74 replies to this topic

[Michael Jr.]

Thank you. I've accomplished a good bit of my goals for the week. I know I have one Dadds track and two Ogilvie tracks now. I'll continue mining for details and history.

[tonyp]

That is one of mine. We built all our commercial tracks using 5' X 9' sheets of 1/2" mdf. Some sections were 10' long on the odd track, but pieces were glued together to avoid a joint in an awkward spot occasionally. Longer sheets were and are available but 5x9 always worked for me.
 
   On most of my late 80's and early 90's tracks, our company name was not on the driver's panels because the owners did not want people to know where to get a track from. If you look closely you can see coloured plastic discs used to ID the hookup posts. We used all kinds of those until our local hardware store stopped selling them. I did build at least 2- 220' Engleman style tracks but can't tell if that is one of them.
 
   Stan never built a single bottom track. The tracks that were at Elmsford were custom built by Stan Engleman.

Your right. The Americans all had bottoms. Old age again.


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[John Streisguth]

I'm assuming you purchased this from Bloom Raceway in Bloomsburg pa. Iirc, the length of that track was a bit shorter than 220 ft.

[Michael Jr.]

I'm assuming you purchased this from Bloom Raceway in Bloomsburg pa. Iirc, the length of that track was a bit shorter than 220 ft.

 

Yes, that's the one. I'm not exactly sure of the length. Are you going off of an estimation based on experience or are you close enough to the track to have actually seen or heard the length?

 

I about to start ordering some single piece tarps to cover all my tracks. Took a little water on the one I have set up. It's irritating but repairable. However, I am reminded of when I lost my trioval to water so I'm getting tarps. I'll hope to get one to fit the entire Engleman.

[Half Fast]

I about to start ordering some single piece tarps to cover all my tracks. Took a little water on the one I have set up. It's irritating but repairable. However, I am reminded of when I lost my trioval to water so I'm getting tarps. I'll hope to get one to fit the entire Engleman.

Experience equals wisdom!

 

MDF is like a sponge for water, you have to be careful even cleaning a track.

 

Good Luck

[MSwiss]

https://www.uline.co...cB&gclsrc=aw.ds

[John Streisguth]

 

Yes, that's the one. I'm not exactly sure of the length. Are you going off of an estimation based on experience or are you close enough to the track to have actually seen or heard the length?

 

I about to start ordering some single piece tarps to cover all my tracks. Took a little water on the one I have set up. It's irritating but repairable. However, I am reminded of when I lost my trioval to water so I'm getting tarps. I'll hope to get one to fit the entire Engleman.

Partly from racing on it. It was previously at TKO raceway, which was just north of Harrisburg PA, and I seem to recall the advertised length was a bit less than 220 ft.  The person who would probably know best is Chris Radisich, as I think he raced on it when it was originally in California....IIRC, that is

[Michael Jr.]

Partly from racing on it. It was previously at TKO raceway, which was just north of Harrisburg PA, and I seem to recall the advertised length was a bit less than 220 ft.  The person who would probably know best is Chris Radisich, as I think he raced on it when it was originally in California....IIRC, that is

 

OK...this is the important history I was gonna go for that you have slipped in so let me get this and all I need is years.  

So we have Bloom Hobbies and Raceway, Bloomburg, PA

TKO Raceway in Harrisburg, PA

And somewhere in CA?  Is that the point of origination?

[John Streisguth]

Well, I may be wrong on the lap length.  According to a post in the Mason-Dixon retro archives, it is 220'  http://slotblog.net/...ts-tko-raceway/

[John Streisguth]

And Chris R. chimed in with some info in a later post.  Looks like "Uncle Kal's" opened in 2003:

 

Hey Bill,

After talking to you yesterday and getting the description of the track I had to check to make sure, but it's definitely the Engleman from Uncle Kals, the raceway I was part of for a number of years in California. I could never mistake those bright colors, and especially that orange, at the drivers stand! It looks like from the pics even the controller plug sockets survived, the best thing we ever added to our tracks, no more wrong hookups.



I'll dig up some other pics, but here is some links to the building of the raceway in CA with pics of the track as we put it together:

Uncle Kal's 1

Uncle Kal's 2

And yes, I was there (took most of the pics so wasn't in many):

Uncle Kal's 3

You could have run a small town off the wiring we put underneath all the tracks.

Uncle Kal's 4

Uncle Kal's 5

It was a fun track, and it will be fun to race on it again. I'll try to make it next weekend.

[Michael Jr.]

And Chris R. chimed in with some info in a later post.  Looks like "Uncle Kal's" opened in 2003:

 

Hey Bill,

After talking to you yesterday and getting the description of the track I had to check to make sure, but it's definitely the Engleman from Uncle Kals, the raceway I was part of for a number of years in California. I could never mistake those bright colors, and especially that orange, at the drivers stand! It looks like from the pics even the controller plug sockets survived, the best thing we ever added to our tracks, no more wrong hookups.



