weather and track conditions, it matters!

[btaylor]

I made an interesting discovery last night. I have been building and tuning some NASCAR rides to run with my Carrera cars, and I have a benchmark set by the RTR cars from Carrera. Now to get to my point here, My track is a sectional plastic Artin track, 6'x16'. it is painted in semi gloss latex paint, and has copper taped rails.
Now this may not be interesting to some, and not even applicable to others, but I live in a sub tropical climate in Georgia. Most of you lucky folks have your layouts in climate controlled areas, but mine are all in an out building that used to be my garage/ workshop.
For the last week, we have had 96% humidity, yup, thats right, 96%! that's the kind of weather that makes doors stick in your house,
windows fog, and you think you need to grow gills to breath.
All that being said, what high humidity does do, is it effects traction on a latex track surface.
The cars I have been building have to run a best of 3.25 lap times to be competitive with the stock Carrera cars.
Since I set them up all the same, that had not been a problem till last night. I set the finished car on the track, turned on the Trackmate system, and let her rip. I noticed from the start that the car was hooking like crazy, and after the fourth lap, the car settled into its median lap time. This is where it got weird.
The car was running sub 3 second lap times, and I wasn't pushing it as hard as it could run yet!
Not thinking about track conditions, I thought maybe I got a hot motor (E-200)?.
So,after a few more laps, I grabbed one of the finished cars that was running the standard 3.25 time average, and let it get warmed up.
Three laps in, I found that this car was also running 2.70's!
So the moral of this long winded story, is that weather condition DO effect track conditions, even in scale racing. The Latex paint will take on enough moisture to become sticky, and your cars will run like the wind, Or, you may start experiencing wheel hop, or other negative behavior that your cars don't normally have.
So, for all the guy's that have garage tracks in non climate controlled areas, don't be surprised if you are particularly fast on race day, if the weather is right!

Bob

[HomeRacingWorld]

I thought it was your incredible skills improving.

[btaylor]

LOL, never even factored that in Harry. And probably wont still.


Bob

[HomeRacingWorld]

Seen this happen a track here. It was in a shop too and the times from one weekend to the next was interesting to say the least.

[RazorJon]

adds bit of real race track affects, cool :music-rockout:

[Pappy]

I've had two degrees in temperature really affect the traction on my track. It got two degrees warmer in my raceway and the cars got real loose.

[Gameover]

Our club track we race on is faster when it's cooler. We run silicone there though.

[dw5555]

That's interesting. I would have thought the opposite with the track being moist even with paint. Definitely don't have to worry about tropical weather up here in the great north.. :lol:

I do have a 10 degree swing between summer/winter in my basement. I'll have to pay attn. and see if just the temps affect times.

Dave

[waaytoomuchintothis]

We used to have a member here who lived in Louisiana, way down close to where I lived many years ago. He's long gone now, I have always thought that Hurricane Rita got him. It went right through his area. He had a garage full of buddies, all crazy like him, and they would get so scientific about their modern NASCAR lap times it was amazing to read his notes. Like you, he reported significant changes from weather, both on a plastic track they ran on, and his much larger routed track. His weather wasn't much different from yours (as I have been told by people who were at Warner-Robins), but the high humidity would last much longer since it rained just about every day in the afternoon. When I lived on the Gulf Coast on the MS/LA line, it was the same. He had to coat the underside of his routed track with urethane varnish (before this water soluble crap came out), in order to race year 'round because his track actually softened a little and the slot was shaved a bit in the curves. His plastic track would sweat, because he used a fan to pump cool air from the rest of the house, but he solved it with latex paint the same way you did. As far as I know, there weren't many urethane tires around back then, and we all thought soft silicone was the ultimate, which I why I remember that he got better traction and handling from stock rubber from Carrera, even on Scaley cars, after they painted the plastic track. I remember his attempts to swap wheels and tires, and his seeking Carrera tires from other cars to fit the Scaley wheels.

That's the long version, just in case there are guys who need more info about what you are telling us. The surface of the track, the temperature and humidity, and the compound of the tires all figure in in different ways per situation. I like it. I love the idea that there are more factors to take advantage of.

[Nor Cal Mike]

I think Bob ought'a put a track in his shower. :auto-driving:

[waaytoomuchintothis]

DON'T SAY THAT!!!

He'll have it built before the weekend and challenge us all to build amphibs!

[indybob007]

I have found a cold track it slower and alot harder to race with rubber tires and silicone. I am in southern IN. and my basement gets cool. like lower 60's. I can get the heat up and I have a tire warmer made from a Carrera power section with some 120 sandpaper on it, I sit the car on it and run the back tires on it and it makes ahude difference getting those tires warm on a cold plastic track. Indybob