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June 20th, 2009
Going to Memphis…
The saga of a proud survivor of the first East-West confrontation in slot
car history.
By Philippe de Lespinay
After the Rod & Custom racing series of 1966, the Champion slot car racing
Company of Chamblee, a suburb of Atlanta in Georgia, organized their first
ARCO-series race in Memphis, Tennessee. This was suggested and partly financed
by United Fruit Company president Bruce Paschal, a man dedicated to the success
of professional slot car racing.
Most everybody with a name showed up, including the unlikely team of John Cukras
and Mike Steube, driving their way from California in the Cukras car. Notable
racers also included the already unbeatable East Coast star Howard Ursaner of
Team Russkit East as well as his team mate Sandy Gross. Team Champion was also
present with its usual line-up of team captain Jack Lane, Bill Thirlwell, Ray
Gardner and strong man Bob Cozine. Altogether over 150 racers made the trip, the
cream of the crop of the burgeoning pro-racing class of slot racers nationwide.
Memphis’s most famous resident, Elvis Presley, had an American Model Raceways
“Blue” track in a room in his vast mansion, and a visit was organized to the
mansion by local racers.
When the serious racing began, it was obvious that the only teams able to beat
the “locals” as well as the Team Champion stars were the pairs of Cukras and
Steube or that of Ursaner and Gross.
Both made it to the main event, and Ursaner led until his motor died. Cukras and
Steube then drove to a relatively easy win in their Steube powered, Cukras-built
car. This was one of the most important race in the history of the hobby and the
first national race to be run with open-wheel cars. Indeed a short time later,
the pros realized the aerodynamic advantages of Can-Am-style sports cars and
switched to such. There were only a total of 3 more national-level races ever
run with open-wheel cars, after which, sports cars or coupes were used until
this day.
Bruce Paschal as he often did, acquired the winning car from John Cukras after
the race. The car was used little if any after that, and remained in Bruce’s
“magic” box for the next 35 years. In 2004, Bruce donated the box and its
contents to the LASCM museum. To this writer’s stupefaction, the very
first car seen upon opening the box was immediately identified as the winner of
the Memphis race. An authentic treasure, an important part of the history of the
hobby and a piece of Americana for future mechanically inclined generations.
Junk for others…
The period magazines had a 4-page report on this important race. It showed the
winning entry in detail. Steube and Cukras drove steadily and stunned the
unsuspecting Team Champion stars, who believed that they would easily win the
race.
To add insult to injury, the car also took Concours honors…
The car as found was still in excellent condition, just as it finished the race.
The original motor was unfortunately missing. It is suspected that Bill Steube
wanted it back rather than surrendering its secrets to the Champion stars if it
changed hands over there. Rather than making a new motor from parts, we picked a
similar period Steube motor in Bruce’s box to restore the car.
The chassis was also shown in the period report, making the identification quite
easy.
No doubt that the car is the correct machine as one can read the solder joints
like a fingerprint.
We decided to restore the car in a minimalist way to preserve the originality as
much as possible. A simple but thorough clean up was performed so as to bring
the car to a pre-race condition. Here the car is as found, quite dirty and with
decal and body damage.
The chassis was showing some corrosion that needed to be treated. A non-original
Riggen gear was fitted and was discarded. It was decided that the original rear
tires would be retained as well as lead wires and braided contacts.
Once the body was removed, disassembly began. The motor to be used is shown
here.
The chassis was also slightly bent from a few off-track excursions during the
race and needed a bit of straightening, made easy by its brass wire
construction.
This was accomplished once all the parts had been removed from the frame.
Steve Okeefe made this beautiful drawing of a very similar frame and we put it
here so that you may see the general and detail architecture of said frame. Only
minor details differ from the Memphis car.
Time to address the motor. From observation of the period pictures, it appears
that the motor was a modified Mabuchi FT16FD with the usual Steube treatment. We
selected this one for the task. The original motor was a Kemtron marketed unit
with gold zinc plated can. It was somewhat corroded and was polished using a
stiff still-wire brush.
Once apart, the motor revealed its slotted magnets (unknown origin, possibly
Johnson), its long-stack arm rewound with # 29 wire, hi-temp aircraft epoxy
around the comm and re-shaped brush springs.
The armature is typical early-1967 Steube with static balancing, polished stack,
Kirkwood commutator and two sorts of epoxies over the wire. Some rust was
present on the pinion side.
The armature received a thorough cleansing in solvent followed by polishing of
the stack and a reconditioning of the commutator segments. The shaft was treated
for corrosion and polished.
The magnets show their tighter air gap and feel rather strong. Armature
clearance is only 5/1000″, rather tight for the time.
The motor after clean up and assembly. It screams on the power pack at only 6
volts. Must have been quit fast…
The pinion is a Weldun 7-tooth.
The chassis has now received its anti-corrosion treatment as well as a good
cleanup that retains much of its original patina.
Time for a slight machining of the original tires and wheels to bring them back
to life. The wheel was placed on an axle in the lathe and the outer lip of the
wheel machined to remove the impacts suffered in the race. The tire was then
slightly sanded to remove the accumulated dirt.
The motor is now fitted to the chassis as well as a new Cox 29-tooth crown gear.
The original lead wires have been cleaned and re-fitted
The guide now back in place with lead wires installed. The front wheels also
received a corrosion-removing treatment.
 .
A clear view of the rebuilt motor in the cleaned frame.
Now ready to accept the restore body.
 
Now it is time to address the body and the driver. First, a thorough wash in
Mineral Spirits, then with dishwasher liquid soap and water. After a good rinse,
a bit of paint touch up and some decal repair to complete the job.
The body has now been fastened to the completed chassis with four straight pins.
From this angle, the gold can appears gray, just like in the magazine pictures.
After decal repair, a touch of black paint over the helmet and some red paint
around the rear-view mirrors complete the project.
And now, a few detail pictures…
Instruments are painted over the dashboard, adding a nice touch. Fortunately
there was no damage to the cockpit so only a cleanup was needed.
The driver is seriously busy inside the cockpit, trying to lower the car’s CD…
The car is now safely put away until the opening of the museum sometimes in
2011. |
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June 20th, 2009
A part of the large Mura chapter in the new soon to be published “Electric Dreams” book addresses the success and failures of one of the most controversial slot car motors ever, the infamous B-can motor.
Devised by Ron Mura, Bob Lenz, and with input from John Cukras, the “B” was not what one would call a success (except maybe in the UK where it was widely used in the 1/32 scale racing classes) but today still fascinates the enthusiast.
I am not going to tell you the whole story recorded from the actual actors (that will be for you to read later) but I thought I would post a few of the many variants of this motor, manufactured or at least sold all the way through… 1975, something few really know.
So, in no particular order, here are a few pictures of some of the motors gathered over the years by Scott Bader and Yours Truly and now at the LASCM.
An original late 1968 “B” Production with comm vent, the original 16D brush holders with slot in the lead-wire terminal, and Ceramacoat armature:
Here is a two-hole Group 12 dating from 1970:
Another NCC Group 12 from late 1969 with the rectangular
vent hole:
A 1969 “bubblegum” with the “Ceramacoat” Team Cukras
armature and rectangular hole:
A 1972 production “B” Production with axle clearance,
produced for the UK:
This one was sold by Cobra in 1969 as a Group 15:
Another B with the two-hole pattern, built for the UK market after 1972 as proven by the end bell design. This destroys the urban legend that “B” motors were no longer produced after the introduction of the C-can motor:
Yet another B with ball bearing sold in the UK in early 1969. Note the slot in the lead-wire terminal and compare to the later motors:
One of the most famous and interesting B motors was this Long John kit with new longer magnets and Bob Green-wound arm:
A 1969 B-Production sold by REHco:
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June 20th, 2009
Rick Durkee Chaparral brought back to life
By Philippe de Lespinay
When Jim Russell created the world’s first professional slot car racing team in 1965, he trusted Mike Morrissey to find the “right stuff” within the So-Cal racers. Mike selected Len Vucci, Ron Quintana, and Rick Durkee as the original team members. Fred “Kenny” Larimer was later added as well as many others.
The aim was of course to showcase the Russkit products, and that, they did for a while. But the competition began using evolved home-built brass tubing and wire frames and rewound motors based on the… Russkit “23″ motor!
So the team members began building some evolutions of the original Russkit “scratch-built” chassis kits, now using a new motor mount more suited to the needs of the day. Quickly, the Russkit boys set new standards and kept winning races. By early 1966, they were the team to beat anywhere they went.
Rick Durkee built this car in early 1966. Its racing history is unknown, but the traces of adhesive from the lane-color sticker tape on its nose proves that it was indeed raced. Further research may establish its exact pedigree. The car was subsequently sold to the great enthusiast, Bruce Paschal, and donated to the LASCM museum in 2002 along with a treasure trove of other surviving cars and parts.
The condition of the car was fair to poor, with serious corrosion beginning to creep into the brass and steel parts. The body had damaged decals, some cracks, and the driver insert was falling apart. The rear wheels were locked as well as the front axle, this common with old cars as the lubricant had simply returned into solid state. Help was needed!
The original Russkit motor was gone, replaced by a Bill Steube-built Team Checkpoint motor. The tires were rock-hard and several solder joints on the frame needed repair.
The frame was dirty and corroded, the lead wires had broken, and the axles showed rust. The next step was to take the whole car apart and assess the condition after a good clean-up.
Seen from the bottom, the design shows the then-fashionable curved rails made of 1/16″ brass tubing. The Russkit setscrew wheels have “Tiny’s” rear gray sponge tires while the fronts are shod with the usual cut-down K&B hard-rubber tires. A Cox “quick-change” guide is fitted.
A bath in cleaning solvent was the first thing to do. Everything including the body parts was treated, then washed in soap and water to remove all racing residue including the corrosive oil of wintergreen then used for added traction that ate the body paint and helped the corrosion to propagate onto the frame.
As usual with our sympathetic restorations, the motor was not repainted to retain its originality. The armature was cleaned, the rust removed from its stack, and the commutator and shaft polished. All the brush dirt was removed from the endbell.
The armature after polishing. This is typical of the early art of Bill Steube Sr. The single-28 wire is retained with epoxy that has lasted 40 years so far.
The commutator is a Tradeship. Blanks are Hemi.
