Once the track and walls have been painted and had enough time to dry thoroughly, you need to think about protecting certain areas that probably will have a lot of crashing - the high bank, dead man, lead-on, or the wall coming out of any curve or turn on the track. Something you might want to try - used successfully at many raceways - is the installation of cove-base rubber molding. This can be very helpful in protecting the inside of the retaining walls, especially in the turns where they sustain a lot of damage from deslotted cars slamming into them. (It’s easier to replace a strip of cove base molding than a section of retaining wall, or filling, sanding and repainting it every six months or a year! Cove base molding is available through many paint and wall covering outlets. They also sell a cove base glue but you can use the same contact cement you use for your track braiding operation.

Should you elect to install the cove base molding, the 36" lengths of the material are about 4" high and will require that you use a sharp knife to remove any excess from retaining walls that are less than 4" in height. We actually went to the expense, time and trouble of putting cove base all the way around both sides of the inside retaining walls on our tracks. This is a bit of overkill although it sure improves the overall appearance and makes the application of the section numbers easy put on and for people to see.