Slot car insanity?

[slothead]

I'm doing a cross country road trip and when there was nothing on the motel TV last night decided to watch Youtube videos instead. Searched for slot car videos and found the video I linked to. Afterwards I thought i should have named the tread "How fast is too fast?" instead of calling it insane. If they are having fun then good for them. I just like realistic looking cars and being able to see them on the track.

I remember using goop (what we called it) on the track in corners for traction, but that was not for me and I started racing on a home track. If the cars in the race were required to be 'all natural' and only went half as fast, would that be terrible? More driver and less car in the equation could be a good thing. As long as a slot car is going fast enough you have to drive it to keep it on the track I'm happy, that's fast enough for me.

[Czar]

I am not at all into wing cars, but these responses have me confused. Are the respondents to this post advocating that our "scale" slot cars should be run at scale speeds? When a car like the Lola, modeled by Thunderslot, goes well over 300 scale miles per hour it is praised as "the fastest out of the box car." A Lola going 300 MPH down a straight away would not be physically possible. Just for the sake of a good discussion, how appealing would the Lola be if it only ran at a true scale speed? How do you tell when a car is "too fast" even if it doesn't de-slot all the time? At what point do you draw the line over car speed?

[HomeRacingWorld]

Tough to answer in my case. But a very valid point. On my smaller home layout, I either reduce the voltage or swap a milder motor in. I like to see the action of the model in the corners, have the reaction time to actually drive the car.

I still cling to the opinion that if you can't just hold the trigger down, and you are forced to actually "control" the model, then it technically is fast enough.

But as you see from some, all they talk about is stronger/faster motor options, regardless if they can control it :)

Just depends on the individual and the track environment as usual.

[mattb]

Agree with Harry, the speed should be a little more equal to the track. For most of us too fast is when it's just a blur and you can't really even see what it is when it's running.

The speed is actually not too fast for the guys that are into this stuff, but that is a really small group of guys and they don't really have much in common with most slotters.

[Broman62]

Good lord...pity the fool that gets blasted by one of those wayward cars coming “unglued” from that track...ouch’s!!! :auto-driving: :auto-driving:

[Czar]

Again, I am just trying to fan the flames of discussion. Staying with the Thunderslot as an example, should their T-70 (Coupe or Roadster) actually go as fast (or faster) than a modern LMP car? If we are satisfied to race only one brand against itself (Carrera vs Carrera; NSR vs NSR, etc) is it not a logical step to race period cars, against other period cars with appropriately de-tuned motors closer to scale speeds?

[BIG E]

When I first saw the title of this thread, I knew it was probably gonna be something like this. And after proof reading this post, I may have gone a bit long, but I invite you to take a few minutes and read it through to the end. After all, we're hangin' out here to yak about slot cars and associated stuff, right?

I may be wrong on this one, but I believe I heard somewhere that the super expensive high tech unlimited HO racers are actually faster in scale than the wing cars.
Ya don't really "drive" them either, as they use very strong Neodymium magnets to stay "glued" to the track rails. Yeah, they can come off in spots, just like the larger wingie-thingies can on certain turns when running certain lanes. You can't just hook a jumper wire between the black and white terminals and walk away (well, maybe on some lanes). Both are ridiculously expensive and running many expensive disposable parts (especially the "1/24" wing cars), but at least the HO track stays (and must be) very clean. In the end, yeah, you must control the car on the track.

Yes, I know it's all very scientific and precise, and I'm not knocking either discipline, as for some speed and lap times/totals is the ultimate goal and those individuals get the most enjoyment from that type of competition. I can respect that completely. I myself raced USRA Group 27 locally back in the 1970s, and finished 3rd overall in a 1977 NY state championship. Granted, it was held on a tricky epoxy surfaced 135' American Sovereign ("Hillclimb") track that I had run thousands of competition laps on. Those cars ran full Mura C-can motors with one piece hand cut spring steel chassis (lots of Dremel #409 cut off discs got shredded making those!). I ran the same motor for the entire weekend, and handled it all with a double micro, double wire (two 14 gauge wires running to each sticky glue-covered alligator clip) Parma Turbo controller with a .8 ohm (yes - 8/10) double barrel ceramic resistor. I've still got the car as it finished in one of those showcase boxes on my basement workbench, but the controller has probably been reconfigured to be useful for some of my 1/24 hard body racing.

Wanna hear something really crazy? I used to VOLUNTEER corner marshal for the wing car races at the local raceways here on Long Island in the late 70s and early-mid 80s! Yeah, I actually enjoyed that. I would pretty much take a specific corner for the entire event, and since I was familiar with the track I knew just where to position myself and concentrate on my corner only - that is a key to good corner marshalling. Yeah, some guys would start yelling and screaming when they came off, "gimme the car, Gimme The Car, GIMME THE CAR"! By then they had blown 2 or 3 laps and could've just let me slap the car back onto the lane. Wing cars are easy to marshall - ya just grab the side wing near the front and slide it right back into the muck (sorry, that would be the lane). Only thing that really sucks was getting so full of the traction glue after a few heats you'd have to try to clean your hands off in between one of the heats. I still take pride in working the corners with the HO and 1/24 cars that I race in clubs and commercial raceways today.