All the parts have now been refinished: the wheels re-machined and polished, the tires slightly ground to remove the top layer of dirt, the axles machined, and the chassis cleaned (but not too much, leaving some patina). Even the original and well used Cox “Superflex” braided contacts are retained.
The car has now been reassembled. Even the original Russkit lead wires from the rewound “23″ have been retained after a thorough cleaning. The motor is assembled with 3-40 machine screws and fasted to the car with 2-56 machine screws. The Cox 7-31 gears were in excellent condition and were re-used.
Here she is, ready to receive her repaired body.
The pictures found on the old period magazines are generally rather poor, often giving a false idea of what the cars truly looked like then. Thanks to the digital era and a few pioneers and guardians of these old treasures such as Bruce Paschal, we can see today what was only seen then by a few: the actual design and engineering of the pro-racing cars of the past. We are pleased to share this with all the true enthusiasts.
The body has now been repaired, and a few touches of judiciously-applied paint have helped repair the damaged decals and injected plastic details. The lost Chaparral inserts have now been added, using original NOS parts.
The cockpit has been carefully been reassembled. It was broken due to the inline motor installation that interfered with the Russkit Chaparral 2 interior. Some of it was missing and lost, we did not attempt to replace the missing bits.
Ready to run, the motor has been tested and runs beautifully. The body is now being readied to be fastened to the frame.
An “Al Hall” picture in the style of Rod & Custom or Car Model magazines, for old time sake… The right-side number decal had sustained much damage and was re-created using paint matching very exactly the faded color of the decal.
Even the old tape reinforcing the sides of the body has been saved, a very difficult task as it generally falls apart when a car is disassembled. Note the cut-outs at the back of the body. The many cracks were repaired with Pro-Weld.
Ready to pounce again, if ever called . . .
Doesn’t she look great? The driver is leaning left due to the presence of the Mabuchi FT16D motor intruding on the cockpit.
There is a little inspection/clearance hole for the Cox crown gear. Was this legal? Apparently!
The restored car alongside our next victim, another earlier Team Russkit Durkee car in dire need of restoration.
The two cars next to each other show the amount of corrosion and track dirt build-up present on the older car. This one has retained its team motor as well as an original Russkit guide. The chassis design was from only a few months earlier, showing the pace of development. We hope that you enjoyed this feature. More will be coming as the vast number of cars at the LASCM museum are prepared for permanent display.
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June 20th, 2009
The World’s Most Important Slot Car?
Gene Husting built his (and pro-racing’s) first angle-winder car in late 1967, after he saw a picture of a 1/32 scale car built
by Midwest racer Roy Moody. When he showed up at Gallagher’s J&J Raceway in California, the car, fitted with a Lancer McLaren MK6 body, was improperly geared but showed great speed. To the great surprise of all present, Gene
actually finished in 3rd place in the weekly race with the car, humbling serious racers such as John Cukras and John Anderson.
The locals pros tried to find every and all reasons why the car was so fast, but centered about its “rocket” motor, ignoring that the speed of the car came form its faster speed while cornering, allowing it to reach a greater top speed sooner than other cars.
Bruce Paschal had heard of this new car through the grapevine and called Husting, then talked him into sending the model to him in Louisiana. Husting sent the car, then built another for himself, and yet another for John Cukras.
John then proceeded to win the weekly race at Gallagher’s, setting a new lap record there. Then he built himself a similar chassis but this time with a removable motor.
And this brings us to the famous USRA MC&S race, where the entire world of pro-racing was turned on its head and changed forever, the angle-winder cars utterly humbling every and all in-lines, which became instantly obsolete.
John Anderson asked Husting to loan him the car, and with it, won another 13 weekly races in a row, beating Cukras’ record.
The only surviving car of the 3 built by Husting is the Paschal car. It was returned to Gene in 2004 by Bruce, in an elegant gesture. At the same time, Bruce entrusted the author with a large amount of surviving glorious old racing cars, motors and parts, most for the Classic Era, that are now on display at the LASCM.
Husting was kind enough to let me take some pictures of what is possibly the most important car in the history of the hobby, and I hope that you will enjoy them. The body is the actual original Lola coupe painted by “Bob” Kovacs for Bruce to attend the 1968 USRA race, but he was unable to do so.
The crude soldering joints give little indication of the actual performance. This car was the fastest ever built when Gene put it on the track for the first time.
The drop arm has limited drop and the front axle wire is soldered on top of it, in the manner of the production Dynamic drop hinge.
The motor is a Pactra “Hemi 99″ can with a Husting rewound, epoxied and balanced armature, ARCO magnets are used without their usual shim. The Mabuchi FT16D end bell is fitted with Champion springs, post sleeves and brushes. The chassis uses a 64-pitch steel pinion and an anodized aluminum spur gear, both made by Weldun. The guide is a Cox “quick-change”.
The lead wires are gray Cox “Superflex’ multi-strands. The plastic axle spacers are straight from regular kits, something unusual on a serious “pro” racing car.
The front end shows globs of solder, not because Husting could not solder, but because he wanted to add weight, as much as possible on the drop arm, and at the same time make the car very impact resistant. It worked.
The front wheels are threaded Riggen “Mini Daytona” with ribbed O-ring tires, with brass adapters for 1/16″ piano wire mounting. The rear wheels are Weldun with Associated blue rubber.
The steel plate screwed to the end bell is a glue shield. The end bell can be easily removed to service the motor that is soldered permanently in place as stressed component. However, the motor was never disassembled once in over 30 races this car ran with Husting, then Paschal, who absolutely cleaned up with it for weeks at his local raceway in Metairie, Louisiana and everywhere he traveled.
The car appears crude, but is in fact is well thought out, and certainly was at its time, the fastest and most efficient ever built, never mind its historic trend-setting quality.
The body is a Kovacs-painted Dynamic “Handling Bodies” Lola T70 MKIIIB coupe, painted to look like John Surtees Lola-Aston-Martin of the 1967 Le Mans race. The inlet trumpets are flared aluminum tubing. This car could have won Concours too as long as they did not turn it over…
Let Gene Husting tell the story himself:
MY ANGLEWINDER SLOT CARS
BY GENE HUSTING
After setting a Slot Car Drag Racing Record of .93 seconds, at J&J's Raceway, in Long Beach,
CA. a record that lasted for 24 years, I decided to also try, On Road Slot Car Racing, too.
The road racing at J&J's, on the Blue King track, was much more popular, and racers appeared
to be having much more fun, too. So, in between my drag racing, I was also going to be doing
road racing, too. I bought a car from John Cukras, and a Checkpoint motor from Bill Steube.
It took me quite a while, but I finally started to make the A-Mains at the weekly club races,
which was where all the fast guys raced on Thursday nights. These were the best of the best.
Mike and Billy Steube, John Cukras, Terry Schmid, Doug Henline, John Anderson, Mike
Morrissey, etc. were racing there. Of course I wasn't beating any of those guys, but simply
making the A-Mains with those guys was a good feeling for me. During this time I was simply
learning the basics of road racing.
Then I began figuring out what these cars were doing, and I couldn't figure out why they were
made this way. For instance, when I started slot car drag racing, all of the dragsters had inline
mounted motors. When the dragsters took off, you could see their tire's traction pattern, on the
black polished Formica track, that looked like a black mirror.It was like a series of wiggles,
crossing the braided centerline of the track. Snaking down the track. This, of course, was not
so good, soI started to make my dragsters longer and longer, and the snaking became less and
less, but it was still there. I was going faster than everyone else, because I always had the
longest cars. What I finally realized, was that all of this snaking effect, was from the inline-mounted
motor that is trying to twist the chassis on its side under acceleration. Just like in your family
Ford or Chevy car. So I built the first "sidewinder" dragster, and that car just jumped straight forward
off of the starting line. It was simply too easy to win races. The dragster crowd immediately caught
on, and they all switched to sidewinder mounted motors, too.
So, after I had done this, I started thinking about what was happening to my road-racing slot car,
and it was quite easy to come to the realization that the inline road cars were having the same
problems, but it was not as easy to visually see it happening.
But, now I knew what was happening, and I started to figure out how to fix the problem. I was
going to build my own slot road-racing car.
I started laying things out, but I soon realized there simply was not enough room to build a full
sidewinder car. But I figured that I could get the same effect, by simply angling the motor a small
amount, so as to fit in the chassis. The overall effect on the car's handling would be almost identical
to that of a full sidewinder car. That cured one major problem.There were a number of other handling
problems, that needed help. But the other major problem that needed correcting, was the way the
motor was mounted. I would never ever even think of mounting my dragster motors by the end bell.
To me, it would be unthinkable. Why in the world would I want to have the harmonics from the two
gears to affect the brush-end of the motor shaft, which would cause the brushes to be bouncing off
the commutator?
True, it wouldn't be that much, the motor would still run. But, when you're talking racing, it would be
too much. So, I would merely solder in the can, at an angle, to get my desired gear ratio, of course.
Now, I knew the brushes would be making a constant uniform pressure on the commutator, giving
me an ideal situation regarding power and commutator wear. I wanted the drop arm to be as low as
possible, and I wanted to get a lot of extra weight on it too, to lower the center of gravity of the car.
This was very important to the overall handling of the car.
So, I added gobs of lead to the drop arm, and used it in such a manor as to strengthen some of the
attached parts, making them more "bullet proof".
Sure, it made the car heavier, but I wasn't drag racing here. I was Road Racing now, and handling
meant more to me than a little extra weight. There's a number of other things that I did to the chassis,
to help the handling, that some of you have figured out now, and the rest of you are guessing at.
I'll leave you having your fun.
This # 1 car wasn't geared quite correctly, because when I went to pick up the Weldun gears I had
ordered from Jim Gallagher, the owner of J&J's Raceway, he didn't have the gear ratio I wanted. So
I settled on the lowest set of drag gears that he had, which were too high, and he told me would get
me the actual gears I wanted. I mounted my new Kovacs painted McLaren MK6 sports car body,
and I was off to the races. This time I easily qualified for the Main Event race. And, I FINISHED IN
3RD PLACE !!!
I was really surprised, as was everyone present! They all came by to look at the car, and they all
had a number of reasons why it couldn't work, and they concluded that the reason why I finished
in 3rd place was because I had a really good motor.
