if anyone knows of a nascar type layout or website plz tell me. i also want a futuristic looking train for it in an intricate design. if u even think of something like it tell me. thnx!![:D]
Are you looking to have a NASCAR track on a layout? I’m not sure if anyone would be willing to put one on as the track’s are quite large and are not served by the railroad it would be a waste of space( although it would look pretty cool) as for a futuristic looking train the Amtrak Acela looks futuristic.
http://www.blwnscale.com/Bachmann%20Acela.htm
Now that I think about it you could model a NASCAR track with an Amtrak station to serve it.
bill
You don’t mention a scale you’d like to work in so I’ll assume HO.
There are no plans that I know of to do exactly what you’re looking for, but that doesn’t mean you can’t blaze the trail. Years ago there was a piece of slot car track (you know, the little AFX cars) that had HO rails running through it at a 90 degree angle. I don’t know a lot about NASCAR, but if they run on, say, a city road course or something, you might find a use for this track piece. It’s been out of production for years, but they pop up on Ebay once in a while.
Bristol Motor Speedway is about the size of a large football stadium. Yes it would take up a lot of space but at the same time that would be an awfully cool thing to model .
I’ll just add that building even the smallest NASCAR-circuit racetrack to something remotely like scale would be an enormous scratchbuilding undertaking, as absolutely nothing of the sort is offered in HO or N scale as a basis to work from. Likewise, the stadium would have to be pretty much the entire layout, as it would have to measure 4x6 feet (in HO) at a minimum, even with selective compression, not counting parking space, to make it look even the least bit acceptable!
CNJ831
You could simulate the Martinsville track, and it’d have two huge advantages.
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It’ s a very small racetrack.
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In actually has a railroad that goes immediately behind it. In fact, it limits the size of the racetrack’s grandstands
The Bristol Motor Speedway scales out bigger than most HO layouts- and that doesn’t include spectator parking. Best way to model it, or anything similar (baseball or football stadia, etc,) is as a photo on the backdrop, with a rapid transit rail stop at or close to the front entrance. The Indiana Railroad and its predecessors once served the Brickyard that way.
As for a futuristic-looking train, the GM Aerotrain, with that ‘modified Edsel’ front end, still takes the (booby) prize. Too bad the ride wasn’t as good as the appearance.
Chuck
Hey pcarrell
Wher did you get that fantastic movie of the guy with the X box? Fantastic!
I found a 1/87 scale Ryan Newman Alltel Dodge at a show last year so cars are out there if you look. I have it roped off in a parking lot on my layout with people checking it out. I thought about modeling a race track but the over all size is just to big.
I have no idea of the actual dimensions of Bristol or any other NASCAR track but I’ll take a rough guess and say it is at least 1000 feet long and 500 feet wide. That is almost 12’ X 6’ in HO scale and a little more than half that in N scale. It might be doable, spacewise in N scale but that is a significant piece of real estate to devote to one feature. The killer is the cost of putting 100,000 figures in the the grandstand.
How about the front with the rest painted as a backdrop.
What about a small dirt track? They’re all over the midwest, and since they usually put them off in the outskirts of town (along with the railroad tracks) because of the noise. I’m sure someone makes some HO scale ‘winged warrior’ sprint cars.
This brings up a neat idea. I live near Baltimore, MD. Oriole Park at Camden Yards was built on top of an old rail yard and actually uses the old warehouse for offices pertaining to the team. Both it and M&T Bank Stadium (used for the Ravens) has rail service right outside th gates. However, in something short of Z scale, you’d never be able to model the whole thing!!!
I just picked it up on the web one day. I thought it was funny as all get-out.
Not anymore. They moved the track just so they could expand the seating capacity. I belive the race in a few weeks will be the first with the new stands.
When I get around to building my downtown seen, I have plans to place a baseball stadium on the backdrop. It will visible above the tops of the other structures. I want to get the size right to give it a forced perspective making it seem like it is several blocks away from the 3 dimensional structures.
Ah, thanks. After several decades of being a fan, and a season ticket holder at Bristol, today’s (***ty) version of Nascar dropped off my radar after The Man died.
California Speedway has commuter rail service to the track.
A track would look cool, but would take up waaaay too much space. You really don’t appreciate the size of one until you get inside one. TV just doesn’t do the facility justice.
Try looking at a few tracks with Google Earth or equivalent, then you can get a better appreciation of their size in relation to nearby objects.
I really miss North Wilksborough, Riverside, and the old Richmond. I can’t believe there is now only one race at Darlington. They ruined Sears Point by by-passing the carousel turn, they’ve never run Watkins Glen properly, AND the worst thing is they’ve added all those lousy Michigan like, Pensky “D” tracks.
In a couple years it is going to be worse when they go the the “standard” cars.
I suppose they can just drop the “S” and become NACAR… Certainly any vestiges of stock are gone. Of course the Chevy’s haven’t even been close since they dropped the “illegal” MonteCarlo with that sloped back window.
Yep. “How to ruin a fantastic racing series in one easy step” by Mike Helton.