Wood vs Plastic

[Florida_Slotter]

Now, before anyone tells me how great wood is for a track, let me stay this . . . . I have raced on wooden track for many years in commercial raceways. I know wood tracks are different from plastic tracks. Better or worse is up to the person that is racing on those track.

At present at our club we have a Scalextric track that we race on. Now let me tell you about "WE". Most of us are racers that have competed for years in commerical raceways and have recently become interested in home style racing. Many of us are scratchbuilders that have built our cars for many years. almost all of us have raced 'flexi' style cars for many more years.

Also some of us are retired wing car racers - you know the ilk, we turn sub 2 second laps on a King track. Of course, we have continued to prove to ourselves that the faster you go, you need to spend more money on motors and such. I just got a bit tired of turning comms, zapping magnets seating brushes and prepping 6 motors to have at least 2 that were ready to race on Saturday nights.

The reason many of us like our present plastic track is that the Slot.It cars that most of us race remind us of racing flexi type cars. The handling is very similar and the speeds are what most of us are used to. Yes, we do run magnets in the cars, but we limit the magnetic downforce to 3 times the weight of the car. An example would be that our Slot.It Classic cars such as my "MotorRadio" Alfa T33/3 that weighs in at 61 grams can carry a total of 183 grams of downforce. The total that car car read on the Magnet Marshal is 244 grams. At this magnet level and 10.5 volts the cars run very well, handle well and you can still slide them around in the turns. There is also no way that you can simply hold the throttle wide open and even think the car will make a lapl. Fast, but lots of fun. We are running right at 5 second laps on our 67 foot per lap track.

Back in October we found a track that someone wanted to sell that was within our budget and would fit in our facilty. Many of our members asked that we retain the Scalextric track as they are having a whole lot of fun. So we hope to have the 'new to us track' moved up, prepped and up and running around Christmas. So we will be on a big learning curve. This track has 3.5 inch lane spacing and is smooth as glass. I'm looking forward to running on it, but I do not want to use any form of glue. I've worked in slot car raceways and the last thing I want to do is to use spray glue to help with the traction.

I've been in touch with many different folks on what tires to run and such. I'm really looking forward to getting the track in place and starting to rubber it in so we can evaluate the traction level.

So if you have transistioned from wood to plastic and would like to share what you have done to accomplish that, please do not hesitate to bring me up to speed, literally.

[Ember]

If you're running with magnets on a wooden track magnabraid is really the only answer. Even if you were to just replace the non-magnetic stuff through the corners to defray costs.

Tyre wise the choices are many. Preferred option in South Australia seems to be NSR Ultragrips treated with oil. Victorians prefer urethane but the track surfaces tend to be abrasive. The Kiwis run gloss tracks and enjoy running both untreated NSR tyres and silicons. Together! :o

I suppose the point I'm trying to make is there are so many different tyre formulations out there and so many different track surfaces that you're just going to have to enjoy the experiment of finding the right one for your surface.

Embs

[Cosmic Bilby]

Hi,

I have Scaley Sport at home, and run on an Ogilvy magna-braid at club. I am a dedicated magnet racer (in 1/32, 1/24 at club is no mag).

I have tried numerous tyres (including NSR/NSR oil preparations) and have found either Supertires urethane yellow dogs or Paul Gage XPG compound to be the best on Slot.it. Group C cars (we have a class for these), same with Scaley/SCX stock GT, F1 and V8 Supercars.

I like your formula for magnetic downforce by the way, very simple to use and works out very closely to what my models run best at :)

[HomeRacingWorld]

The running gear on the simple ready to run cars will be the first items you begin to tune. Nothing will let you know you have something even a little out of round/true than big lumber.

Tires? Yes, you will simply have to experiment. No way we can say what will be perfect for you and your preferences.