The following evening, I received a call from Bruce Paschal, in New Orleans. We were friends, and
what happened on Thursday night was now going around the country. Bruce said, that he had heard
what had happened, and he wondered if he could borrow the car to try it out on his track. I said it's a
little over geared, but he said his track is a little longer, and it should be OK.
So, I agreed to send him the car, after I built a new car for me with the correct gearing. I built an
identical new car, this time with the correct gearing, and Thursday night I went to J&J's again.
John Cukras came over and we were talking, and he noticed I had 2 cars now. He asked if he could
run the 2nd car that night. I said "sure, but it's over geared a little. It's the car I ran last week". He
said "that's OK, I just want to see what it feels like".
During qualifying, I broke Terry Schmid's track record of 6.84", with a 6.73".
UNBELIEVABLE !!!!! This is something you only dream of but can never happen. Cukras then tied
my time with the other car. WOW!!.
I WON THE RACE BY 3 1/2 LAPS !!!!!!!!!! Another impossible dream come true!
After the race John Anderson came over and asked me if he could run the car in the next weekly
race. I told John that this car was going to be sent to Bruce Paschal, tomorrow morning, but that I
would build a 3rd car for him. I know. You're all wondering why in the world wouldn't I just keep on
running the car by myself, and keep winning the races. It would be the logical thing to do. However,
I was getting started in R/C Car Racing and it was getting uppermost on my mind. I just wanted
something simple, just someone to copy my car.
In the meantime, all the Pro Racers were busy building their own versions of their angle-winder
cars, which were nothing like mine, for the upcoming Model Car Science Magazine, USRA Race.
I didn't race in these races, because I was the originator of these races, and I wrote up the race
reports. After that race, everybody was racing their own versions of angle-winder cars.
THE STORY GETS EVEN BETTER !!!!
A week later, we're back at J&J's. I'm running the # 2 car, and John Anderson is running the newest
# 3 car. John Anderson easily won the race, and I finished 2nd. Remember, all the Pro's were now
running their own versions of angle-winder cars. John asked me if he could keep running the car.
He wanted to beat the John Cukras record of winning 11 races in a row at J&J's, during the inline
motor period. I said sure, and John went on to win 12 races in a row! And I finished in 2nd, 11 times.
I know, I know. You're all wondering why didn't I just drive, and I could have won all those races.
It wasn't about me. It was always about the car.
Even in spite of what John won, nobody else ever built a car like mine.
Maybe it was because John kept telling them I built the fastest motors he had ever driven, while I'm
telling them, it's the car. Actually, the motors were more efficient being mounted with the drive on the
can side, but the car was so easy to drive, otherwise I couldn't have finished behind John 11 times.
Maybe we were both right. Meanwhile, Bruce Paschal, to whom I sent car #1, was in his 40's,
and his business took him all around the world. During his travels, he went to dozens of tracks,
and Bruce said he never lost even one race during this time. And no one copied the car!!!
About 40 years later, someone else actually built, an accurate copy of my car, with help from
Philippe De Lespinay. When Philippe heard that Steven O'Keefe, from Pennsylvania, wanted to build
an EXACT copy of my car, Philippe provided Steven with detailed photos and detailed drawings, of
car #1. Steven is a master craftsman.
But, this could not have happened without, out of the blue a visit of Bruce Paschal to Philippe. Bruce
had brought with him the # 1 car, that I had given to him eons ago, and he was gracious enough to
give the car back to me. Unbelievable! And, he also gave Philippe over two dozens very famous race
cars, too.
CAN YOU BELIEVE ALL THE TWISTS AND TURNS IN THIS STORY? BUT, THEY'RE ALL
DOCUMENTED!!!!
But, it still gets better. Before racing slot cars, I was racing real dragsters. I was the first one to
build a longer dragster than anyone, by over 3 feet. The very first time we ran it, at LIONS DRAG
STRIP, in Long Beach, CA, we broke the track record, and were undefeated for a whole year until I
retired from the real car racing to go into slot cars, because of my growing family obligations.
But, the same thing happened. NOBODY copied my car.
2 1/2 years later, Don Garlits, in Florida, made a car with the longer wheelbase, matching mine. Garlits
never saw my car. He did it all on his own. He is a truly great innovator.
|
Online comments:
Fantastic, Dr P!
I wish I’d had that line about adding extra weight when I first started
soldering! But that’s a beautiful, evocative car- I remember those spindly
frames, just how we used to do them before the big pans appeared. And Bob
Kovacs seems to have the Lola-Aston blue-green color sorted out all that
time ago- it’s been bugging me recently! I don’t suppose you have a record
of the exact shade used? There’s another scratch-built Xylon in it for you if
you do…
Yours in hopes rather than expectation, but thanks for the fascinating post!
I am afraid that even Bob Kovacs would be in
dire trouble to supply us with a correct mix…
That is a really great car.
I’m a little disappointed that that car hasn’t
provoked more of a reaction amongst our gentle readers. I was looking
forward to a raging debate. Especially from our Rail, who I thought would
immediately nominate some antique steam-powered rail car, with a myriad of
excellent reasons.
I’m sure you don’t underestimate it as being the world’s most important as
far as I’m concerned, but I am surprised that no-one has tried to dispute
that tag.
I wasn’t aware at the time who designed and built the first actual
angle-winder, but certainly was greatly affected by it. In-lines were suddenly
as obsolete as 26D sidewinders were a year or so before. Such a huge and
immediate improvement in handling! I had to start bashing my carefully made
U-brackets into funny obtuse angles and hunting round for spur gears again.
Has any other single chassis development had such a dramatic effect?
Mind- I remember reading about a US racer called Doug Henline, who for his
own reasons (possibly the obvious one!) stuck to in-lines for a bit longer
than most, and seemed to be able to win through sheer driving ability. But I
may have got that one a bit tangled up. I usually have.
And the front axle-on-drop arm thing always passed me by. I could never work
out the point of that Dynamic chassis, never having owned one (too expensive
at the time, and still now!), and never being startled by it’s performance
in other people’s hands. But I was very young then. Drop arm OK- keeps the
guide in the slot regardless of what the front wheels are doing. But as soon
as you connect the drop arm to the front wheels you lose that advantage.
There must be a logical explanation…. Perhaps US tracks were smoother than
ours….
Drop arms don’t work unless sprung down or have a
mag on top .Just as an example say you have a car with a drop arm approaching
he top of a hump as the car goes over the hump the drop arm which carries
the same momentum as the rest of the car caries on in the same direction
and stays flat and wont drop of its own accord . therefore un-sprung non
magnetic drop arms don’t work the only thing they might do is if the car tips
then the guide might stay in the lot slightly longer ,but if the drop arm is
locked to the front wheels the wheels will touch first in the corner and
stabilize the car the hinge just adds a certain amount of de coupling
similar to running a loose body on a plastic car .
And Philippe the car is a classic but didn’t Chas Keeling build the first
angle winder with his KS powered Harvey aluminum special . This car as I
recall was 4 wheel drive and had the motor diagonally across the chassis to
drive the front and rear wheels ,I think I have a pic somewhere.
Hmmm. Thanks Grah. I think I understand. I was
always thinking in terms of the tipping effect rather than the ‘hump’ effect
I suppose. We did use to spring the arms a little or put loads of lead on
the end, and the amount of travel was pretty small anyway… I use a magnet
now. But that momentum you mention doesn’t necessarily apply if it is a
random deflection on the wheels rather than a hump in the track anyway, does
it? And presumably those ‘rally’ cars with drop arms to use on special
tracks are a bit of a waste of time… although I have no experience of
them. But I do agree about the ‘decoupling’ effect, probably the most
important.
Cool car though, no doubt about that!
Don’t know about the rally tracks but look at the
picks on slotcentre and in GSR they look sprung I have used a sprung guide
on Ninco track to help with the bumps but I’m not convinced as I tend to run
tripods anyway but lets not get back into the tripod VS 4 wheel argument
again . I have just down loaded the pics and might have to make a replica of
this chassis just for the sake of it , I don’t have a Pactra motor to use but
I have a Rikochet which is of similar appearance, any idea what wind Husting
used on the arm so I can get the power some where near.
howmet tx
27 May 2004, 13:15
Sounds like a great project, Grah! Don’t forget
to stock up with solder. Have you got a source for a T70GT shell?
tx, I was thinking along the lines you wrote, as
I think that some of the earlier rail cars are much more important in the
history of our hobby but this is so subjective that to every person, the
most important car will be different. I think Walkden Fisher’s rail Mercedes
is too me one of the most important cars but I think that it is impossible
to narrow it down too one car.
I can see if you were in America when Gene built this car, pro-racing then
this would be a very important car, but to me personally it is a great car
but it has almost no historical significance as it was just another step in
building faster pro-racing cars.
RR
Gee, Mr P, you been talking to Mope recently?
Certainly picked up the hyperbole ‘ting.
I’m with RR on this one, it may be the most important car in American
slot racing history but surely not the world.
Like you say, “The car appears crude…”
Guess it marks a time, rather like at Indy with the arrival of rear-engined
cars, when the design rulebook was torn up and rewritten, everything else
consigned to history.
Betta make a decent 1/24 Lola T70 GT shell and
it’s available in various thickness.
[oneofwos]
To be fair, if it was American, then it more or
less meant ‘World’ in them there days!
I liked drop arms and still do, but as a separate entity from all other
parts of the frame – other than its necessary pivot, of course! ie not with
the motor resting on it and not with the front axle on it either.
The curious thing is, that in one form or another, they were all the rage
for quite a long time, yet today, are no longer seen on commercial chassis
or anything else much beside the gimmicky ‘all terrain vehicles’.
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QUOTE
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Don’t forget to stock up
with solder |
Its ok howmet I’ll just poke my eyes out with the soldering iron first
howmet tx
27 May 2004, 16:11
No no please no! A blindfold will do!
But thanks for today’s Big Laugh Grah!
There’s always something on the old SF to crack the cheeks. Not always the
right pair though..
Here’s a pic of Chas Keeling’s angled Harvey
Aluminum spec circa 1964
sorry about the quality but its an old pic but as you can see Chas used a
K’s frame motor at an angle diagonally across the chassis to give 4 wd he
used contrate gears and not spurs.
Is this the earliest angle winder or can some one find one older?
