Slot car insanity?

[slothead]

[BARC 1]

To each his own, but I agree with you 100%. Thingies.........

[mattb]

Looks like great fun, trying to find the blur and put it back on the track. Wing cars were big in the 70's and early 80's. I would guess they really helped to drive a lot of guys away from the big slot car scene. They probably really helped HO get a bigger fan base.

The usual line is all slot car racing helps the hobby, but I'm not sure how wing cars with $500-$600 motors helps anything.

[WB2]

There are other types of slot racers in Europe:


Google or search YouTube for Fein-Design-Modell and NiemasRacecars.
These cars are 1/24 super detailed cars. They don’t appear to be super fast, but they are raced. Key appears to be keeping the car in the slot.

[BRS Hobbies]

It may be just very small movements but some of the drivers looked liked they were just holding the trigger at full throttle the whole time.

Best regards,
Brian

[JULES]

I just watched that Helsinki video a few hours ago and thought "these guys are mad", but they looked like they were having a good time. Fair enough.

Oddly enough, I just had to have another look this afternoon and was even more bewildered by the speed of those things.......
.......and then I saw the view counter: Over 16 million views!!! Whaaaaat?

I don't think I have ever seen a youtube video that was that popular and I was getting intrigued on how they managed to get that many views. Time to investigate.

Unfortunately, after looking though the first few pages of comments, the reason appears to that the video has been shared so many times (unkindly) and the viewers comments illustrate that they are not exactly impressed by what they see. By and large, the feedback is derogatory not helped by the footage (at minute 2) of competitive trigger men doing an impersonation of Stevie Wonder.

Unfortunately, not all publicity is good publicity.

Jules

[HomeRacingWorld]

Seen it years ago. Just holding the trigger.

"View" numbers don't make it everything as you might have guessed. As with our 1/32 hobby, what commercial ventures want to promote and what is actually popular are usually VERY different.

It would be cool if some could understand the difference between THAT and what most of us race. Sadly, they do not.

Here we do. At least most. Thank you HRW members!

[HomeRacingWorld]

[waaytoomuchintothis]

This warms my old rotten heart.

[chappy]

Well they do talk a bit more than Kimi Raikonnen does after an F1 race. Lol
Noy my cup of tea though.
Bob

[ccobra]

I joined a group out here briefly but couldn't stand the speed after my neck surgery. And to me, I'm more into realism that something that may look like a car in someones mind. But really, who would let a track marshal walk on the track? You know they must have put glue down on the track to allow full throttle all the way around the track and those footy prints had to wreck havoc on the traction for some of those cars.

[dw5555]

My question is how do they get them to stick so well. More than truing tires I'll bet.
Dave

[HomeRacingWorld]

Gallons of spray glue helps.

[4424ever]

Gallons of spray glue,don’t miss cleaning that crap up :roll:

[chappyman66]

Well....wings are for fairies :lol:
Wing cars actually hurt if you get hit while marshalling. Slotcar racing is not supposed to be a blood sport.

Walking on the track? Yeah, full box construction. I have a track like that in pieces in storage, from the 60s.

Motors? 10 per race (8 heats + 2 qualifying) @ $300 each, with a $200 spring steel chassis.

Glue? If only it was spray glue. Stick-It heavy. Like molasses and not kidding. Dots entering every corner, and the thingies take 3-4 laps to pull through and spread it into the corner enough to actually not stopping the corner. A horrible mess, really. Normal cars flip after a glue race like that. It's nasty.

Yeah, Lexan GTP bodies are bad enough. I like those 1/24 hard bodies (I have the Chaparral 2G and the McLaren M12) but those chassis look complicated and expensive.....