4rd LMP race, 8th and final race for the points LMP/GT series of this season.

My choice this time was the Scaleauto Radical. The car was superb and the only thing I had to do is drive it steady and fast. The title is already mine so I olny want a good performance to justify it.
Qualifying at white lane. I only made a couple of laps and scored a time that seemed good enough, 7,573. Tzak seemed nervous again and could not push his marvelous Radical to the edge so he scored second place with 7,713. Here are the complete results:



I started the race at white lane as I wanted to score the same good lap of qualifying in order to grab the Best Lap point as well. Tzak denied me the pleasure as he scored a lap 0,006 faster than me!! 7,581 againtst mine 7,587. Apart from that, I finished Q1 more than one lap ahaed of Tzak and almost more than two laps ahead of the other racers.



Q2 on red lane. This time Tzak managed to stay right behind me and the gap stayed almost the same between us.



Q3 on green lane. Tzak seemed to lost conentration, I get a clear head of the race and I slow down a bit, resulting in my worst heat of the race, 4:24, which in previous races could be good enaough to win a race. Times had greatly improved through the season. Tzak ended up third as he lost a lot of time due to various deslots.



Q4 on blue lane. I drove fast and steady and completed an excellent race, with few deslots, and very good and fast laps. My difference from the rest was 5-6 laps. I tried to best Tzak's lap but the tires were not in a condition to allow me.



The final standings of the championship:

4rd GT race and 7th for the points LMP/GT series of this season.

For this race as well my choice, as most of the other racers as well, was the NSR Mosler.
I equipped it with the NSR 25k motor geared at 26/9, slot.it guide (SICH66) and NSR medium springs all around.
Spirit tires were chosen this time as Racer Pro Soft tires costed me the race last time with their poor performance from the middle of the race to the end.

Following some pictures of the cars in parc ferme:









At qualifying the car seemed really good. I managed to quickly make a good lap and then forced in order to improve it. 7.688 was good enough to give me the pole position, along with the first point of the race.



I chose the green lane to start as I find it the hardest lane that has costed me several races in the past. The car behaved amazingly good and I completed my first heat, with one deslot only I think, more than 7 seconds ahead of George who was driving in the second group of drivers. Tzak on blue kept the pace for a few laps but finally ended up in several mistakes and completed his effort 9 seconds behind me.



Second heat on blue lane, and the car is unstoppable. I complete my effort 13 seconds ahead of Tzak who managed to pass by George who made a nighmarish heat on green lane and ended up in the same second with Giannis, 24 behind the lead.



Third heat on white lane and I am feeling confident for the result as my greatest opponent, Tzak, has completed his effort on blue and white lanes and is already 13 seconds behind me. I finish 26 seconds in front of George and Giannis, while Tzak is very stressed, loses his grip during the race and ends up fourth 32 seconds behind me. The car was performing brilliantly, despite the fact that the tires were beginning to show signs of mediocre traction.



Final heat on red lane, my favorite, despite the fact it does not score the best lap times. I can enjoy the race now, and I only push hard to break my best lap time that I scored during my first heat (green lane). I made several deslots but I never lost control of the race. In the end I completed the 132 laps 25 seconds in front of George, who grapped the second place in front of Giannis and Tzak respectively. The car performed really good. The tires had lost some grip but performed nice until the end, showing little signs of graining.



The combination of tires and motor was the correct one this time resulting in an overall excellent car. I managed to take the lead early in the race and control it until the end. At the end, after technical inspection, I realize that I had won the championship as well, as Tzak lost several points, enough to allow me to go and play a stressless last race.

Podium, left to right, George' Mosler, my Mosler and Giannis' Mosler that is equipped with an HRS chassis and Flat RS motor.



Championship table:

3rd GT race and 5th for the points LMP/GT series of this season.

