About Vargo Speedway: -by Scott Vargo Vargo Speedway is a club of HO racers in Lombard Illinois, about 20 minutes West of downtown
Chicago. The track is a multi-level, 4 lane 1/64 scale mile road course, built into the back addition
of my house. Actual track length is @ 83 feet. It is built from Tyco track, with a Tomy banked turn.
The tables it is built on measure a combined length of 22' X 4.5' X 10', forming an 'L' shape. It's longest of 4 straightaways is @ 20 feet in length. The course encounters 7 different turns, with a
good exchange of reversing turns. (outside lanes exchange evenly to inside.) The back 'L' rises in elevation, reaching a peak height of nearly 5 feet in the hi-banks. The banks run through a
mountain range that is nearly 6 feet from the floor. Banking is over 35 degrees. The banked turns drop into the 20 foot straightaway, that declines 2 feet within a 10 foot distance to table level.POWER:
The track is powered by 8 Tomy 22v power packs, with 2 packs per lane, wired in parallel
. There are 9 power taps to the track, feeding from a massive main distribution center. 18 ga., 2 wire,
thermostat wire is routed from the respective main junction feed, with a power tap every ten feet in the track. Close attention was paid to have power feeding at the beginning of all straight
sections, where power demands are the greatest. Each lane has a driver station shelf, with 3 pole threaded posts for alligator clip controller hook ups, brake on/off switch, lane reversing switches,
and car parking sections, incorporating a sand paper area for tire scuffing, utilizing track power. Controllers are various Parma models. Power is very sufficient for wall packs, with the multiple
packs and power feeds through thick copper wiring. See more of our track power set up in the HO Tech Section
.TRACK TIMING: Race management and timing is handled by a Trakmate® Timing System, running on a freebie
486/33 PC with no harddrive. Trakmate is an awesome, low cost timing system for the club racer, and even commercial use. The version of Trakmate we run is a specially
modified version written for Vargo Speedway, incorporating an LED Starting Light Tower
controlled by the software. Similar to Drag Racing, each lane has its own group of LED starting lights overhead in the tower, dropping 3 yellow
lights, and a green, in sequence with the starting 'beeps' produced by Trakmate, and also incorporates red lights for false starts. We run a custom
made Track Relay system to control track power during races. The relay operates from the Green Starting Lights, and kills track power at the end of a
race. We also have incorprated "Track Call" panic buttons at the far ends of the track, to aid in corner marshalling. This really helps when the actual drivers at the track ends have to marshall
cars during a race. If there is a "hairy" crash, the Track Call button can be pressed, momentarily pausing the racing to re-slot crashed cars. For more details on this awesome system we
designed, click here. Daniel Groulix of Trakmate worked closely with me for over 4 months to help develop the signal output for our custom built start tower. The tower also includes infra-red timing
senders, starting line staging lights, and false start detection. This is a truly unique starting system, and has added a new level of excitement to racing Vargo Speedway.  (Previous to this
system, we used the single lane Japanese "Super Circuit" LCD timer from Scale Auto, utilizing a switchable lane sensor. We also ran a lap counter/timer readout
system I built from 2 old AFX "Ultra 5" units, pirated into a single, overhead LED readout. Crude, but it worked.) |
