Не будь трека, мы бы сбились с пути.

Grammatically, будь is the imperative singular of быть (to be), but in this sentence it is part of a fixed, somewhat bookish conditional pattern:

Не будь + noun in the genitive, ...

This means something like:

• if it weren’t for ...
• without ...
• had there not been ...

So Не будь трека, мы бы сбились с пути means roughly If it weren’t for the track, we would have lost our way.

This use is not a normal command like Don’t be! It is an idiomatic conditional construction.

Because this construction normally uses the genitive after не будь:

• Не будь тебя, я бы пропал. = If it weren’t for you, I’d be done for.
• Не будь дождя, мы бы пошли гулять. = If it weren’t for the rain, we would go for a walk.

So here:

• трек = nominative
• трека = genitive singular

You do not usually say Не будь трек in this meaning.

Yes — and for many learners, that is the easiest and most natural equivalent to recognize.

A very close version is:

Если бы не трек, мы бы сбились с пути.

That means the same thing. Compared with Если бы не..., Не будь... sounds more compact and a bit more literary or formal.

So:

• Если бы не трек... = more common, straightforward
• Не будь трека... = more condensed, stylistically elevated

In Russian unreal-condition sentences, бы often appears only once, usually in the main/result clause:

• Если бы не дождь, мы пошли бы гулять.
• Не будь трека, мы бы сбились с пути.

The idea of unreality is already clear from the whole structure, so Russian does not need бы in both parts.

In fact, не будь is already a special conditional formula, so adding бы there would not be normal.

Сбились is the past tense plural form of the perfective verb сбиться.

Breakdown:

• сбиться = perfective verb
• сбились = they/we got lost, went off course, strayed
• the ending -ись shows it is reflexive/postfix -ся in past plural form

It agrees with мы:

• мы сбились = we got lost / we strayed

Because the sentence is hypothetical, Russian uses past tense + бы:

• мы бы сбились = we would have lost our way

Because the sentence refers to a single completed result: we would have ended up losing the way / going off course.

• сбились (perfective) focuses on the outcome
• сбивались (imperfective) would suggest a repeated process, ongoing confusion, or a different nuance

In this sentence, the idea is not we would have been wandering around repeatedly, but we would have gone off the route. That is why the perfective verb fits better.

Literally, сбиться с пути means to get off the path / to lose the way.

It can be used:

1. Literally

   • В лесу мы сбились с пути.
   • In the forest we lost our way.

2. Figuratively

   • Он сбился с правильного пути.
   • He strayed from the right path.

In your sentence, it is most likely literal: the track kept them from getting lost.

Because the expression is fixed as:

сбиться с пути

Here:

• с
  • genitive often expresses movement from/off something
• путь becomes пути in the genitive singular

So the image is: to stray off the path.

This is idiomatic, and it is best learned as a whole phrase:

• сбиться с пути = to lose one’s way / go off course

The word order is natural, but Russian is flexible.

The given order:

Не будь трека, мы бы сбились с пути.

puts the condition first, then the result. That is the most neutral way to present it.

You could also rearrange things for emphasis, but the original sounds clear and standard. In Russian, word order often affects emphasis more than basic grammatical meaning.

Probably not. In this sentence, трек most likely means a track/route, especially something like a GPS track or recorded route.

That makes the sentence logical:

• without the track,
• we would have lost our way

If трек meant music track, the sentence would not make much sense unless there were a very unusual context.

It is understandable and correct, but Не будь трека... sounds a bit more literary or compressed than everyday conversational Russian.

In ordinary speech, many speakers would more naturally say:

Если бы не трек, мы бы сбились с пути.

So yes, the original is valid, but it has a slightly more polished or written feel.