How Disney's Test Track Works 

Hold on, no no wait. Let me finish my dinner first. Ah shit.

First the video, then Test Track. These videos make the ride more fun!

YES. ugh I miss it!

I would rather be riding World of Motion, actually…I really loved the old classic Epcot pavilions (I was a teen in the early 80’s so I grew up with the classic rides and miss them all!)

For me it would be Radiator Springs Racers at California Adventure!

They were just racing slicks - rubber tire "marbles" are all over the track. And under, there is PLEANTY of dust from tires but much is from the collector arm shoes. It's a composite copper that includes an embedded lubricant similar to graphite.

Only been to Disney World twice, and luckily I got to experience both versions. Always wondered what the sim version was supposed to portray, if it was some push to market Tron or something just seemed like a silly change, but perhaps one that was needed when the original sponsorship stopped.

me too! I loved the crash dummies toys as a kid too

I've also had the pleasure of experiencing both versions

I’m so glad it’s not just me. So often it seems as though it’s impossible to reach the heads at the table approving these decisions. I don’t know why they changed it, but I hope they understand that the general sentiment is that the public doesn’t approve.

I've ridden both and I love the newer version much better.

💪💪💪

Awesome

Just the general ride imaginearing of all the rides interested me

Hi! If you don't mind me asking, what part of Test Track did you work on?

Why did you leave?

@@katt58 I worked on set design and the test and adjust team

@@thenerdyarab7622 well honestly the project was just taking too long. We had already spent over three years working on it, in the meantime an entire park was built (Animal Kingdom) in less time it took to get one ride built!

Can I have your autograph 😭😭

Agreed, OG test track was the best

Big Facts!! They should have enclosed the outside portion if they wanted to do the sim track concept

I like tron track better.

👏👏👏

This beats the OG test track for me, it’s in future world so the future theme fits more than the industrial theme

It made me scared af

@@brodygoding5664 lmao what were you afraid of it’s a car

@@Jushwa Just stop laughing your a off for a moment, and try to increase your IQ from 10% to like 20%; What happens when something goes wrong with a car?

As another 10 year old who was scared by test track when I first went, it was more of the ride queue that ramped up the fear then the actual ride itself. Just imagine videos of collision testing littered throughout the line up until you actually step into a Test Track vehicle. The modern ride queue now is very tame compared to the original with its numerous videos of cars getting smashed up, back to back lol

I rode Test Track at 12 and absolutely loved it.

I also was there on a high school band trip when it was brand new. Good chance we were there at the same time. haha. There was a 4 hour wait when we were there.

Damn

20m minutes? We’re they afraid people would fall to their death? SMH

@Dana McCall dont want the ride starting by fault plus they likely had to let out people behind the bad car so to move it and clear the ride or repair it

Probably not a flat tire (there's a way to move those on the ride using a special mode called a "ride stop" and manually controlling the movement of the vehicle from the rear deck, and even so, when there is low tire pressure or a flat, the vehicle goes into a special mode called an auto cyxle out. When am ACO occurs, the vehicle goes to jog speed.). If something major happened before the switch to vehicle storage, we could often keep the ride up as we could get a vehicle into there in about 15 minutes. Past that switch nearly always resulted in the ride going "101" as it was a long, long way back to the maintenance bay. Simply not a way to get enough vehicles out of the way. Broken axles, similar to a CV (constant velocity) axle in a car is used and were common. So frequent, especially on the hill climb, the ride profile was changed from that area. Lower torque and acceleration made for better ride up-times, something that was a struggle through I'd say 2006-2007. We made huge changes to several systems to improve that.

​@@johnrpishotta Thanks for the insight. The tire appeared flat but I am sure you are right that there was more damage than that and I can't recall if the axle might have been broken.

Good to see you again supreme leader!

It's a fast acting servo drive that operates a belt that opens the doors. There's only been a couple of times that a vehicle went through the doors.... Ride stops, or course, on any malfunction.

jeeeeeeeeeeeeeeez

I didn't know WM had a museum... 😜

World of Motion was awesome! At its opening, it was the largest audio animatronic cast put together by Disney. There was a motorcycle cop hiding behind a billboard that always made me laugh.

