Irohazaka-based Micro Track - ZipZap

itzlinky · Post by **itzlinky** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 2:22 am

Hey all, new member here.

Just thought I'd share my current project for my Zip Zaps. It's a project my girlfriend and I have been working on for a few days. This would be our second track together. It's coming out pretty decent.

The roads and corners are approximately 7" in width with the downhill slope coming in at inbetween 27-30 degrees.

The biggest pain was making the base and the supports on the bottom. God, it took like five days to do that crap. After that, here is what we completed in a day...

Here's day two of working on the actual track...

This is the entire track from start to finish...

It's still incomplete. We still need to put the "rail guards" onto the track and finish up the remaining "supports" for the corners to make it smoother.

As you can see, after we cut them up to bend, we shaped it out and taped it down to make keep it's desired shape. After that we make the supports and place it underneath...

Other things we are planning for this thing is to make two "jumps" on the last two corners. What that means is that instead of having the rail guards go all the way around the corner, we make it along the straightaways and stop as the corner begins. Within that "U" shape, we will have to put something there to allow our cars to be able to "jump" the corner (like a shortcut) instead of having to go all the way around. We're thinking about topping it off with some saw dust (on top of hot glue) then spray paint it a greenish or peachish color for grass.

She supposedly knows how to make "trees"...so I'll leave that up to her. As for the track, we are currently planning on painting it with a black or primer gray color then print out the rail guards/roads and apply it using a Spray Can based adhesive.

Well that's all...I'll keep everyone updated about the project...

SuperFly · Post by **SuperFly** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 2:32 am

Welcome to the hood! That's pretty interesting. Have you driven it? I'm curious what your first track looks like.

Pretty cool your girlfriend is into building tracks!

©SuperFly

itzlinky · Post by **itzlinky** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 2:44 am

SuperFly wrote:Welcome to the hood! That's pretty interesting. Have you driven it? I'm curious what your first track looks like.

Pretty cool your girlfriend is into building tracks!

©SuperFly

Haha, yeah. My girlfriend isn't exactly the most 'normal girlfriend' in a sense. She loves anime, kick ass at playing video games, enjoy working on car, knows and understands the mechanics of a car, likes playing with RC, has a pretty damn quick shifting reaction time on the dragway, and is into almost everything an average guy is interested in, haha.

Yeah, even though the corners aren't "covered" with the guard rails yet, I took a drive with a ZZ and it just flew down the downhill onto the next road onto the next...(I believe I fell off somewhere after the fourth corner). Going uphill was pretty fun too, except for the fact that the ridges on the corner sometimes throw the car into a different direction. Smoothing that out with a printed out road design should fix that. My girlfriend suggested making a speed bump over it...xD

I'll try to get a picture of the first track we made tomorrow. It's a flat track based off someone else's design, but overall it was pretty cool.

crazydave · Post by **crazydave** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 10:52 am

That a pretty involved project there. I don't have the attention span to finish something like that.

Looks like it'll be fun to to drive on when its finished though.

sg219 · Post by **sg219** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 11:57 am

Impressive first post.

I've never seen a track designed like that.

What's the reasoning or idea for the angle? For it to be on a hill? Just to be different or is this common?

It's new to me.

Lookin' good. I like the layout.

Post some diving vid when you finish.

Great work.

SuperFly · Post by **SuperFly** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 1:10 pm

sg219 wrote:Impressive first post.

I've never seen a track designed like that.

What's the reasoning or idea for the angle? For it to be on a hill? Just to be different or is this common?

It's new to me.

Lookin' good. I like the layout.

Post some diving vid when you finish.

Great work.

I could be wrong, but that looks an awful lot like the roads they race on in "Initial D". Gotta build in a little drainage ditch to hook your wheels in around the corners!

MotorGong · Post by **MotorGong** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 1:19 pm

That looks interesting. I've never seen a whole track on a slope like that either. I can't wait until you get more done so I can see your progress.

I love the idea of the short-cut, those can be fun.

Seeing a vid of it would be great when your done; that's something I want to do with my tracks.

itzlinky · Post by **itzlinky** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 1:27 pm

SuperFly wrote:
sg219 wrote:Impressive first post.

I've never seen a track designed like that.

What's the reasoning or idea for the angle? For it to be on a hill? Just to be different or is this common?

It's new to me.

Lookin' good. I like the layout.

Post some diving vid when you finish.

Great work.
I could be wrong, but that looks an awful lot like the roads they race on in "Initial D". Gotta build in a little drainage ditch to hook your wheels in around the corners!

Well, the idea for the angle was mainly for the the track to be a "downhill" and "uphill" style of driving (i.e. Initial D). The idea was based on the mountain hill driving/drifting in the Initial D series.

There's a place in Japan (also featured in Initial D) called Irohazaka where it has over 30 sharp corners down a mountain. Course, I tried to replicate it as a micro track but it would be quite difficult to put so many corners in such a track...haha.

As for the gutter, well...that's for a track known as Akina...xD. It would be a great thing to put, though I wasn't very sure how to implement such a thing yet. Maybe take a pen end and press it down to make a long denture in the foam board.

I'll try to finish up the plain track and do some racing with my girlfriend on camera to show you guys how it's like. Should be fun.

Here's a some pics of the Irohazaka of Japan...

Here's an example of a possible "jump" on this corner...

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sg219 · Post by **sg219** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 2:24 pm

I don't watch Initial D.

Just can't get into it.

That explains your idea and your doin' a damn fine job of putting it together.

betty.k · Post by **betty.k** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 5:37 pm

nice concept!

next i wanna see a continuing "hillclimb" series! pike's peak and our local, arthur's seat

sessiz · Post by **sessiz** » Mon Aug 08, 2005 6:50 pm

That looks to be one hell of an undertaking man and is looking great so far. I'm gonna ditto dave on the short attention span thing. I just lay down my mats and build some barriers from whatevers around if I wanna "track".

itzlinky · Post by **itzlinky** » Thu Aug 11, 2005 11:48 pm

Here's some updated pics of the track, haven't worked on it much due to work, but slowly making progress!

PimpIke · Post by **PimpIke** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 1:17 pm

very nice work!

Finks · Post by **Finks** » Fri Aug 12, 2005 1:50 pm

My big question is are you eating at all? I mean your frigde is totally boxed in with that track. Glad to see you are updating it, not many "in progress" tracks ever see finalization.

Gfunk · Post by **Gfunk** » Tue Oct 04, 2005 7:19 am

I know it's been a while, and I hate to bring up older topics, but I figured this one was still within range.

Anyway, this is awesome! I've had thoughts of building a downhill track before, but I never thought of putting the whole thing on a slope like that! Ingenious!

If you are wanting some print-out's of gaurdrails that look really nice, along with other downhill signs and such, check out this place.

Hope you're still working on this!