Board game that you set up each time differently with little cards
The description of playing cards on a track that have different movement instructions sounds like "This Game Is Bonkers".  I had this in late 80s early 90s so it would fit the time frame.   

It was a roll and move game.  When you landed on an empty space you would play a tile from your hand with an instruction such as 'back 3' or 'forward 2' with the objective of trying to land on scoring spaces.

Only thing that doesn't fit is play dough as thats not in this game but you did say you might have remembered that wrong.

BGG link to game