On our last trip there one of the screens had the app in windowed mode. I believe it was running Unreal Or Unity. Don't know how to get a hold of it, but it was fun to get a little BTS of the software for that car creator app

Ayy thank you! 😅

immediately when seeing that, I paused the video to read the comments incredibly useful comparisons for someone not used to the imperial units

@@julioan94 Exactly! And we should measure distance in smoots.

near kensington huh? I actually drove in there once!

What's your favorite horror video?

@@bunnymanmoe8819 The Who concert, kills me to know something like that happens every year all over the US.

Yes, it was. Many physical effects over the current videos that are used. Most would not remember that "crashing car" just before the run-out of the building for the high speed portion of the ride. It was a sled system that would move a car forward, "hit" a wall and then look all dented up. Just after the ride vehicle passed, it would be pulled back and the panels would reset for the next one. It was a maintenance headache - but I always did all that I could to keep it going. It tied so closely into the show of the ride, all the way back to the "briefing room" back at the preshow. It eventually became static (no movement) and a misting smoke effect added. Another detail on the original ride that was only observable from the front row of the car - two traffic cones in the non-abs test would be across the track that appeared to sweep to the left, but the car would juke to the right. Right as the vehicle would approach, the cones would quickly move down for the car to pass over. The vehicle did not hit them. It was timed with the wayside RCC (ride control computer). One of few effects that the RCC handled over the show control computer. The crash doors being the other. This was due to those effects being a part of what is called the ride envelope - the track or on the track where a vehicle could hit the device.

Oh no, Bob 😭

I heard it went up to $10 this month 😉👍

Alternatively, if they invest in renewable energy sources then there's less need to preserve that small amount of energy. Properly harnessing solar, tide and wind power opens up such interesting changes in energy use and storage dynamics.

Disney already powers itself on your trash and other waste in the parks. And they have some huge solar arrays they've been putting on over the past couple years too.

@@tankerkiller125 The solar arrays make me mad because they cut down trees to build them. They could have spent a little more money and covered all of the parking lots with solar arrays and shaded cars at the same time.

Sorry to say, that's not really a possibility due to the way that power is created and stored. There would simply be too much loss to efficiently move the power to a wayside storage area. Then there's the maintenance... It's just not that much in the grand scheme of things. For these vehicles, that power was dissipated as heat through a special resistor pack.

I was wondering how long it would take for someone to notice that 😂

It is but the sim has really underrated graphics/props, like the simulated truck

Plenty of people would walk by and stop in for a chat. While many maintenance guys would be annoyed, I always enjoyed taking to other cast members who were curious on how things worked. Something I started way back with Body Wars first opened. I would sit down by one of the ride bays where people would come by for the cast preview and answer questions and such. That was what seems like a lifetime ago now.

Not mentioned, but clearly shown in the footage a couple of times.

Quite honestly, the 4 load bearing tires (the rubber ones that you see), have zero effect on steering the vehicle. They are all 4 independent. Another lesser known fact, these vehicles cannot go backwards, even for short distances. There is a specific type of shock absorber called a damper in place that dampens oscillations when traveling at speed. There are 8 wheels in the bogie assemblies that actually are responsible for guiding along the track. While I appreciate the analogy, these vehicles could never be driven on a street without very major mechanical rework. Just not possible.

@@johnrpishotta While I agree they're not street-legal, I noticed all four wheels turning even at 3:30, which I thought was interesting for immersion, visual appeal, and maybe even ride quality. Do you think that's just an illusion or could some hydraulic movement be involved, even though it doesn't directly affect the steering? It makes sense considering real cars rely on visible wheels turning, and it might even prevent unnecessary wear and tear on the tires and track surface. Many of those corners are quite tight, and with vehicles traveling thousands of miles a year, not having the wheels turn could easily lead to screeching noises and potentially disturbing guests due to the sliding across the floor. While I realize some subtle screch sound still occurs, the simulated steering likely minimizes it and reduces wear and tear. In turn (no pun intended!), this system could actually be saving both components!

​@@rocketbunny2677- each of the 4 wheels are independent and do move when going through a turn- tires are already chewed up by the track surface, which is coated with the same high grip, anti slip coating on aircraft carriers - they would be obliterayed if they did not move through a turn. They just don't steer the vehicle, per se - they just follow along. That's done by the bogeys below the deck where the actual track is. Nothing connected to them except the damper. And as for any tire chirp noise, anything you hear is part of the wayside (off-board) audio track. The only place you could hear tire chirp is in maintenance bay. After the roll down door that leads into the bay, the deck is not coated with the anti-slip material.

damn. it didn't break down when I was on it, but we stopped for maybe...felt like 20 min, perhaps less. it was right before the outside part and I'm Sqweemish when it comes to bigger rides or anything with even small hills etc. so I was nervous 🙃 first time I did it it scared me slightly but it's so quick. I ended up riding it about 9 times. LOVE it.

