A digital proxy?

[Czar]

Two years ago my friend Burrell and I put on the Abecedarian Proxy, and last year I almost started a hot rod, King Of The Road proxy. The truth is, I got burned out on slot racing and postponed the event. Well now I am re-born, digitally, into the "cult of the basement" and Burrell and I want to do another proxy. BTW, probably won't do a hot rod race since the cars are now so hard to get.

I have not seen a digital proxy and so I am asking for your ideas on how to realize something that is in somewhat unchartered territory. My ideas so far: Carrera digital track, same driver on each lane for entire event, each driver changes lanes at will, "ghost" car on track for at least half the race, fuel stop(s) required if host has pit lane. Cars will be basically stock, with blue-printing, and urethane tire change allowed.

Not sure about magnets; my preference is for weight added, with no magnets, but in a race like this allowing the rear magnet, or front magnet (not both!) might make sense.

So what are your thoughts? Is a digital proxy a non-starter, is the idea of lane changes that vary with each car a deal breaker? Feel free to add new ideas and indicate if you would participate in a proxy race like this.

[dw5555]

[Czar]

Thanks for your response, Dave. After I made my original post I realized that the "driver on same lane" was silly, after you get to the first lane change. Anyhow, the idea was that each driver would know the track well enough to make good decisions about when to change lanes or pass. Since I drive "sans magneto" my '''ghost cars" have a small magnet. That way they can run lap times that are similar to my times without the ferrite attracters. Again, my thought is to make the racing as realistic as possible - and there are always other cars on a real track.

[TuscoTodd]

I've never raced digital - but it sounds like an interesting concept.
It could make for some wildly varied finishes if all of the cars are relatively equal as getting blocked in by another car or the ghost car and/or missing the pits could make for a notable penalty on the car that is being run at the time.
It ought to be a hoot for whoever hosts though! :D
I wonder how many host tracks could be had for something like this? :think:

[dw5555]

Mags in a ghost car are a given to increase the chase speed.

Todd the ghost car definitely adds to excitement. More than once I've been stuck behind one for 1/2 a lap or more. Fueling is also an issue because if you don't fuel your laps aren't counted. I think a lot of people run Carrera digital and finding tracks shouldn't be an issue.

Dave

[TuscoTodd]

Well since I could test and tune on analog, I may kick around throwing a car in just to see how it does (assuming we are talking Carrera digital?) - will be interesting to see where this goes! :)

[Czar]

A of your replies are very encouraging. I think we can make this happen. It would be a Carrera digital proxy with simple rules to encourage new racers to try proxy racing. Burrell and I have Carrera digital tracks and will host, who else might be in? Todd, one of the things about this proxy is that you don't have to have a digital track to prep a car. In fact, this could be a good introduction to digital for someone on the fence.

[dw5555]

[Burrell]

[buspor63]

I'm for it. We have a plastic and a routed track, both Carrera D1XX. I suggest no mag, spec motor and rubber or urethane tires. I'm not a fan of ghost cars, I can't get one to run quick enough on the wood track and without anti collision chips, they're prone to lane change into you. Yingling's RMS is just about a must have, it rotates cars/drivers in and out of the field as needed. A good question is, can a host get four to six drivers to run event? Any less and it's kinda like analog time trailing.

[buspor63]

Here's some pictures of the tracks of Foothills Scale Slotcars.

Thunder Road



The Green Monster

[dw5555]

[Czar]

Both of you have pretty remarkable tracks! It would be a pleasure to run my cars on them. The issue of how many drivers is one I hadn't really thought of, mostly because I was thinking about the (I hate acronyms, but ...) GC (ghost car) being the biggest variable. But, obviously more cars racing at once is also a big variable that can't be controlled any more than a random GC. Maybe we should let the host decide for his/her track? Right now I am leaning towards a two lane track with no more than three cars at a time on the track. Otherwise, I would question if each car can get a fair run with so many obstacles on course at once. But I would like to hear what you have to say, Dave. Maybe you could also make your case buspor? We are in uncharted territory so we can make it work any way we want and establish a model... FOR THE WORLD!

[Burrell]

I would suggest that each host determine how many drivers to have during a race. The only suggestion that I'd add to that is that every driver rotate to every car. I would think the skill of the driver would be a bigger variable than the traffic of the other cars. So as long as every car gets a turn with all the drivers, it should be as fair as possible.

[buspor63]