I think that one is in a class of its own!
Very neat and innovative, it probably deserves its own special
classification/description.
Diangle-winder?
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QUOTE
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There’s always something on
the old SF to crack the cheeks. Not always the right pair though..
|
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QUOTE
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And Philippe the car is a
classic but didnt Chas Keeling build the first angle winder with his KS
powered Harvey Aluminum special .
|
I am well aware of Chas Keeling’s Harvey since the late 1960’s… But it has
NOTHING to do with the angle-winder principle and theory. It is simply an
inline in which the motor has been positioned at a slight angle so as to
help the four-wheel drive transmission, a major mistake in itself. The car
never performed any better than any of its contemporary competitors, it was
just another of these early days curiosities, like full suspensions and
differential. In the bin.
Now why is the Husting car (or for that matter, the Roy Moody car) so
important to the hobby? Because, as the Cooper-Climax brought the end of
front-engine cars in F1 and Indy, the angle-winder completely revolutionized
the hobby just at a time where it was beginning to die. It was, is and will
be for a long time, the most effective way to actual performance instead of
advertised gimmicks, the “final solution” of weight distribution vs traction
vs polar momentum VS any other factor. NO OTHER SINGLE RAIL OR SLOT CAR EVER
had as much influence on the hobby as this one, not only in America but on
the entire planet. While the toy industry is still mostly stuck on in-lines,
it is quite obvious that the best of the toys (once the crutches provided by the
traction magnets are removed)
are sidewinder, and once the toy industry will
move into the cobalt-magnet field and produce smaller motors with tiny
little square mags, adios in-lines, all of them. If any of you think that the
FLY Viper is the nec-plus-ultra of engineering with its front-engine layout,
I strongly suggest a return to school to get back to basic mathematics.
That’s why.
By the way and to come back to drop arms: I un-voluntarily created a little
revolution of my own by being the fellow who killed the drop arm for good on
the pro racing level. This happened in late 1972 when as one of the world’s
top pros, I was first to win consistently with a car without a drop arm. The
entire center section was solid, with the front wheels being completely
independent from the center section. While there was some ancestry to this
as one could actually build a similar contraption from Dynamic parts off the
shelf, the performance of such contraption was not even close to be in the
same league. It was not long before the entire field in the USA and UK
copied the design and began winning on their own. Such cars, called
“Diamond” because of their peculiar front-end shapes, absolutely dominated
professional slot car racing from that very moment in 1972 until the advent
of the perimeter frame in the late 1980’s.
Why did I do this? Simply because drop arms of ANY KIND are an engineering
mistake and present ZERO advantages and MANY inconveniences, the worst of
them being causing “launching”, an actual taking off in the straightaway
(flying), resulting in costly crashes. This happens when the car begins
hinging itself under full power (and we are not talking Slot.It V12 here…)
around its pivot point where the drop arm is hinged. I experimented with
stiffer and stiffer springs and the cars got better and better, so I built a
prototype where the arm was actually soldered between the main frame rails.
It did not work well until I removed the front wheels altogether, and then I
understood the whole advantages. So I built “A” arms and hinged them from
the center, then made adjustable springs so as to use the wheels to help
reduce the drag on the guide flag while cornering. Boy, did it work!
A month later, the car held the world record on the American Blue King
track, the reference track around the world, a full 1/2 second faster than
anyone had ever been at the time. No one had EVER had such an advantage, and
I used it to the fullest in 1973, cleaning up in most national-level races
entered, while I sent cars to Europe that cleaned up there, especially when
Bernd Mobus won the 1974 Euro Championship with one, while another sent to
Sweden allowed Per Gustafson to dominate the field there.
Drop arms are found on slower cars or Spanish do-ickey gizmos in dire need
of technical complexity to generate sales to the credulous ignorant, period.
Add this to oil-filled shock absorbers and working diffs… God saves us
all.
Regards,
Dr. Pea
Philippe I was not trying to belittle the
importance of Gene’s car ,as if we had not been made aware of its existence
back then we’d probably still be racing in-lines ,merely pointing out that
the angled motor albeit for different reasons had been around before as had
the full sidewinder Gene exploited the idea and showed the way to go and I
do think it was a mile stone in slot racing history. It also helped me to
dominate the racing at my then club in Accrington for quite some time.
I have to say I’m still with the Doc on this,
Grah. Mr Keeling’s car, groovy as it is, is a twisted inline, done to get
round the problem of fitting four wheel drive and a guide flag under a small
body (well, a Harvey Al. Spl.). And four-wheel drive belongs, as our man
somewhat harshly puts it, ‘in the bin’ as far as competitive racing is
concerned. The angle-winder idea is a different thing altogether.
And TSRF (blimey- how many pseudonyms are you allowed to have?) kinda backs
up my long held idea that the drop arm was there at least partly to isolate
the guide from the movements of the front wheels. As in the dreaded ISO-fulcrum.
And are you, with uncharacteristic modesty, PdL, offering your own Diamond
chassis as the other comparable break-through in chassis design about which
I initially enquired? Any other supporters for that idea?
I’m getting out of my depth here. I think I’ll just doggy paddle back to the
toddlers pool. But good discussion!
And what other bin-bound ideas were bravely pursued and beautifully
engineered by the bold pioneers of our beautiful hobby, by the way? I used
to fall asleep reading descriptions of intricate 1/32 clutch mechanisms in
‘Model Cars’.
Hi guys
it would really be nice if we could have pics of the different examples of
historical type of chassis:
pans, drop arms, hinged, diamond etc etc.
I stopped racing in 1967-68 after I won several races with Cox Cucaracha and
Chaparral with re-wounded 26Ds . Then the Porsche Russkit with that black
flimsy chassis (which I never liked compared to the beauty of the Cox aluminum
chassis) began to win in all Italy and here in the Italian side of
Switzerland but by the time I had a revolution to do (yes Mr. Pea I was on
“that” side of the barricades
so I quit slot race (also because you could find girls more easily in
occupied schools than in slot cars tracks
)
Anybody would put up some pics please?
Mr Pea? (I swear that I don’t read Mao Tse Dong’s red book anymore
Thanks and best regards
Edo (former red guard)
I had a sneaky feeling that the mere mention of
drop arms would trigger another entertainingly educational response! I love
this stuff – lots of history, sensible reasoning, wonderful!
What can I think of next . . .
I’ve been doing my controversial best to stir
things up, Tropi. I wish I had some photos of these old devices, but I think
we’ll just have to rely on goading Monsieur Pea. Maybe Russell has some
stuff still tucked away in his drawers. Or perhaps that’s just the way he
walks.
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QUOTE
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What can I think of next . .
. |
I am probably going to regret this as it will simply highlight my young age
(yeah right!
) and ignorance but…
Magna-traction, when did it first appear and was it also a kind of
revolution? or is it really a new fad used to kick-start the hobby again
after a 20 year spell in the doldrums.
Did it ever have a serious place in ‘pro’ racing? or was gooey gunk on the
track cheaper?
Here
Chaparral Cox I raced and the Mini-A the “best” Italian chassis then which
took over and beat Cox “Cuc” and Russkit Porsche in 69-70 (if I remember
well).
could you tell me how the 2 chassis qualify: Cox = not really a drop arm?
Mini-a =pan?
Forgive me for the butchery on the body: that was the way we raced
Best
Edo
This is also the first pic test I make from Photobucket so let’hope it works
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QUOTE
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Forgive me for the butchery
on the body |
Sorry, impossible to forgive – that is terrible!!!!
Nice chassis though!
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QUOTE (TSRF @ 28 May 2004, 06:14)
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Drop arms are found on
slower cars or Spanish do-ickey gizmos in dire need of technical
complexity to generate sales to the credulous ignorant, period
|
I know I’m a minnow in this pool of slot sharks, but I would suggest that a
drop arm chassis and suspension enables the creation of “off road” slot
racing. Yes, it’s a gimmick, but why should slot racing remain pure on the
(routed) straight & narrow?
At least the off roasters seem more realistic to drive than the current crop
of slot motorcycles
Mark.
Edo,
thanks a lot for the Mini-A picture !!
I remember seeing the first model in Milan in 67 – before the race got
underway and ended up in the usual brawl shortly thereafter
They were made by a Mr. Pizzi, right ?
Ciao
Beppe
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NO OTHER SINGLE RAIL OR SLOT
CAR EVER had as much influence on the hobby as this one, not only in
America but on the entire planet. |
Yup. He’s been talking to Mope, alrighty; yet he’s tempered the hyperbole -
he’s not claiming it as the most influential car in the solar system.
I think what we have here is a basic difference in definitions. Mr Peevly is
talking ’slot cars’ whereas I and several others here above are talking
Scalextric, Scalextric in the generic meaning, the non-professional
home-racing meaning of the word. We’re talking toys against hobbyist
engineering projects.
Yes, the crudely built chassis above may well have rocked the pro slot car
world, no, it didn’t cause so much as a blip on the home market. Why else
would it have taken decades for Ninco (for it was they?) to introduce it
there?
Ah, but WHOSE home market!
International board Mr. W!
AND – if you were an old enough phart to have been around THEN, drop arms
were adopted by many of the better slot car manufacturers such as Monogram
etc.
The UK ‘home market’ was what?
Scalextric and that’s about it, if we are talking literally, ‘in the UK
home’.
Well, it didn’t have any effect on their toys (in any sense of the ‘toy’
word), but realistically, we wouldn’t have expected it to THEN.
A little later, slotting kind of died, or at least entered a period of
suspended animation.
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Why else would it have taken
decades for Ninco (for it was they?) to introduce it
|
Well, the answer is more or less above – Ninco simply weren’t around at the
time!
They are relatively new upstarts, as are most of the rest of the companies
you youngsters have come to know and love. It’s a very fair bet that, if
they had been around, at least one of them would have given drop arms a shot
- and angle-winders and side-winders.
So PdL is quite right in his historical presentations, but most of you are
just too young to know!
Now I am sorry to say that I completely disagree
about the historical importance of this car.
So it made Pro-racing cars go faster I have to say SO WHAT,
I believe that if the system had not been built into this car it would have
been built into another slot car by another builder sooner or later.