Yea it's extremely complex and extremely unreliable. That tends to be a trend

No lies detected

Thanks for the suggestion! It looks like a really cool ride!

He does graphics, I do models :)

On, it can and does happen. The thing is, the wayside RCC/RMC (ride control and monitor computers - there are 1 each) shuts the ride down utilizing what it called a "power disconnect". It's the longest of restarted when the ride shuts down like this. For what it's worth, the faster the vehicle travels, the longer the zone is, since the stopping distance is increased. In the station (where you get on and off the ride), the zones are so very short (vehicles only moving at jog speed), that it is physically impossible for two to occupy the same zone. There is also ALWAYS an empty zone between vehicles. The command in this empty zone is always a stop command (the wayside computer only tells the vehicle to do 1 of three things - 1, "run" at profile, 2, move at jog speed, or 3 "stop") to the vehicle as well.

I find the new theme doesn't really fit nearly as well as the original. In the original you had a voice that would guide you through each of the different testing stages and it made you really feel like a crash test dummy. The new version feels very detached and lifeless in my opinion. Instead of walking through a detailed recreation of an automotive engineering faculty in the lineup to the ride, you instead walk past some black walls with simple blue LEDs. Honestly I'm hugely disappointed in the new version

it was way easier to understand for anyone.. the visuals were very obvious... you got to go through the actual physical tests of the car which added thrills and humor to the ride, like the extreme temperature tests, being "sprayed" with substances, suspension tests with bumps, the near miss with the semi, etc. The doors before the outside track made sense since just about everyone has seen a crash test into a wall. Far superior.

Here's a "fun fact" about Mission: Space - each ride bay (4 of them) have 10 capsules that are mounted on large arms that extend from a central hub. There is not one, single metal weld that is a part of the arm support structure. Everything is assembled with a special type of rivet. Same for the T-bar control arms (there are two) that connect the body of the Test Track vehicle to the bogie assemblies. No welds - all rivets. Why you ask? Welds can crack and break, rivets not so much.

I suspect that you could probably interfere with the ride's communication system using a signal jammer, but I wouldn't recommend trying it unless you want a lifetime ban from the park 😅 The ride covers a wide area, so I don't think you could take the whole system out at once, and that would help to pinpoint the location of the device. Anywhere the public can access is also monitored with cameras, so it's unlikely that you would be able to place such a device without being noticed. Most modern Disney rides utilize rf communication in some way, so I would imagine that the engineers have considered this problem and have put countermeasures in place to prevent tampering.

If jamming occurred, you would get packet loss. If you get packet loss, the vehicle will apply the brakes. Just a guess.

From what I understand it is not a wireless system. The signal is transmitted through the contacts that are on the side opposite the power.

@@howardm2642 Yeah, it's not clear from this video. There are two controls in this video. One is connected along the bus bar (as you say) and controls the distance between vehicles. The other is connected wirelessly to the central control. 12:40 shows the wireless connection via transceivers on the left. And shows the bus controls on the right. What's nice about this system is the vehicle itself can detect a problem and shut down, or determine if it can go into the next zone. Cool system. cool video.

I’ve always had questions like this since I was young and I think it fuels engineering curiosity. Basically “how could I break this?” allows you to think of ways to prevent it in the future and is evident that such a mindset was used when designing this in the first place (albeit from a “what if this aspect broke” perspective). If I were to try to sabotage this ride though, and minimise the risk of detection, it would be via a time delayed jammer. It’s not clear from the video whether the diagrams of space underneath are to scale, but if you were able to drop a self powered device down there that were small enough not to physically jam the device (or be spotted doing so) it would then need to be powerful enough to cause issues from a reasonable range; the first thing the maintenance team might do once they’ve figured out it’s RF related is to check the immediate area where the vehicle stops, and they might not consider the fact of where it starts working again and centring in on the devices possible location. Anyway, just theorising, please don’t do this, I don’t want to be hunted down by an evil Mickey Mouse.