4 years (later)

356 pieces of track

11 power taps

164 running feet

10,000 visitors

1 outstanding TM.

Newmarket Hills Raceway Phase III

The numbers are only part of the story when you stop by Newmarket Hills. The usual first response is almost always ?WOW? followed by a 5 second pause. . ..

WHERE IT ALL STARTED

Slotting for me began ? like it did for many of us ? in the 60?s. An interest that has spanned 5 decades for me ? started out with an early single lane slot set from Ideal known as ?Motorific?. It was this early set and a brief experience with a hand built track that my father made (which disappeared shortly after we moved) that hooked me on slots. A year or two later I was able to enjoy a small figure 8 Aurora layout and over the next year or two I doodled and daydreamed about how to make the layout better. Unfortunately space limitations in our bungalow and two other siblings meant that slot cars were relegated to a small area atop a storage chest in the basement. This space was a generous for a child, but wasn?t as big as the space occupied by my imagination. Once high school commenced so did an interest in music, guitars & cars. Slots seemed so small and less interesting that the full size vehicle counterparts that now occupied my time and wallet.

Many years later I had the opportunity to purchase a box full of track, cars and other gear from a local toy shop that used them as widow displays at Christmas. I discovered that slot cars were still being manufactured and bought a new set to compliment the lot I had just purchased ? mostly Tyco stuff. Knowing what I know now it was amazing that any of that stuff actually worked at all ? I was only using 1 wall wart over the entire apartment spanning length. But this too faded as my interest in guitars took me away from home on most of my spare time...

The time span between rediscovery got shorter this last time - only taking 10 years. In October of ?99 I ran head first into the current resurgence of slot cars while searching the internet at work. Over the next 4 years Newmarket Hills has gone from a fancy to a reality and in the process evolved into Canada?s largest 4 lane private home track.

MA, WE BE GETTIN' US SOME SLOTS

NHR began as a modest single table track
the initial dimensions of the table were 12? by 6?. I chose to go wider than the standard 4 feet I was seeing everywhere else to allow wider turns than I could squeeze into 48?. After deciding on table size, I had to think about the layout. The goal was to come up with something that wasn?t going to be boring, and was going to be a challenge as I became accustomed to my track. I heard about Tracker 2000 track design software which allows you to build and modify layouts without the hassle of clicking and snapping valuable plastic track together in a much smaller space ? your monitor screen. This became invaluable to NHR ? and subsequent phases II and III.

A layout was settled on and the next task was to find track. My choice was TOMY/AFX since it had the widest variety of pieces and was currently available as new. After getting some horribly inflated prices from local hobby stores I went direct to the source and dealt with Scale Auto in Seattle. I placed an order for the Super International Set to get all the basics and some additional track pieces that I calculated I?d need. This was February 2000. I took delivery some time in March and was turning my first laps before the end of April. Between April and September elevation bracing was installed permanently and some of the landscaping substrate was started. Over this time I also met with some local HO racers and managed to get a weekly meet going. During these first track trials we joked about lap times that almost broke into the 1 minute barrier. Later we realized that our folly was attempting to turn laps with the dried out old sponge tires ? the original equipment.

PHASE II

Over the summer it became obvious that while NHR was very much a technical, challenging track the one thing missing was a good straight to wind out on. The 12? table length was shorter than the average layouts of 16?, thus there was no room for the typical long straight. In July of 2000, just 3 months after getting NHR up and running, phase II was started. It would be a simple addition of a 12?x3? table with the lanes hooking left - straight out and back - with the return incorporating the treacherous banked sections. The footprint NHR now resembled a large ?L-shape?. With less than a week to go in October before the first ever invitational race, NHR was partially disassembled and the high speed section added. It was up and running for the Saturday event with few problems. Eventually the banked section would be rebuilt 5 times to correct alignment problems ? it was easier to find the banked sections than it was to find the banked supports. Those never materialized and alternatives had to be fabricated. NHR was in this configuration for the remainder of 2000, all of ?01, ?02, and most of ?03.

PHASE III

After deliberating for months on whether or not I should expand NHR (as if not!) and by just how much, I settled on the final track plan. The 3rd phase added almost as much lane length as had existed at NHR?s original plan. This wasn?t just a bunch of long straights and neither was it just twisty esses to use up 9? curves ? it had to most of all be quick to drive yet challenging. A careful look at the expansion and you can see that the placement of the curve features was intended to thwart establishing any type of driving rhythm. An over blown ?bus stop? type section was added to slow cars down and this section incorporated 6? radius curves on both inside and outside lanes, meaning that no driver could expect to get an advantage by carrying speed here. Everyone gets on the brakes hard especially after coming out of the 10? straight section that dumps you on the bus stop.

NHR is full of tight turns, blind curves, and long straights. Add to the mix that lane camber can change from inside to outside in a blink of an eye, and that much of the time you?re climbing or descending through the 12 ? of elevation, you quickly appreciate that to run at NHR requires concentration for the full 164? ? 2 scale miles! You really only get to rest on the exit of the bank because it?s here that you wind out through a quarter mile before dog-legging to the right, setting up for your ascent through ?The Hills?. Once out of The Hills and back on solid ground you can burp you car down a 10? strip before hanging it out on the 2nd largest of NHR?s straights. 17 feet later you?re hard on the brakes to negotiate the keyhole ? inside radius of 6? for over 225 degrees. This keyhole is one of those features that will never be duplicated elsewhere, because to make it fit the outside lane had to be shaved by over 3/4 of an inch and it butts against the entrance to the banked curve running the opposite direction. After the keyhole is a shorter stretch, bus stop, a yet shorter stretch, 2 large 90 degree corners, the esses and a quick dash to the finish line. Trakmate software handles all the event scoring & timing ? and a look at the overhead monitor will tell you at a glance how far ahead or behind you are. Newmarket Hills Raceway is far from complete. In fact it may never be ?complete? - in terms of what I see, but it will always be Green, Green, and Green, at NHR.

P.S.

Newmarket Hills was disassembled in November of 2004 when we purchased a new home further north in Ontario in the beautiful "cottage country" area of Muskoka. The last race at NHR featured Tjets prepped to O.H.O.R.A. specs and was run with 21 minute heats. Some serious nerfing was happening and you could really get a sense - as I did - that you could get a groove going. In fact many of the participants echoed that this last race was the closest thing to real racing (to borrow a slogan) they'd experienced in miniature.