But even while running the wing cars I was having way more FUN running weekly Womp races with 15 or 20 guys, power sliding and diving into corners with those squirrely little commercial track monsters. I'll take HO scale pancake motor racers and 1/24 hard body cars as my personal favorites in this hobby. Unfortunately, I never got the opportunity to do more than just occasionally play around with all that great modern 1/32 stuff that's available out there, I'm sure there's more FUN to be had there, too!

But yeah... I guess when it's all said and done, those unbelievably fast unlimited HO and "1/24" scale wing cars might be considered the "Formula One" of our hobby/sport.
Just some recollections, thoughts, and observations from this corner of the slot car racing world after 50+ years in the hobby.
So, always keep in mind - whatever it is you race - have FUN, and... Enjoy! -- Ernie :>) *** Thanks for reading through!

[mattb]

Ernie, glad to have input from somebody that's actually done it. I agree that looking for speed above everything else is not very satisfying for most of us. Our other concern is that we want cars that look like cars!

Our group races 1/24 hard bodies with slow motors and have fun racing, not speed blurs at all and no glue on the track. It is fun and friendly. If this group ever falls apart, I would happily race on a smaller 1/32 track that is detailed and I would build 1/32 hard body cars with moderate power. For most of us max speed isn't really the enjoyable part of the hobby.

[BARC 1]

[BIG E]

mattb -
I love the old Hoffman plywood slot car boxes, especially when they have vintage decals and stickers on them.
I've got three myself, they're used primarily for my HO car runners and/or racers.
Thanks for those photos, and... Enjoy! -- Ernie :>)

[mattb]

Ernie, back in 65, only the rich kids or a few adults had Hoffman boxes. After 50 years I can afford them now!!

[Mayberryman]

I find this thread very interesting and also a walk back in time with my slot car racing over the years. When I raced USRA racing I was basically a scale (division 2) driver but I did at times dabble in what I called The winged thingies called Division one racing. For a couple of years I was president and vice president (in two different years) for The Mid Atlantic USRA. I attended the Nats. at Lugnut Raceway near Philly. and raced in division 2 and watched some division 1 races to include the speed trials for GP7 cars on the 155' King Track. As far as turn marshaling a wing car race, about the only danger is getting cut by the wing of a car going by when you are attempting to reslot a car. When these cars come off of the track they are so light and the wings slow them down to the point that there is little danger. To me high end HO racing was very like wing car racing in the fact that you drove both more on a rythem type way rather than watching them actually go through the curves. One of my lines was that I once drove a wing car for three laps after it deslotted and never realized the car was not on the track. Today I really enjoy plastic chassis 1/32 scale racing and race with three clubs. Now I have to say that when racing magnet racing I do not like the unrealistic speed and the fact that when a car does break magnetic force and goes off of the track it is more likely to be damaged than a non mag car running at a more realistic corner speed. In closing I do have my preferences as far as slot car racing but I will not be negative about the way the other man wants to run. There is a place in this hobby for all of us and the only thing that is necessary is that we should all have fun. Last Saturday I stopped by my local club for some magnet car racing and then went to an oval about 25 miles away and ran a womp race under the American Womp Racing Association and had a blast at both places.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

I have a scar on my thumb from a womp car driven by a jerk (that Mechanicsville track, Spence, did you ever go there?) who claimed to not hear the warning that caused me to reach over and retrieve a car in the gutter. The guide cut all the way to the tip of the bone in my thumb and continued all the way through the nail, and my thumbnail is still wonky on one side after all these years. Everything stopped for a half hour to clean up the blood all over the driver's station side of the track while I was in the bathroom making a pressure bandage for my thumb. One jerk with a car that is stupid fast is enough to make me ban anything I call excessive on my track. The same goes for excessively competitive jerks with doubts of their manhood. Home Racing, Scale Racing, is what I like, and I don't tolerate anything else. Its the best perk of having your own track- worth all the labor.

[slothead]

I'm not interested in a slot car speed limit that defines what's good or bad, to each their own. For me wingie thingies are too fast, just doesn't interest me. As for slot cars racing at realistic scale speeds, if you still had to drive them to stay on the track I'd like to try it. For this to work some sort of circuit would be needed to increase voltage to the car slowly, like in how a digitally controlled model railroad train starts out slowly and gains speed realistically. Electric motors can accelerate much quicker than internal combustion engines, so the voltage would have to be controlled beyond what a driver does with the controller. I'd like to try slot cars that ran at closer to scale speeds, then be able to tune things so it was a good compromise. Guys on this forum have said racing cars at realistic scale speeds was like watching grass grow, which I admit could be true.

I've designed a 1/32 scale 3/8ths mile oval with the same relative dimensions as my favorite dirt track - Albany-Saratoga Speedway in NY. A good lap on the full size track for a big block dirt modified takes about 16 seconds. I'd love a slot car track that it took that long to get around while also having to drive the car to keep it on the track. To do this the car would have to accelerate and decelerate realistically so the speed rubbed off in the corners too time to recover on the straights. This way an 8 lap heat or 35 lap feature might might actually have everyone finishing on the same lap separated by a few car lengths.

[Mayberryman]