Cutting Your Race Track

First off, I'd suggest starting with an inside joke to one of your buddies.  Okay, now on to the serious stuff.

Here we're cutting the race track.  Now careful note.  This part will show when you're playing so measure and cut carefully.

For our race tracks we measured 7" inside our nicer piece of wood (a nicer pine that had a better grain).  This will allow for our rail to hang over after  it's covered with foam and vinyl.

Start your cut on the inside of your wood.  Drill out a small hole to start your jig saw.  The inner part of your cut will be covered by more foam and felt as your playing surface, so it's not important that the cut is noticeable. 

Just be careful once you start your cutting. 

Here I am cutting out the race track.

Remember this piece of wood is going to be visible to your players and guests.  Try not to deviate too far from your measurements. 

You do have room for error, but try not to go into that area.  The piece of wood that you're cutting from will be used as the center insert. 

These two pieces will fit back together flush once you're done with foaming and felting the center insert. 

When cutting it's a good idea to mark your sides on your cutout and on your center playing surface.  You can pencil mark on the bottom of your rail that you're cutting out. 

This way you won't spend any time trying to figure out which ways your pieces fit back together when you're putting all the parts back together. 

Since we were cutting multiple tables at the same time, we just labeled our pieces with X or Y markings.

Here I am once the completed race track has been cut out. 

Again when cutting make sure you have support on all sides so this piece doesn't fall down onto the floor and break.  This is going to be the most (only) piece of visible wood on  your table, so you don't want any largely noticeable imperfections.

Our X and Y marks are on the bottom of this piece (don't mark on top).

Here's a view of our first race track with the cup holders upside down. 

We purchased our cup holders from www.smackdogg.com like many other sites. 

They were a bit more pricey than most holders, but they're a larger size and will hold pretty much any beverage container.  (including a full sized beer / coozie)

With 10 cup holders your spacing comes out to be 23 inches from outside lip of cup holder A to the outside lip of cup holder B. 

Eight holders would have looked fine as well.

Here's another view of our table with cup holder spacing.