2006: The newly completed Sabatona Super Speedway!

With the track now completed and operational, it was now time for some of the finishing touches like adding the plastic side rails, painting the sides of the bridge and back straight walls, and installing some infield carpeting with a grassy look.
In its original location from 2006 to December 2007, Sabatona was in a small 23L x 8W room, with the back straight against the wall. Drive stations were located 3 each on the angled end straights, just like they were when it was originally CIR. This setup proved challenging as there were many blind spots while marshals were attending to cars, and it was tough to marshall the 2 end turns. It also got pretty hot during the races with up to 10 people in the room!
Reed switches were used with the TrackMate timing program. Below are photos of the completed Sabatona in 2006:

Sabatona's First Race: February, 2006

 Sabatona's first race was well attended. Space was tight, but everyone took turns waiting in the main basement area, and marshaling when needed.
The first race went off without a hitch, and many of the local racers were impressed with the smoothness and speed of the track. We raced LifeLike M Chassis Hard Nascar Bodies, and P Cup from what I can remember.

Sabatona moves!

In December of 2007, Sabatona moved to its current location in Mahomet, IL. Since this would be a delicate move, Sabatona was the last item to be moved, and would be handled by local racers. No moving guys are going to put their mitts on Sabatona!
The move went well, and while it was a struggle to get the track out of the old basement, it was a breeze to move the track into the new house thanks to the walk out basement.
Over the next few months, Sabatona got reassembled, and we held the first race at the new house in March of 2008. No changes were made to the track, and no changes or maintanance would be made until January of 2010.
From 2007 to 2010, Sabatona was host to several Sundowners and MHRA club races, and was the host track for the 2009 CITRO/MHRA G Jet 600 in October of 2009.

2010: Time for some updates!

After hosting the 2009 CITRO/MHRA G Jet 600 with 20+ racers, it became apparant that to continue to host larger events, it was time to give Sabatona a few tweaks and technical enhancements.
After the move and reassembly, I was never really perfectly happy with the joint fit on the straightaways. I ended up doing some major tweaks and improvements, which involved sanding the race surface in these areas, and repainting to match. Luckily, I still had the original primer and paint, and after some practice with the airbrush, the repair to the track and blending came out well.
During inspection, I also discovered that in my original haste to finish the track and go racing, I had missed several high spots on the steel rail (more than .012" tall), so I re dressed and polished the rails.
After these tweaks, the track was smoother than ever, and the already quiet G Jets were now wisper quiet as they navigated the track.
During this overhaul I also replaced the previous Trackmate timing system with single power relay, with a state of the art (for 2010) SlotTrak brand timing system. Mike Block, co owner of this company made me a great deal on the program and PC after attending the CITRO 600 a few months prior.
Mike talked me into also upgrading to 6 individual power relays, driven by 2 Phidgit brand USB cards.
After working out some bugs due to the 16' USB extensions needed to reach this board, the individual relays worked absolutely slick, a great addition to the track for sure.
The final touch to the track upgrades was the addition of the "Daytona Skybox" to the start/finish line.
I simply found a photo of the skybox, sketched a profile on paper, and made the structure out of thin sheet plastic. This was a great final touch to the track, and makes for some great "photo ops" for the races.