I'll dig up some other pics, but here is some links to the building of the raceway in CA with pics of the track as we put it together:

Uncle Kal's 1

Uncle Kal's 2

And yes, I was there (took most of the pics so wasn't in many):

Uncle Kal's 3

You could have run a small town off the wiring we put underneath all the tracks.

Uncle Kal's 4

Uncle Kal's 5

It was a fun track, and it will be fun to race on it again. I'll try to make it next weekend.

 

THANKS! These will be on the Upstate Web Page https://upstatespeed...om/about.html#/. It's so important to preserve the historicity of our tracks. I'll look them over and pick a few. Once I have them up look and make sure I have them labeled correctly please.  Dates and such are always helpful as well.

[Michael Jr.]

John S.

 

Uncle Kal's looks AMAZING! Who did the walls? That's such a great looking place. 

[John Streisguth]

John S.

 

Uncle Kal's looks AMAZING! Who did the walls? That's such a great looking place. 

 

No idea....I have information on the place other than what Chris posted

[Michael Jr.]

When did Uncle Kals close? It says it is closed until further notice and the last updates seem to be several years ago

[Michael Jr.]

https://www.uline.co...cB&gclsrc=aw.ds

 

Thanks. That's a better price than Amazon. Payday is Wednesday so the first of three will be ordered.

Swiss, nothing slips by you. You read it all!

[John Streisguth]

Well, TKO had the track around 2011, so probably some time between 2003 and then.  Here today, gone tomorrow, unfortunately.

[Michael Jr.]

First of all....both Uncle Kal and TKO looked like awesome raceways. I am crushed to know they are gone.

Second, I'm going to keep pressing your brain for some dates. I can get the dates from Bloom Hobbies. But Uncle Kal and TKO is a little fuzzy. I sent a message to TKO and he has bracketed a couple of years....not exactly specific.  Was it brand new at Uncle Kals? So it was born in 2003......left CA for PA in 2011.  Sold to Bloom a few years ago... I'll get that from Bloom and then to Spartanburg in 2020.

[Steve Ogilvie]

Those tracks were built in the early 90's sometime before 1994. I can tell because they have pine joints and all later tracks we built used all mdf joints. But the date of manufacture and a number for the tracks is up under a drivers panel section written in black sharpie pen. Usually fairly visible. These would have been delivered by us fully braided and wired, ready to run tracks. We only provided 1 tap for each track, but if the owners wanted more taps, we would put them in if they got some wire and connectors. Adding taps is fairly easy and a lot of owners just added the taps themselves because they had a plan in mind for the wiring. 

[Mike K]

Uncle Kal's Engleman and Hillclimb tracks came from Uncle Jax Tracks in Lake Forest/Laguna Hills California. I believe they were at Orange Hobbies previous to Uncle Jax.

[MSwiss]

Thanks. That's a better price than Amazon. Payday is Wednesday so the first of three will be ordered.
Swiss, nothing slips by you. You read it all!

I have a bunch of smaller Sam's Club / Costco blue tarps.

When you mentioned covering your track with a single tarp, I was curious to see if they even had one big enough to cover a whole track.

$56 seems like a pretty good deal to me.

Regardless, I would check and compare the mil thicknesses, because I don't usually associate Uline with great deals.

[John Streisguth]

Actually, ULINE has some pretty good pricing.  We were looking for some heavy duty chromed wire rack type shelving, and ULINE was by far the cheapest.  Of course, it helps that they have a warehouse a half hour away, so we could pick it up and save shipping costs

[John Streisguth]

Uncle Kal's Engleman and Hillclimb tracks came from Uncle Jax Tracks in Lake Forest/Laguna Hills California. I believe they were at Orange Hobbies previous to Uncle Jax.

Wow, they've really gotten around

[Steve Ogilvie]

After looking at the pictures quite a few times I have come to a conclusion about the Engleman style track in the pictures above. I did not build that track. That track was built by Donn Bryans in Florida. The joints are made with poplar wood, not pine unlike my old tracks. Donn may have changed to MDF joints later on but I do not think he did. Poplar is a very stable wood, minimal shrinkage and does not warp or twist like pine and spruce can. It was not sold by my distributor or I would have used it too.

 

   Donn Bryans and I worked together for years and he continues to build beautiful tracks to this day. He has never gotten the credit he deserves. When he builds a track he usually crates it up and ships it. And his tracks went all over the world, just like my tracks. He has a huge shop near Daytona Beach. He is at 3867566564. Sometimes does business as The Race Place, I think he was listed here under that name.

[Jay Guard]

Donn refurbed my track and did a great job filling and recutting the braid lands, laying down a new epoxy surface, new striping, and finally rebraiding it in sections, I highly recommend his work.

[blue&orange]

Just found this thread, and sorry to hear Bloomsburg finally sold the track.  I may have won the last race on it -- 2/9/20 for your history.  As I recall, it was 185'.