As I get further and further along in making my track what I want it to be, I’m becoming more and more dissatisfied with one aspect of it I can’t seem to get right: my pit row. I did a blog post about this some time ago, when I explained how my trio of Greenlight garages went from gray to mud brown. Almost 3 months later, nothing has changed. My conversation with the builder in BC who I hoped would be able to create something for me has come to a halt, and I haven’t seen a single one of the Atlas grandstands come up for sale in that time, let alone 3 of them. Increasingly I’m thinking I’m going to have to either just roof these garages and forget about the grandstands entirely, or some up with something else.
First, a note about the row of pit stops in front of the garages; these were made by a company called “Winner’s Circle” which I believe was an imprint of Hasbro. They were-probably quite obviously-originally NASCAR dioramas. I don’t have any NASCAR-style slotties, but I liked the detail and the size of these little slabs, so I simply removed the 1:64 stock cars that came with them and replaced them with the types of cars that populate my slot car fleet.
Here is what they usually look like…
I bought the 3 cars you see on each diorama specifically for this purpose, wanting to choose cars that were on the smaller end of the 1:64 scale in order to look right with the HO scale slot cars. From left to right: A Ford GT 40 by Greenlight, a Hot Wheels Premium Ferrari P4 in the sought-after yellow, and the Hot Wheels “standard issue” Porsche 917 long tail I originally had on the right has now been replaced by another Premium Hot Wheels, a Porsche 917 short tail identical to the one Steve McQueen raced in “LeMans.” The cars all look great, but there are some problems…
First off, there’s a Ford sitting at a pitstop covered with GM Goodwrench logos. That doesn’t make much sense. The Coca Cola logos where the Ferrari sits are less unlikely, although I don’t recall ever seeing Coca Cola sponsoring a Ferrari anywhere. In the case of the Porsche, we have a car in Gulf oil livery pitting in an area covered with Texaco logos.
Hmmmm…kind of makes you think I didn’t think this through very well, eh?
Reviewing my recent video of the “64 Pack Muscle Car Rumble”, I also noted that I left these cars in these positions while filming that race, and that wasn’t a good idea either, so I’ve now taken to swapping the sports/racing cars out for muscle cars depending on which fleet is being raced, so the cars appearing in the pits match what’s on the track in type. Again, I chose 3 cars on the smaller end of the 1:64 scale, so currently we have a trio of Johnny Lightning castings: a ’67 Olds 442, a ’70 Corvette, and a ’55 Chevy Nomad, all racing versions with blown engines. At least there is less of a mismatch here between the cars and the sponsors than with the sports cars!
Getting back to the sports cars, though, I’m going to have to move some things around; its likely the Goodwrench pit will have a Corvette going forward, the Ferrari will likely stay in the middle, and the Ford will either move to the Texaco pit, or something else will, leaving Steve McQueen’s LeMans 917 to appear in the paddock.
That may solve that problem, but now back to my much bigger problem: finding the grandstands that are supposed to be mounted on the tops of the topless garages!
Yes, there are other options besides the Atlas model; there’s an Aurora grandstand from the same era that’s no less expensive but is a lot easier to find, but I feel like that one, as nice as it is, is too big for the rooftop of the pit garages; its designed to look like a ground unit. The paper grandstands my Innovative Hobbies are out of the question; that company makes some cool stuff but I haven’t been happy with their cardstock buildings, and I want something nice for what will be essentially the central item of my whole diorama, so cardboard isn’t going to cut it. Scalextric makes some 1:43 kits that I also thought I might try; these look very good, but I’m quite sure they would be too large for my needs and, again, these are cardboard and they look like they might be very challenging to build. In addition, I can only find them for sale from vendors in England, so since they are expensive to begin with, adding international shipping pushes the price over what I’m will to risk for cardboard, and for something that may not work anyway.
So, I did just recently come across some 3D-printed pieces for sale that are reasonably priced, but they don’t have rooves, and my grandstands must be covered, so what I’m thinking as of right now is I’ll buy one of these and see if I like it, and if I do, I’ll get 2 more, and then see what I can do about trying to scratch-build some covers for them. As of now I think some wooden dowl pins from Hobby Lobby, cut to the right length and painted, would be fine as the support posts, but just cutting a piece of Masonite or cardboard for the roof isn’t going to satisfy me; I want the rooves to be pitched, or at the very lease angled, something similar to what you see on that awesome Atlas piece.
So…how to do that? Any suggestions?
My concern is that what I come up with is going not going to be nice enough for my standards, which is why I want something factory made from plastic or resin, but increasingly it looking like that’s not going to happen. I guess the good news is that trying the 3D Printer grand stand and making my own roof out of craft materials won’t cost much in terms of money; it will take a lot of time, but I’m willing to give it try. Stay tuned! Hopefully you’ll see what I came up with in the next couple of weeks!
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