Why do we assume balls, when we could be easily talking about cylinders.
This "track" idea is pretty nice, however, simply because the track indicates a curve in two coordinates, doesnt mean in needs to be a curved in all three. In fact, a modular rail system like this would actually be a pretty poor choice for a rolling track, every joint is an opportunity for the ball to get hung up.
Sorry about the bad stock image, I cant draw a cylinder in photoshop, but Dave mentioned diet coke cans in his blog, and I thought it apropos.
Instead of a track designed to roll balls on, a game piece we've used too many years in a row, this could be a scoring rack, in which cylinders are placed to score points. It would be a new game piece, not unreasonable, but presenting excellent manipulation engineering challenges.
It could also go along with an earlier discussion on what good real life engineering challenges could turn into games, in which waste management came up, but thats just speculation.