One thing I have learned though all the hours of researching my book, is
that many slot racers all over the world are often working on the same
problem and often come up with the same answer. Now a lot of the steps taken
at the time of rail racing are still with us today for 1/32 scale cars
etc. The list of important slot racing development is huge so it’s incorrect
to pick up one small improvement and blow it up out of context.
RR
Argh! You pedant, you, Tropi!
But how kind to blame my ignorance on the innocence of youth! And so
accurate an assumption.
It would appear from Tropi’s dissection of my post that my thinking was too
parochial.
Well of course Ninco weren’t around at the time but what I think I meant was
that the mass market merchants, catering for the home user, the toy
business, didn’t pick up on it, otherwise Ninco wouldn’t have been the first
so to do many years later.
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The list of important slot
racing development is huge so it’s incorrect to pick up one small
improvement and blow it up out of context. |
Correct, but it is helpful and interesting to pick out those improvements
and highlight them as having more impact overall than many of the other
evolutions along the way.
A timeline for evolution of slot racing from the start until now would be
fascinating.
I am also not so sure you can eliminate that car and the others like it in
the early days, as having NO impact on the home set racing scene, I am sure
R&D from current Companies did their research into past trends and
techniques.
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I am probably going to
regret this as it will simply highlight my young age (yeah right! ) and
ignorance but… |
I forgot about this!
If for no other reason, this is where it’s handy to have your real,
genuinely old phartz skulking around so that you, wot THINK you are old
phartz, realize that you actually are not that old after all!
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QUOTE
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I believe that if the system
had not been built into this car it would have been built into another
slot car by another builder sooner or later. |
this is not only true of slot racing, but of almost everything ever
invented. There was a time for the telephone to arrive, a couple of people
got there first; same with television. That does not rob the person who came
up with the first one to be recognized of historical importance – or if it
does, all of history is bunk anyway.
i think this is what people mean when they tal
about drop arms
Am I right?
Swiss,
“Built With Passion” tell the story of the time line for the start of slot
racing from diesel rail racing until 1964.
Astro,
I completely agree this car and it’s builder are important as a step in the
development in slot racing and due credit must be given for that but that
does not make it the most important slot car.
andy the chassis pictured in your post is an ISO
fulcrum design which by definition means “same pivot point” The first
commercial application was the Cox “La Cucaracha” shown in one of the earlier posts
on this thread, the idea behind this is the weight of the motor was
concentrated on the drop-arm by virtue of it being mounted on it.
But the more usual definition of a drop arm is a hinged guide arm, generally hinged
in front of the motor but some times from behind.
Hope this clears up any confusion
Not to diminish the value of Gene Husting’s
creation (because I believe it to be a major milestone in slot history),
but…..
Wouldn’t the “most important” slot car be the first one?
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QUOTE
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So it made Pro-racing cars
go faster I have to say SO WHAT |
Anything that happens at the top levels trickles down to the lower levels.
Look at all the work they did on real racing cars over the years and then
compare to what new passenger cars can do today. It all eventually trickles
down.
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QUOTE
|
|
I completely agree this car
and it’s builder are important as a step in the development in slot racing
and due credit must be given for that but that does not make it the most
important slot car. |
I agree with this statement myself. It all depends on the point of view. I’d
actually consider whoever started using electric motors in these toys to be
of more importance as it was a leap in technology while the angle winder is
an improvement of that technology. Mr Pea has a point in that the angle-winder gave slot cars a much needed kick in the pants to get going again as
well as being a superior improvement over previous models. Since Mr Pea was
involved in racing at the time it made a far greater impact on his life than
it would the average Joe playing with his home set. But, since everything on
the pro level trickles down, the average Joe will see it eventually on his
home set.
There is a lot of good information in this thread as well as a chance to see
different perspectives. I’m enjoying this a great deal. This also reminds me
that there is a book I still need to buy.
I agree with Fergy the most important slot car
is the first one.
RR
Ciao Beppe
I do not remember who made it but can you confirm that the Mini-A chassis
was THE one to win over Cox “Cuc” and Porsche Russkit then? By that time I
was not racing anymore but would hear stories about this Italian wonder…
Hi Edo,
the sequence in Italy was first Russkit Carrera, then Cox Cucaracha and then
Mini-A – but I saw very little of the latter as by that time I was leaving
slots, essentially for the same reason you did (girls, not barricades)
Recently I’ve tried asking about what happened next on the Italia Slot
forum, but the local curmudgeons are not interested in sharing their
knowledge
Beppe
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QUOTE
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Wouldn’t the “most
important” slot car be the first one? |
I think that this line of reasoning bears no reason:
the “Marmon Wasp” Indy car is hardly considered by anyone as the “most
important” car in the history of the Indy 500.
The “Fardier” of Joseph Cugnot, the world’s first automobile (1760’s…) is
hardly considered as the “most important automobile”.
In the same manner, the “most important” rail-racing car is hardly the 1911
Lionel, and it was the first.
The most important car in any of the above would be the one that meant the
largest change in ensuing use by the majority of serious users: the Benz “Velo”
of 1886, the Cooper-Climax Indy car of 1961, one of the 1950’s rail-racing
cars of the Southport club…
That the Scalextric world was hardly affected is true, since Scalextric has
always been in the TOY industry and any Scalextric car could hardly compete
with ANY slot car designed for RACING. Scalextric users are playing with
TOYS, while the serious hobbyist will hardly glance at them. This is not a
demeaning comment, it’s just simple reality.
That Ninco introduced their own angle-winder 35 years after the Roy Moody’s
car only shows that they eventually had a look at the successors of this
pioneering design, probably a Flexi car now sold in Spain. I bet that they
still have hardly a CLUE about any history of the hobby, have never
witnessed an actual slot car race run with non-toy machinery. So do most
enthusiasts today, and it shows when they are asking about suspension,
differentials or other losers. I mean, my God, Slot.It INTRODUCED the
setscrew aluminum wheels and gears, did not they?
Ignorance is bliss.
Edo, the Dynamic sidewinder chassis for FT26 motors were the best thing for
an off-the shelf item in 1966, allowing the world’s worst klutz to build a
competitive car capable of racing with the best hand-built cars of the time.
I know this because I used them then AND defeated all the local hand built
machinery.
The Testor chassis was not so good… with a terrible drop arm design
causing the cars to run erratically and de-slot like Carrera cars today,
from a similar wandering guide system.
The Mini-A chassis (inline pressed aluminum jobs inspired by the original
IFC design) were conceived and built well after the angle-winder was born.
The Italians extensively raced the Cucarachas in 1967 to 1970, with highly
tuned FT26 motors. They appeared to be oblivious to the progress made in the
USA at the time, possibly because they had difficult access to the “right”
parts.
Andy, a “drop arm” is defined as hinged ahead of the motor. While the IFC
concept shown on your Audi really works well, the drop arm concept is as
smart as the Ninco sprung guide flag. It’s plain dumb.
Best regards,
Dr. Pea
Never though I would agree in a way with
Philippe, but Philippe is right the most important rail cars were those used
by the Southport Club when they introduced electric model car racing to the
world as we know it today.
These rail cars were the most historically important slot or rail cars ever
built, because everything we have today comes directly from these rail cars.
They are really the first truly multi- lane competitive system built
strictly for racing IMHO.
RR
|
QUOTE
|
|
I think that this line of
reasoning bears no reason:
the “Marmon Wasp” Indy car is hardly considered by anyone as the “most
important” car in the history of the Indy 500. |
But this is hardly the same thing. Cars had been raced since their
inception. The Marmon Wasp was not the first racing car, nor the first car.
It was notable as a “milestone” in racing, which is why you mentioned it.
The first of any “item” must surely be the most important, since all that
come after depend on its creation. Perhaps not the most interesting to
subsequent generations, but the first must be the “most important”! Okay,
perhaps this is an argument of semantics, but I DID put a “wink” in my last
post!
And, yes, I believe Husting’s car was a key milestone in slot racing. Then
again, similar arguments could be made for the first spring-steel chassis,
the first use of air dams, the first use of tire goop, the first drop-arm,
the first ISO, etc. These were all key steps in slot racing’s history, and
some steps may be bigger than others, but I hesitate to affix the term “most
important” to any one development. I think it would be possible to argue
that Dynamic’s modular chassis components were just as important as
Husting’s angle-winder. Perhaps for different reasons, but the impact, at
the time, was quite enormous on slot racing as a whole. Dynamic actually
managed to “grey” the line between scratch-built, semi-scratch-built, and
near-production cars and opened up competitive racing to a larger group of
people. Pretty important, IMO. And Husting’s car didn’t do that.
I won’t argue that the car was a “major milestone”. It was! And it should be
prominent in any history of slot racing. But the “most important”? I just
don’t think it deserves that title. I’m not sure any one car does. Except,
maybe, the first..
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June 19th, 2009
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April 17th, 2009
Maximum Performance From Press-on Plastic Wheels, Gears, and Slip-on Tires
Virtually every 1:32 scale RTR slot car made today comes with press-on plastic wheels. We’ll acknowledge it right at the start – they are not, technologically speaking, the greatest slot car wheels ever made. We’re well aware that a fair number of hobbyists would prefer to buy cars that come with machined aluminum wheels held on with set screws. For a number of reasons, primarily cost, that’s not going to happen anytime soon except in a few specialized cases. The truth, however, is that for most home track racers plastic wheels are capable of delivering all the performance that’s really needed, and nobody can deny that many of the plastic wheels currently being offered look highly realistic. Here are some tips that will help you get the most out of the plastic wheels and slip-on tires on your fleet of cars.
One of the most common complaints about RTR car wheels and tires is that they are not adequately true and concentric. This certainly does happen, but out-of-round wheels bad enough to impair the performance of the car and beyond correction with fairly simple procedures are not nearly as common as a relatively small faction within the hobby would like you to believe.
Plastic wheels are held onto the car’s axles by what is known as an “interference fit”. The diameter of the hole in the center of the wheel is ever so slightly smaller than that of the axle. When pressed on for the first time the wheel usually fits very tightly, so tightly in some cases that it can be hard to exert enough force on it to get it back off again. This is especially true when the axle ends are knurled or splined to grip the wheels more tightly. Not only that, but if the wheel isn’t pressed on completely straight at the factory the force can distort the hole causing the wheel to go on crooked. It doesn’t have to be off very far to cause wheel hop or tire rubbing on the body or chassis, or even a visible wobble in the wheel as it turns.
