot car track? The slot car track, just like the cars themselves, is made from plastic segments that are lined with two parallel steel rails. These rails are what guide the slot cars while on the track. As such, these rails run the entire length of the racetrack.

While both rails look very similar, the individual rails actually serve different purposes. One rail is for providing power to the car while the other is for keeping the car on the ground. The guide that is attached to the rail that keeps it grounded prevent the car from falling off of the track while the other connects it the power source to keep the car running.

Not all slot car tracks are created equal. The usual tracks are often composed of relatively small number of longer sections while the less common ones comprise of many small individual sections clipped together to form race tracks of different lengths and size. For starters, most race tracks in the United States use the longer sections as their design allow for better power supply and lesser interruption with the power source. The lesser interruption, the better as the speed of the car depends entirely on the continuous stream of power to its motor.
How power supply in slot car tracks work? The importance of continuous power supply to any racing slot car can't be stressed enough. Interruption in power often causes the car to slow down, or worse, to stop working altogether.
The supply of power to the track comes from a device that is plugged to a nearby wall outlet. The power supply then receives power from the source on the outlet, convents it into direct current or DC and supplies it to the car. The voltage that is typically received by the cars on the track usually ranges from 12 volts to 18 volts and 1 to 2 amps.

For more advanced slot lot cars though, drivers could add additional power to the race track to jazz up the performance of the car. This is done by pumping additional power to the track via individual power supplies for each racing lane. Doing so can increase the power of each lane by as much as 10 amps. Although this additional power generally increases the performance of each car, most cars require only up to 5 amps for enhanced performance.

This also poses the additional problem of modifying the powerbase – or the track segment where the power supply is attached – to regulate the additional power.