BEAR CREEK DRAGWAY North Texas

I checked with Paul at Max Trax about ordering another piece, but it was going to cost too much in shipping for just that one piece of track. He told me that it was fairly easy to do if I wanted to try it myself. I had additional power taps on my sectioned track and it did help performance.                                                                                                          By the way.....the IR lighting experiment did not work out like I had hoped. The lights do work and the idea will work, but those particular lights are not strong enough to operate the sensors at 3ft. Lighting distance for security lighting is 20m with these so I thought they would be good at 3ft. I tried using two lights together and it was better, but still not quite strong enough. I will need more powerful lights for it to work. The price goes up significantly which defeats the purpose of the idea. At this point I am looking at lighting similar to what Sam is using on his track. 120v xenon puck lights. I am a little bummed and have not completely given up on the idea yet, but I'm not going to go out of my way to try and make it work. I will post more findings as I go. 

Now thats funny......we were posting at the same time. I edited my previous post with info. about the IR lighting.

Yes they will definitely work at a distance of up to 2' as they are right now, but I am try to keep from having stuff hanging below the florescent fixtures. I have already decided not to pursue the idea any further at this time. I'm not out much money for the lights and just purchased some 120v xenon puck lights like Sam has. I will mount those to the florescent fixtures and tie in the electrical there. They came in a (5) pack so I could remove my start and finish gantry's altogether if I choose too. I kind of like my gantry's, but the thought of a completely clear track does appeal to me. I will figure it out when the time comes. I would still like to pursue the IR lighting idea but it is going to be more involved than I wanted right now. Like I said before, the cost jumps dramatically on that type of lighting when you move beyond what I have now. You and I know it doesn't have to be that way because the components are super cheap. So I'm sure I can build something that would suit my needs. But that will require more time than I have at the moment. Sam has had good luck with no problems using the xenon lighting so I feel confident going that route.

I got the additional power taps installed in the track and all wired in. Made a couple of runs to makes sure everything worked ok. Have not run any cars for time yet to compare, but I know it helped. Track fine tuning will continue up until the race. I will be testing it at the same time I am testing my cars.......which I need to get started on.