Of course, not every out-of-round condition is caused by crooked wheels. There is a tire involved, too, and it’s made of a molded rubber or silicone material that is far more prone to distortion than the hard plastic wheel is. In addition, it’s easy for the tire to be improperly seated on the wheel during assembly. So, when problems arise the first thing you need to do is make sure the tire is seated properly. Almost every plastic wheel has a rib running around its circumference, as shown in Drawing 1. A corresponding groove in the inside of the tire locates and retains the tire on the wheel. The tires on RTR cars are not glued or otherwise bonded to the rim. The rib and groove do all the work of keeping the tire firmly in place. The tire stretches enough to allow it to be slipped on and off over the rib. It’s easy for the tire to get hung up on the rib and not fit snugly all around the wheel. To seat the tire, press firmly on the tread surface at the point where the tire is not seated properly. It may be necessary to remove the tire and remount it to get it fully seated.
When mounting slip-on tires you can get them to go into their correct position on the wheel more easily and with less stretching and strain on the tire by first coating the wheel with liquid dishwashing or hand soap. This, by the way, is especially important with some older-formula silicone tires, which can tear easily if subjected to too much stretching during the mounting process. It can allow you in some cases to use tires that otherwise could not be made to fit on the wheels. This can be very handy for those who may wish to use tires with a larger or smaller diameter than the ones made specifically for the wheels they are using.
Once the tire is properly seated on the rim it may still be out of round or out of true. In addition the tread surface may be concave or convex, as shown in drawing 2. As a result only a small portion of the tire’s possible contact patch (the portion of the tire’s tread surface touching the track at any given time) may be actually touching the track. Since traction is a function of the size of the contact patch you want the tire making contact uniformly across its entire width.
To achieve this most desirable condition the tire will have to be trued. The most common and quickest way of doing this is shown in Drawing 3. Tape some medium-fine sandpaper to the track and hold the car in place with the rear tires on the abrasive surface of the sandpaper. Give the car some throttle and spin the tires against the sandpaper. Take care not to bog down the motor or cause it to overheat. When truing treaded tires, be sure you take into account any rules where you race that require a certain minimum amount of the tread pattern to remain on the tire. Where rules allow it you can sand tires down even farther to lower the entire car and with it, the traction magnet for increased magnetic downforce.
Unless the tires are badly out of their proper shape you can also true them over time by simply driving the car. As you put laps on the car and break in all of its moving parts the tires will also wear down to proper trueness.
Keep in mind when removing and replacing slip-on tires that the tampo-stamped sidewall lettering and other detail is often fragile. The paint used does not always bond well to the tire rubber and the pressure of your fingers can rub it off in ordinary handling. Be especially careful with the tires on any car you hope to keep as a collectible. The value goes way down if the sidewall markings (along with everything else) are less than perfect. If you plan to run the car but later want it to look pristine for display or sale you will want to buy a set of original replacement tires with perfect sidewall markings and store them in a plastic bag for installation when that time comes.
Believe it or not, a common question from newcomers to the hobby is, “How do I get the wheels off?” What most of them are really asking is, “How do I get the wheels off without breaking them?” To the complete newcomer to the hobby it’s not obvious how the wheels are held on since there are no fasteners, such as set screws. It’s also not clear how much force can be applied to the wheels without breaking them.
You can remove press-on wheels with a combination of pulling and twisting force as shown in Drawing 4. With both wheels on the axle you can apply the force by gripping one wheel with each hand. On some cars this is easier to do if you snap the axle assembly out of the chassis. Be sure to pull the wheel perfectly straight back off the axle without applying any sideways bending force that can crack the hub. As long as you are careful about this, unless you are Iron Man you won’t be able to apply enough force to break anything.
Once you get the first wheel off the axle you have the problem of how to grip the axle tightly enough to twist off the other wheel. Ordinary pliers often won’t work for this purpose and you end up damaging the axle. The solution is to use locking pliers, such as Vise-Grips. It’s worth noting, by the way, that the axles used in many RTR cars are made of a fairly soft material that can be damaged easily. They usually aren’t the nearly indestructible drill blanks sold as aftermarket axles.
To put the wheels back onto the axles, just press them straight on using your fingers, again being careful not to apply any sideways force that can crack the hub. Some racers help insure that the wheels will press all the way onto the axles by drilling a tiny hole all the way through the exact center of each wheel. This prevents air being trapped between the wheel center and the end of the axle. In most cases, once you take plastic wheels off the first time they are never as tight again and they will go on and off much more easily. In fact, every time you take a plastic wheel off and put it back on again it gets a little looser. Not only that, but even wheels that have never been removed from the axle can gradually work loose due to the ordinary stresses placed on them in normal operation. As a result, virtually every press-on plastic wheel eventually becomes too loose to stay on the axle. Fortunately, the solution is simple. Just put a small drop of medium-thick CA glue on the axle end, as shown in Drawing 5, and press the wheel on. Give the glue a few minutes to set fully and the wheel fits as tight as a brand-new one. You will still be able to get the wheel off again if you need to.
Of course, sometimes, no matter how careful you are, you do crack a wheel hub. Don’t worry. The wheel can be made as good as new ‚Äö√Ñ√¨ better, even. All you have to do is coat the outside of the hub with CA glue and slide on a length of styrene or brass tubing, as shown in Drawing 6. The CA seals up the crack and the tubing not only binds up the hub so the cracked piece is forced back into its correct position but also adds enough strength to the hub that cracking will never again be a problem unless the wheel is subjected to catastrophic force. You can do this to brand-new, undamaged wheels as a preventive measure, too. Some Fly car wheels have at times been especially susceptible to hub cracking. Evergreen #227 tubing is the size that fits Fly hubs and those of many other plastic wheels as well. If you prefer brass tubing you can get it in various diameters from any hobby shop that has a K&S metals rack.
Once in a while you encounter a wheel that simply will not come off the axle no matter what you do with it. This is not uncommon with Carrera cars, since Carrera uses truly extreme knurling on its axle ends to grip the plastic wheels ferociously. If all else fails you can violate everything we just told you above and bend the wheel sideways just enough to crack the hub. Then, use the CA and tubing trick to fix the hub before reinstalling the wheel. Don’t do this except as a last resort.
Some press-on wheels are actually two-piece assemblies in which the rim is a press-fit onto the center, as shown in Drawing 7. This is done to allow the center and the rim to be painted or plated differently, giving the wheel a more realistic look. Like the wheel hub on the axle, the rim can work loose from the center over time, and sometimes they are not a perfectly tight fit right from the factory. You will find that out when you try to twist off a two-piece wheel as described above and the rim, with the tire on it, comes off in your hand while the center remains firmly attached to the axle. The fix is the same – a little CA on the mating surfaces and the rim pressed back onto the center. Be careful with the CA, as it can ruin the wheel’s paint or plating if it gets onto the wrong place.
While we’re at it we should say a few words about press-on plastic gears. The gears typically fit the axle more tightly than the wheels do and some car makers spline the axle at the point where the gear goes to grip it more tightly. You usually won’t get a gear off by twisting it with your fingers because you can’t grip it hard enough to apply the necessary force. To remove a press-on gear, take the wheels and bushings off the axle. Place the axle in a bench vise as shown in Drawing 8. Use a hammer to drive the axle through the gear. Use a piece of steel wire or a drill blank slightly smaller than the axle to drive it all the way through. Use the same procedure to drive the axle back into the gear. Be sure to drive the axle in straight to avoid damaging the hole in the gear, and keep in mind that RTR car axles can be bent.
With all this knowledge you are now equipped to get years of reliable performance out of your cars’ press-on wheels and gears and slip-on tires. For the needs of most hobbyists these techniques will make upgrades to more expensive aluminum set-screw wheels and gears unnecessary. Have fun!
Copyright © 1998, revised edition copyright 2009, Robert M. Ward. Used by permission.
Thanks for shopping with us!
The Electric Dream Team
70.40.216.50
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tags: Gears, press-on plastic wheels, RTR, RTR slot car, Slip-on Tires, slot car, slot cars
April 16th, 2009
4-7-09
BFB Competition Rules Clarification
It has been pointed out to us that we need to clarify the difference between modifications and basic car preparation required to make any slot car run properly. Therefore the following is added to the Official Rules for Slot Car Challenge #1:
For the purposes of the Bang For The Buck (BFB) competition within the Electric Dreams Slot Car Challenge #1 the following specific items are recognized as basic, essential car preparation and will not be considered modifications under the rules:
1. Adjusting the fit of stock parts in their stock locations for the purpose of correcting binding, tire rubbing, misalignment, or incorrect or inaccurate assembly at the factory.
2. Replacing a defective original part with an identical part.
3. Removing “flash” from molded plastic parts (excess plastic at mold part lines or at the point where the molded part was attached to the sprue).
4. Lubrication.
5. Sanding the tires to correct an out-of-round or out-of-true condition.
6. Loosening the body mounting screws to allow the body to float.
BFB points will not be deducted for these items.
Competitors’ questions may be posted on the official contest forum at: http://slotblog.net/index.php?showtopic=14001
The Electric Dream Team
70.40.216.50
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April 16th, 2009
by Rex Easley
There isn’t an RTR slot car on the market that doesn’t have a lot of potential for increasing its perfornance. But where do you start to unlock all that potential? We get a lot of e-mails and phone calls from newcomers to the hobby asking just that question in one form or another. This article will take you through some of the basics of tuning an RTR car for better performance and help answer those questions.
The car we have chosen for this article is the MRRC MC0054 Chaparral 2F. Chaparrals have been popular with slot car racers since the full-sized cars’ glory days in the 60s. They continue to win thousands of new fans each year through their appearances at vintage races. MRRC’s 2F model does a good job of capturing the look and character of the 1:1 scale car and looks good on the track, but it needs some help in the performance department to allow it to race competitively with period-contemporary or near-contemporary cars such as Scalextric’s Ford GT40 and Ferra
ri 330P4 and Fly’s Ford GT40, Lola T70, and Porsche 908 and 917, among others.
