[woodcote]

This will - no doubt - be a place for doodling and procrastination. However, the aim is to get my home/office track off the ground.

The space I have, the sketches I've made and track sections I've built and tested resemble Monte Carlo - unfortunately the Formula-E circuit. However, I want the look and feel of something more like this...



I do recommend you watching that 16 minutes of Murray Walker and some utterly magnificent saloon car racing.

I lived near Crystal Palace Park for a while from the early 1990s - nearly twenty years after racing ceased there. I walked along the southern perimeter of the park on my way to and from the 176 bus stop when I worked in Camberwell and then up the Anerley Hill side when I caught the train into central London for a new job. And I spent plenty of late afternoons and evenings enjoying the peace and quiet, the wonderful trees, the ridiculous dinosaurs and noting the tarmac when my older sister told me about going to the racing there in the late 60s and early 70s. They are good memories.

My Scalextric Sport Digital layout will be a vanity project - a place to test my cars, run some laps and have some fun squeezing somethings that will hopefully look nice into a small space. The narrow track, minimal run off, elevation changes and that big background of trees means the Crystal Palace theme works for me. I lived on Anerley Hill, so that'll be the working name. Reading Phil Parfitt's excellent history of racing at Crystal Palace, plus watching footage of some of the action is certainly getting my creative juices flowing. So here's some more Murray and another great saloon car race, this time from 1969...



The plan for the week or two is to put the track together on the flat in the kitchen or living room and test the whole layout for the first time. And then try out some elevations. That'll help decide if straights run side-by-side or on top - a double-decker. A track design is one thing, seeing if it works in practice is another.

[Gordon Steadman]

My childhood was spent in Charleville Circus off Crystal Palace Park Road and later I had two places in Anerley so the title drew my eye.

An uncle had a house, the garden of which, bordered directly onto the track, and we spent quite a bit of time with him leaning over the fence watching the cars hammer around. Such a great track. I guess the NIMBYs put a stop to it.

[BAracer]

Woodcote

Please please please don't build it in colour...keep it authentic Murray Walker black, white and grey.

[woodcote]

The well-to-do local residents were pretty much always opposed, right from the start of motor bike racing in the 20s. However, the demise of the circuit was more down to safety issues. The huge houses on Crystal Palace Park Road were almost all split up into flats by the 1990s and the whole area down to Anerley and Penge was pretty grim. We paid £175 a month for a big two bedroom ex-council flat in a 1930s block. I understand from friends who still live in the area that it has gone massively upmarket with Penge high street more like Shoreditch with artisan delis, hipster cafés and some very nice places to eat. I find all that difficult to imagine.

Murray Walker and Crystal Palace is also available in colour... the end of this race featuring the classic James Hunt / Dave Morgan coming together that was 'borrowed' and adapted to create an entirely fictitious Hunt / Lauda F3 race (partly filmed at Crystal Palace) for the film Rush...



Here's the scene from Rush...



I prefer the real race and the proper fisticuffs at the end

I also do like the idea of toned-down colours for the layout. I'm not a fan of technicolor. Black, white, greys and under-stated greens might be the necessary palette.

[Gordon Steadman]

I wonder what my little house in Station Road, Penge East would be worth now then

I think it was £5000 when I bought it. As you say, the thought of that area being trendy does rather stretch the imagination although the flat in Selby Road, Anerley was pretty nice. On the edge of the area though.

[richardtheforth]

 I understand from friends who still live in the area that it has gone massively upmarket with Penge high street more like Shoreditch with artisan delis, hipster cafés and some very nice places to eat. I find all that difficult to imagine.

Ha Ha, not quite! We lived between Anerley and Birkbeck stations in the late 90s: CP, Anerley, Penge and Sydenham were still very, er, vibrant back then.  CP and Anerley have changed most since then, biggest lurch upmarket was when the East London Line extension came to CP and Anerley. Sydenham has benefitted from this too, but also benefits from being close to 'South Londons posh' Dulwich, so people can move to Sydenham and tell others they live in 'Dulwich borders'. 
Penge is still Penge.

As much as I love those atmospheric youtube vids of the racing I'm glad there's no longer motor racing in the park, it's such a lovely tranquil oasis of calm and family fun, and there's plenty of other places for racing, Brands Hatch is pretty close! 
Anyway, look forward to seeing more the track!

[woodcote]

Phew! I'm glad the area has kept some of its 'charm'. Very nice little houses on Station Road. The pub near Penge East was somewhere we'd go quite often - we liked the landlord. Then he got sent down for a long stretch for a shockingly brutal assault on a rival publican.

Anyway, thank you Richard for reminding me about the track. Should get a few hours to requisition the kitchen floor over the next few days - and there are a few things to try...

   

That plan has been worked and re-worked many times and the corners built and tested. The key parts to look at with the whole track together are...

1. The top left corner and the pit entry - does it have to be the R3-R2-R3 with 3/4 of a straight before the pit-entry (one foot before the sensor). Or could I use my preferred corner of 4 x R3 and just a half straight? I'm not so bothered about getting in the pits (slow down!), more worried about a non-pitting car hanging out round the corner and catching the lane change flipper open...
   
2. Where best for the powerbase? It's going to be ARC Pro, with the option of swapping in a C7042 Advanced 6-car powerbase (or ARC Air) from time to time (maybe). The best place is probably on the lower straight, parallel to the pits. But I still have a hankering for a CLC at the end of that straight - and a LC button push over the ARC Pro sensors is not a great idea even with the latest powerbase update...
   
3. XLC or CLC? The original design was with the CLC. But then I re-worked both corners - especially the bottom right corner with the lovely R4-1/2str-R3-R3-R3 tightening to the R2-R1-R1-R2 and the evil reverse R1. Now it makes sense to have the XLC going in to the R4 and another XLC going into the top right bend. Those would be the only two lane changers, but I think they are in the right places for experimenting with a racing line and - potentially - for some close racing action...
   
4. Elevation - that's going to be trial and error. The layout is rather Monte Carlo-esque, but in terms of scenics I will use the terraces and railway station at Crystal Palace for inspiration - not like the real circuit, but in keeping with the setting. The front stretches are obviously lower. Mike (mikefi) at WHO has used some lovely looping ramps to get elevation on our digital tracks, so I will look to get part of the elevation done in those two looped curves and then gentle, steady gradients up the right-hand-side and down the pit straight. Elevations aren't great for using pace cars, but I'm not a fan of them anyway - I'd rather race against the clock or other people. Or just run some laps.
   
5. And I'll see how it drives with a range of digital and analogue cars, with and without magnets. And be prepared to swap around some track pieces (I have extras) within the space constraints - 280cms across the top and 283cms down the side. I'll be using Scalextric borders to begin with to give an idea of run-off space.
   

Here's a bit more saloon car action - in colour - from 1964...