Building your own track is easy, inexpensive, challenging and provides a great sense of pride and accomplishment. Once you've done it, you will never go back to the plastic track. Your own track is limited only by your creativity and you can squeeze a lot more into a small space (if you want/need to). I've got 45 feet of track (two lanes) and 15 curves in a little more than the space required by the stock figure eight plastic track supplied in my race set. A home build track will have a much smoother surface and you won't be hitting guard rails and track edges. Planning and building are (nearly) as much fun as racing.