For this race my choice, as most of the other racers as well, was the NSR Mosler.
I equipped it with the NSR 30k motor geared at 28/9, slot.it guide (SICH66) and NSR medium springs all around.
Racer Soft ProSpeed tires were chosen at the last minute as the Spirit seemed to lack grip during my final test, 15 minutes before the start of the race.

At qualifying the car seemed very good. I managed to quickly make a good lap and then forced in order to improve it. 7.682 on white lane was good enough to give me the pole position, along with the first point of the race.



I completed my first heat, in red lane, with two silly deslots and found myself first, less than a second ahead of Giannis who drove a infallible heat. Tzak is following 3 seconds behind me, while Petris is fourth another 3 seconds.



Second heat is at green lane, the one which based on results seems to be the slower from the four. My goal is simple, loose as less time as possible and stay close to the lead, avoiding deslots, which is not achieved. I completed the second heat with 3 more deslots and and average of 8,216 secs, which is not good at all if you are aiming for the first step of the podium. I am now 3rd 5 seconds behind Tzak and 3 seconds behind Giannis.



We are at the middle of the race and my third heat is on blue lane, the fastest. Again my goal is to avoid deslots, maintain a fast pace and decrease the gap from the first two. The car seems to have lost much of its initial grip. I completed the heat with 1 deslot and the best lap thus far to the race, which gives another point. I am now second 5,5 seconds behind Tzak and only 0,3 seconds ahead of Giannis.



Fourth and final heat, I am running on white lane, the second fastest for most of the racers. My grip is now very low, which seems to be a problem for Tzak as well, but not for Giannis. I completed the heat with 3 faults, in front of Tzak and behind Giannis. As my difference from Giannis was only 0,3 secondse I knew I had lost the first place but I was hoping for the second. Unfortunately Tzak was ahead of me for 0,512 seconds. Giannis was 1,639 ahaed of me. It is the closest finish of this season thus far!!











The only good thing is that my difference from Tzak remained the same as we both scored 27 points.
Here is the podium of the winners.



It seems that the Racer tires was not a good choice after all as the wore off a lot and had no grip during the last heat. Meaby it's the combination of the 30k motor which has a huge torque of 365 gr/cm.

2nd LMP race (and 4th overall) for my brother in the local championship. Below are results, pictures and his point of view for the race.
Photos from the racers:








I open the qualifying session as, at the moment, I am first on the championship table. After much practice on all lanes the previous days and achieving my best lap time ever on this track (7.545) I thought the car was pretty good, but it seems I was wrong. I have quite a bad feeling on the car. It seems to lack braking and accelerating and I end up in the 6th place!! on the starting grid. I really feel very stressed and anxious because I was taken by surprise by my Radical's performance.



The race is stopped for about 1-1,5 hours after 4th group's 1st heat as the marshal was experiencing problems again with the program (PC Lap Counter) on the PC. We changed PC and the race continued. This stopped didn't helped me at all as I completely lost my (remaining from the previous days!!) rhythm and started my first heat on the red lane quite numb. The good thing is that I found out why the car was behaving so badly. My slot.it controller was set to Linear mode while I always use it on Curve mode. Anyway, after 3 idiotic deslots I end up 3rd behind Dimitris and Tzak, which is quite refreshing.



My second heat on green was similar to the previous one, a little numb but I was getting a hold on myself and after 2 deslots I finish 3rd again. The good thing is that I have completed my heats on red and green and the rest of the race for me is on blue and white, the fastest lanes. In front of me, Dimitris and Tzak had swaped places and now Tzak leads the race. Dimitris, who is driving Vassilis Avant Peugeot 908, seems to have a declining overall pace, despite breaking the best lap record once more.



My 3rd heat on blue one is a completely different story than the race so far. The car is extremely stable, so stable that at a moment I thought that I was not going so fast until I heard that I had a pace at around 7.7xx, which is quite good. Not the fastest guy on track but my main concern was to avoid deslots. After a infallible heat I manage to pass ahead of Dimitris on the second place for 1,7 seconds. Tzak is 15,6 seconds in front of me and only something catastrophic could deprive this race from him.



