At our Caldicot club, which runs indoors all year round, we build our tracks from scratch each week as we use a local community centre, so can't leave it all out.
We don't use a physical template or anything, but I guess we have a few general rules in our heads when we build them....
1)
Always have down ramps...less marshalling & more happy racers!
2)
Smooth the transition from the floor onto the up ramp...hardboard works really well, the natural curve it creates is perfect!
3)
A flat/smooth take off lip to the up ramp ensures the car takes off nice and flat.
4)
Smooth the shape of the down ramp/second double/table top transitions...again hardboard is your friend!
5)
Take off angle and take off length can be varied...long/flat/fast or short/steep/high
Clay tracks (mostly) naturally follow these rules, and the US has some great examples of all of this...it's tougher indoors, but the right materials and clever design you can get really close and design some awesome features to race on...time, materials and practice!
And back to the original topic...I'd love to see a gallery/thread/section for tracks...something that showed full track pics, peoples favourite track features, even build tips, etc...a small and dedicated bunch of racers spend a lot of time and energy building them for the masses to turn up and race on, and many people have great ideas that could be passed on...seeing everyone's hard work will help give clubs other ideas and improve things for everyone!
My little contribution to that...the outdoor track at WORM that a group of us built this 'summer'...
Will have to start taking some pics of the Calidcot tracks too...don't have any recent ones!