The most basic step in tuning any RTR car is to make sure all the parts are fitting properly and moving freely with no binding, rubbing, or misalignment. The crucial areas are the guide and the axle assemblies. The guide should turn freely in its mounting and self-center readily without sticking at its limit of travel in either direction. The axle assemblies should turn freely with no binding or tire rubbing whether traveling in a straight line or cornering. First, make sure the guide and the axle assemblies are snapped all the way into their mountings. It’s not uncommon for the factory workers in Spain, China, or wherever to use a little too much force in screwing the car down to its case and pop an axle assembly out of place. In such cases the axle just needs to be snapped back in. Sometimes excess side-to-side play in an axle assembly can cause a tire to rub in the corners. Som
etimes this can be fixed just by pressing a wheel a little farther onto its axle. In most cases, however, you will need to put one or more spacers on the axle to reduce the slop and keep the tires off the body. Another thing that can cause problems is incorrect installation of some part of the car, such as a headlight bucket or the interior, which may rub on a tire or cause the body to sit incorrectly on the chassis. You may need to correct the fit of the offending part or do a little filing to provide the necessary clearance. Sometimes a lead wire will be caught between the body and chassis, causing the guide not to rotate freely or self-center properly or the body not to sit right on the chassis. Relocating the wire will usually solve the problem.
On our Chaparral everything was in its proper place and moving freely to begin with, so with a drop of oil in each rear axle bushing, motor bushing, and front axle mount the car was ready for its first run on our test track. The test track, by the way, is a 4-lane version of the 2-lane layout we will use in the Electric Dreams Slot Car Challenge #1.
Right from the start the car had good acceleration and top speed but suffered from a major lack of grip in the corners despite its two traction magnets. This is typical of most RTR cars and leads to the first and one of the simplest and most effective performance improvements you can make: sanding the tires. First, use a rubber band to hold the controller trigger on one lane of your track at full throttle. With one hand hold a piece of medium-grit sandpaper on that lane. 150 grit works fine, though you may want to finish the job with a finer grade. With the other hand, place the car on that lane and hold it as shown below. The rear tires will spin on the sandpaper. Keep doing this until the tires are sanded down to the point where the entire width of the tread is making full contact with the track at all points around the circumference of both tires. Since tire tracti
on with any given tire compound is a function of the “contact patch”, that is, the portion of the tire’s tread surface in contact with the track, this maximizes grip. It also makes the tire truer and more concentric for smoother, quieter operation and even lowers the magnet a bit. Before tire truing the best lap time we could make on our 56-foot track was 5.599 seconds. After truing, our best lap time dropped to 4.827 sec. with no other changes. This would prove to be the biggest single improvement of the entire tuning process.
From there we moved on to trying different brands of aftermarket rear tires on the stock wheels, in each case using the tire designated for the car by the tire manufactuer. Here are the results:
Ortmann 28L: 4.701 sec.
Indy Grips IG1009: 4.742 sec.
Maxxtrac M6: 4.554 sec.
After that we loosened each of the three body mount screws about 3/4 of a turn. That allowed the body to “float” a little on its mounts without making it loose enough for anything to rub. It didn’t significantly affect all-out speed for one lap, but it did make the car easier and more consistent to drive over the course of a run. This is something we recommend for any car, as it will yield higher lap totals over the length of a race.
At this point we had explored all the readily available options for getting better grip with tires that would fit the stock wheels. However, MRRC’s Sebring chassis, used on the 2F and many of MRRC’s other cars, leaves plenty of room for wider wheels and tires. The chassis also has lots of clearance underneath on stock-sized tires, so we had some scope to go to smaller-diameter tires at the same time. The stock rear tires, after sanding, were .795″ (20.19mm) in diameter. After a little scrounging around we found original-equipment front and rear axle assemblies for a Slot It Porsche 956. The rear tires were .762″ (19.35mm) in diameter. The Slot It fronts were correspondingly smaller in diameter
than the srtock fronts. Best of all the Slot It rears were .395″ wide, more than a third wider than stock. We did not have on hand at the test site a Slot It crown gear small enough in diameter to clear the 2F’s rear magnet so we used a press-on crown from a cannibalized Carrera car we had lying around. This gear not only fit well but gave a smoother gear mesh than the original MRRC gear. We had to shorten the axles slightly to fit the wheels, with their BBS inserts that look almost exactly like the classic Chaparral wheels except for their gold-colored centers, within the car’s width. On the front axle we used a couple of old Scalextric plastic axle bushings as spacers. If you don’t have a junk Slot It car around to pull parts from the Slot It components are all available on our web site under Slot It parts.
With the alternative axle assemblies snapped into place it was back to the test track. Right away our lap times dropped into the 4.2s and we ended up with a best of 4.174. However, with the chassis, and therefore the two magnets, now much lower to the track we were getting so much magnet downforce the car had only one braking point per lap and was bogged down on the straights and perhaps in some of the turns, also. Not much fun to drive, in our opinion, and not good for the motor either. So, we popped out the front magnet and tried again. This time the car was back to being quick in a straight line and much livelier all around. The best lap time improved only slightly to 4.170 sec., so we had clearly lost some speed in the corners as we gained on the straights. However, we were no longer overheating the motor and we had freed the car up to take advantage of the additional quar
ter inch (about 6mm) of available rear tire width on each side. We expect adding wider tires to deliver lap times under 4.0 sec., though we didn’t have an opportunity to explore it before the deadline for this article. Another avenue we didn’t explore was to test Slot It’s other tire compounds for these wheels. That would probably be good for another tenth or two, also.
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Our final demon tweak for this session was to replace the stock guide with a Slot It SICH07 guide. Slot It bills this guide as being for routed wood tracks but on this car at least it worked just fine with no trimming on our Sport track. The guide upgrade was a straight swap with no mods needed to either the guide or the chassis. The eyelet connectors on the stock lead wires are a perfectly snug fit in the new guide. With the Slot It guide the ultimate lap times did not change, but again we noticed an improvement in the consistency and drivability of the car. This indicates that the stock guide was doing a pretty good job, but anything that makes the car more drivable will pay dividends over a race or a season, and on cars with less effective stock guides this upgrade can make a
big difference. Depending on the kind of track you run on you may also want to try SICH06 or SICH10.
One good thing about all these changes is that they are all snap-in mods and completely reversible if we want to return the car to stock form. The only fabrication of any kind needed was the shortening of the Slot It axles, and one could probably avoid that simply by buying axles of the proper length to begin with. With these easy changes we took almost 1 1/2 seconds off the car’s lap times and made it a much more consistent and pleasant car to drive. You can use these modifications to make your car faster for all-out competition or you can use some combination of them to tune your car to a desired performance level and equalize its performance with other cars you would like to race it with. The techniques described in this article can be applied successfully to almost any RTR car in your collection.
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April 10th, 2009
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tags: CanAm, Chaparral, Ferrari, Fly's Ford GT40, Kyalami, MRRC MC0054 Chaparral 2F, Racer RCR48, Racer RH Porsche, RTR slot car, Scalextric C2994 Aston Martin, Scalextric C3020 BMW, Slot car deals from electric dreams. What's new in the Shop. slot car, Slot Car Racing, slot cars
April 7th, 2009
ELECTRIC DREAMS ANNOUNCES SLOT CAR CHALLENGE© #1
Electric Dreams, one of America’s largest Internet slot car dealers, is pleased to announce the first of a new series of mail-in slot car competition events, the Electric Dreams Slot Car Challenge #1.
The event will be a competition for Fly E1801 Ferrari 250 GTO models built to a very liberal set of rules. With very few restrictions, almost any part of the car can be replaced or modified. There will be three separate competitions within the event:
· Concours: The cars will be judged on overall appearance and quality of workmanship.
· All-out performance: The cars will be run one at a time for two 5-minute runs on a Scalextric Sport track layout to be constructed for the event. The car with the highest lap total for the 10 minutes wins. It will not be a race, since there will only be one car on the track at a time, but will be like a car magazine comparison test in which the cars of many different tuners are tested individually to see who has built the best-performing car.
· Bang For The Buck Prize: The winner will be the car determined to have achieved the best combination of a high lap total, low cost, and fewest and simplest modifications.
In each of these three competitions we will award prizes of $200 for first place, $100 for second, and $50 for third. Any entrant who can sweep all three can win a cool $600.
The contest begins April 3, 2009. All entries must be received at Electric Dreams by the close of business on July 10, 2009. The contest will be concluded and the cars on their way back to their owners by July 31, 2009.
“I’m excited about this contest,” Scott Bader, owner of Electric Dreams, commented, “because it gives slot car hobbyists with lots of different skills, interests, and budgets a good chance to win at least one of the three competitions.”
To make the contest as affordable as possible Electric Dreams is offering the Fly E1801 Ferrari 250 GTO at a special price of $39.95 for the duration of the contest or until supplies run out.
Electric Dreams Slot Car Challenge© #1
Official Rules, Contest Instructions, and Information
Rules:
· Performance: The car with the highest lap total for two 5-minute runs wins.
· Concours: The car judged to have the best overall appearance and quality of workmanship will be the winner.
· Bang For The Buck Prize: This one goes to the car that gets the highest on-track performance at the lowest cost with the fewest and simplest modifications.
2. All cars entered must be built from a Fly E1801 car purchased from Electric Dreams during the period of the contest, which will be from April 3, 2009 to July 10, 2009. The official entry form and other paperwork for the contest will be sent with the car. Entry is free; there is no entry fee. However, you must purchase from Electric Dreams one Fly E1801 car for each car you enter in the contest. The number of entries is limited to the number of Fly E1801 cars in stock at Electric Dreams.
3. The original Fly E1801 chassis, body, windows, driver figure, and interior tub must be used but may be modified. The original wheelbase and guide lead (distance from center of rear axle to center of guide post) must remain unchanged. Only one guide is allowed but any guide may be used. Anything else may be changed. See section 5 for limitations.
4. The body must completely cover the chassis, wheels, and tires when viewed from directly above. No part of the car may be more than 2.375″ (60.325mm) wide. No part of the chassis may be visible through the cockpit (interior) of the car.
5. All parts used to modify the car must be available from Electric Dreams and must be listed on the official entry form along with their retail prices from the Electric Dreams web site. (NOTE: You do not have to buy the parts, other than the car itself, from Electric Dreams; they just have to be for sale on our web site and listed on the entry form at our retail prices.) Basic materials used, such as paint, glue, body putty, and sheet plastic do not have to be listed on the entry form and do not have to be available from Electric Dreams.
EXCEPTION: FOR THIS CONTEST THE USE OF NSR PARTS IS NOT ALLOWED. Please see the Official Contest Instructions and Information below for the reason why.
6. Each car entered must be sent with its completed official entry form and list of modifications to Electric Dreams at the address listed in the Contest Instructions and must be received no later than the close of business on July 10, 2009.
7. Upon arrival at the contest site each car will be carefully inspected and all modifications noted. The total cost of the car will be verified. The cars will be judged on appearance and workmanship and the Concours winner will be determined.
8. An experienced driver will drive each car for two 5-minute test runs on different lanes. The test drivers will be aiming for consistency over the entire run rather than the absolute fastest time for any one lap. The total number of laps completed will be recorded and the winner of the Performance competition will be determined.
9. Each car, along with its lap total, will be evaluated by one or more expert members of the Electric Dream Team to identify the winner of the Bang For The Buck Prize. The winner will be the car determined to have achieved the best combination of a high lap total, low cost, and fewest and simplest modifications.
10. The test drivers, judges, and evaluators will not be aware of the entrants’ identities. They will be given only the car and a corresponding assigned ID number.
11. Electric Dreams reserves the right to use images and descriptions of all entries for promotional purposes.
Contest Instructions and Information:
Thanks for entering the Electric Dreams Slot Car Challenge. We want you to have the best possible chance of winning, so please read these instructions and other information carefully.
The basic idea
The vehicle we have chosen for the three competitions is the Fly E1801 Ferrari 250 GTO. The object is not just to build the fastest car you can. There will actually be three separate competitions. One will be a concours competition in which all cars will be judged on appearance and workmanship. Another is for all-out performance – the car with the highest lap total wins. There will also be a competition, called the Bang For The Buck Prize (BFB), to build the fastest car with the fewest, simplest, and least expensive modifications.
This event will not be a true race, since only one car will be on the track at a time. Think of it as being like a car magazine comparison test in which you are a “tuner” and your car is tested individually against those of your competitors under the most controlled conditions possible.
With very few restrictions you can change as much or as little on the car as you want (see the rules for specifics). You can even enter a box-stock car if you think that will be the winning combination.
Prizes
Concours: 1st place $200 2nd place $100 3rd place $50
Performance: 1st place $200 2nd place $100 3rd place $50
Bang For The Buck Prize: 1st place $200 2nd place $100 3rd place $50
Entry instructions
1. Send your entry to:
Electric Dreams
3321 Jack Northrop Avenue, Bldg. 3-70
Hawthorne, CA 90250
2. Be sure to pack your car carefully with lots of packing material around it. Electric Dreams cannot be responsible for damage in shipping and besides, you’d really hate to put all that work into your car and then have it crushed by the postal system.
Please do not put your car in a plastic case for shipping. This increases the size and weight of the box needed to ship it in, and the case is much more likely to be damaged than the car is.
3. Be sure to put your filled-out Official Entry Form and List of Modifications In the box with your car. We can’t do anything without them.
4. Remember that your car has to be received by us before the entry deadline, so be sure to mail it out in plenty of time to get here by July 10.
5. The testing will be completed and the cars will be in the mail back to their owners by July 31, 2009.
The test track
The track we will use for this competition is a Scalextric Sport track with a lap length of approximately 56 feet (17m). The longest straightaway has a length of 15.5 feet (4.724m). The track has no radius 1 curves and only a few radius 4s. Each lane is powered separately by one stock Scalextric power supply via a stock power base. The track is equipped with Parma 45-ohm controllers, which will be used for all testing. Motor, magnet, and gearing choices should be made with these constraints in mind.
The track will be thoroughly cleaned before the beginning of testing and will be cleaned as needed as testing goes on to maintain the most consistent possible track conditions. Lap counting will be done with a DS timing and scoring system.
Concours Judging
Each car entered will be judged for overall appearance and quality of workmanship. The cars will be judged while sitting on a piece of track. Any parts of the car not visible when sitting on the track will not be considered in the concours judging. Concours judging will be for appearance and workmanship only, regardless of performance, cost or complexity/simplicity.
Performance competition
Two 5-minute test runs, one on each lane, will determine the performance winner. The car with the highest lap total wins, regardless of any other factors.
Bang For The Buck Prize
Each car will be evaluated by the number, complexity, and cost of the modifications done to it as well as the level of skill required to do them. Cost and complexity will be considered separately. The cost of the parts used does not affect the evaluation of complexity. For instance, snapping in a $30 hopup motor would have the same complexity as snapping in a $15 motor, so both would be evaluated the same for complexity even though they raise the cost by different amounts.
Only modifications affecting on-track performance will be considered. Work done only to improve the car’s appearance for the concours competition will not affect the BFB evaluation.
Every part you change will raise your cost and every modification you make will reduce the simplicity of your car and your chances of winning the BFB. This means you will have to decide whether this set of aluminum wheels or that change in the location of the traction magnet will generate enough additional laps to make up for the extra cost and/or complexity they add to the car.
If you can make one modification serve two purposes you will be ahead of the game. For instance, if you put a set of silicone tires on the car, that will increase grip for faster cornering. If you can find a set of tires that also is a bit smaller in diameter than stock you can get the whole back of the car, including the traction magnet, closer to the track for even more grip, but that set of tires is still just one modification. But be careful you don’t get that magnet down too low, or you’ll end up with enough magnet drag on the straights to kill any gains you made in the corners. You will be making tradeoffs like this throughout the process of creating your entry for this contest.
The testing procedure
1. Each car will be inspected to ensure that it has not been damaged or otherwise adversely affected in shipping. If we detect any shipping damage we will notify the entrant immediately.
2. Each car’s tires will be cleaned thoroughly to ensure that there is no dust or other foreign substances on them. Each car will be given a short shakedown drive to ensure that it is running and to detect any problems that might cause damage to the car or the track during the official testing. The braid will be adjusted for proper contact with the track if needed following the shakedown drive. The car will then go directly to testing and no further work will be performed on it during the test.
3. Each car will be driven for 5 minutes on one lane then moved to the second lane and immediately driven for another 5 minutes. The test driver’s assignment will be to drive each car as fast as it can be driven consistently with deslotting kept to a minimum. There will be turn marshals. Sustained endurance for 10 minutes is part of the challenge. We will keep driving a car as long as it runs at all. If it quits running for any reason during the test it will be taken off the track and its lap total to that point will be its total for the test. Each car will be sent back to its owner in the same condition in which it left the track.
Keep in mind that the test driver will have driven your car only a few laps before the beginning of its official test runs. The easier and more forgiving your car is to drive fast the better it’s likely to do in the competition. (Hint: a car that tends to slide at the limit of adhesion will be a more drivable car than one that tilts.)
Q and A
Q. Why are you running the competition this way instead of as a typical proxy race?
A. There are several reasons.
· There will be less chance of damaging the cars
· We can control the conditions more precisely.
· It takes fewer people to run it this way.
Q. Why the stock power packs and low-end 45-ohm aftermarket controllers?
A. This is the combination used by a very large proportion of our customers and it’s affordable enough that almost anyone can test their entry with it before sending it in. If we used expensive power supplies and controllers the relatively few people who have them on their tracks would have a big advantage. Also, one of the aims of this contest is to discover easy, low-cost speed secrets that even someone on a tight budget can afford to use.
Q. Why a Scalextric track?
A. Scalextric is the brand we sell the most of by a wide margin. Also, we have a really nice Scalextric layout available for the track testing. Future Slot Car Challenges may use different tracks.
Q. Why are you allowing magnets?
A. Most of our customers race on plastic track with magnets. Also, magnet racing allows the use of a much wider variety of parts including many less expensive parts than non-magnet racing and makes keeping the cars close to stock a more viable option, especially with a front-motor car like the Fly GTO.
A. We wanted a car that is not, relatively speaking, a great performer to begin with and has lots of potential for improvement. We also like the idea of seeing what people will do to overcome the drawbacks of the front-motor layout and a relatively bland livery. Will anybody take the plunge and move the motor aft? And, as you might have guessed, we have a supply of them on hand that we can afford to sell at a low price to make the contest as affordable as possible. By the way, don’t forget that the number of entries is limited to the number of these cars on hand at Electric Dreams, so order your car early to be sure of getting an entry.
Q. Will my track test scores affect my concours placing?
A. No. They are completely separate. The concours judging will be concerned only with the appearance and workmanship of the cars without regard to performance, cost, or simplicity/complexity. If you want you can enter two cars, one optimized to win on performance and one just to win concours, or even one for each of the three parts of the contest. Bear in mind, however, that all cars entered must be purchased from Electric Dreams during the contest and each one will go through all parts of the competition.
Q. Why limit the parts that can be used to what Electric Dreams stocks?
A. First, it levels the playing field by preventing the use of exotic or even one-off parts from obscure sources that are not readily available to all entrants. (Yes, we know there may be parts you would like to use from product lines we don’t carry, but this is the most practical and workable place to draw the line.) Second, it enables us to use our own web site as the authoritative standard for establishing the prices of items used in the contest. As pointed out already, you don’t have to buy the parts (except the car itself) from us, but you do have to list the parts you used at our prices, regardless of what you paid for them. This provides a uniform standard of comparison for all entries.
Q. Why are you banning NSR parts?
A. Only because the supply of them is so chronically sparse and erratic at present. So many of them are out of stock at any time and likely to remain that way for the duration of the contest that they create a situation in which somebody who just happens to have a certain part already might be the only one able to use it while it is unavailable to other entrants. If the NSR parts supply situation improves we will allow them where appropriate in future contests.
Q. Can I use my own unique performance parts that I make myself?
A. For this contest, at least, no. All performance-related parts used on your car must be available through the Electric Dreams web site. If we allowed one-off custom-made parts, people with high-level industrial skills and equipment would have an overwhelming advantage.
Q. I have other questions. Where can I get them answered?
We will post answers as quickly as possible.
The Challenge Track Layout
.jpg "Challenge 1 track")
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The Electric Dream Team
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tags: electric dreams, Electric Dreams Slot Car Challenge, Fly E1801 Ferrari 250 GTO, Fly slot car, Scalextric Sport track, Scott Bader, slot car, Slot Car Challenge, slot car hobbyist
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