My 4th heat on white lane is similar to the previous one. I make one (again idiotic) deslot and I complete a fast and steady heat. Now I must wait for the 1st group to see my final position. Tzak drove a mindfull race and managed to hold his position losing 8 from the 15,6 seconds he was ahead of me. Misfortune hitted Dimitris again as his crown went loose and his car stopped on lap 122, while he was trying to catch me in the second place. At that point, after analysing the race detailed data, he was losing another 1,3 seconds.



I am still first on the championship standings, in the middle of the way, with a safety distance from the other four championship contestants.
4 more races until the end and everything is still open!!

2nd GT race and 3rd for the points series for this season for my brother.
Let's see his point of veiw and some photos of his race:


GT class is a different story than LMP class so far. I chose until now to avoid competing with an NSR Mosler, the most successful car in modern slot history based on results.
After trying to prepare a Scaleauto Zonda, a Scaleauto Honda, a Slot.it F40 and a Slot.it GT1 in order to beat the Moslers, I finally decided to prepare one myself as well.
On Friday before the race I got the car to the track to prepare it.
Loaned body and motor from Dimitris. Loaned chassis from Nisko. Only tires were mine.
With the help of Dimitris I managed to find a fast and relative reliable setup for my (loaned!!) Mosler:
Blue soft chassis.
Red extra hard motor mount.
MB Song motor with 10/25 slot.it transmission.
16" NSR wheels all around.
Spirits tires on the back.
Medium suspension all around. 0,5-1 turn loosened at the back and 3 turns at the front.
36 magnetic downforce.

On to Saturday and the race:











At qualifying I had an excellent feeling of the car. I managed to quickly make a good lap and then forced in order to improve it. 7.661 on red lane was good enough to give me the pole position, along with the first point of the race.



I completed my first heat, in red lane, with two deslots and found myself second 3 sceonds behind Dimitris, who also had a couple of deslots if I recall well and was driving on the white lane. Fokianos makes an excellent effort driving a fast and steady Mosler and finishes arount 1,5 sec behind me.



Second heat is at green lane, the one which based on results seems to be the slower from the four. My goal is simple, loose as less time as possible and stay close to the lead, avoiding deslots, which I partially achieved. I complete the second heat with 2 more deslots and found my self still second to Dimitris who was running in red, with a gap o 10 seconds now. Fakianos was right behind me at 5 seconds.



We are at the middle of the race and my third heat is on blue lane, the fastest. Again my goal is to avoid deslots, maintain a fast pace and decrease the gap from Dimitris, if possible. The car did not behave good any more. I have lost much grip and I tried to keep a fast pace in order not to ruin my effort so far (as I did the 1st GT race). I completed the heat with 4!! deslots and I am now third, 1,5 seconds behind Tzak who was flying on white lane achieving the best lap of the race, and less than 6 seconds behind Dimitris who lost some time in green lane. Fokianos is 1 sceond behind me. Dimitris has the upper hand but everything is still open for all places, first to fourth.



Fourth and final heat, I am running on white lane, the second fastest for most of the racers. My grip is still very low and I manage to complete the heat with no faults in order to finish second. Tzak is out of the way as he has problems with his motor or controller but Fokianos had an excellent previous heat at blue lane. I do 2 mistakes at the last laps of the race, clearly due to my lost of concentration.
On the final results I am third, 1,5 seconds behind Fokianos and less than 6 seconds behind Dimitris on the lead.



During technical inspection of the cars, in my big surprise, Dimitris' and Fokianos' cars were illegal, the first due to glued motor on the motor mount and the second due to leighter body, 14 grams with a limit of 16 grams. Both of them were surprised as they were unaware of their illegalities. Dimitris tried to glue his broken motor mount and accidentally glued the motor as well, while Fokianos replaced the plastic interior with a lexan one but negleted to weight his body. Chris was forced to implement the requlation and rule them out, so I ended up first



It was overall a "mixed feelings" race. I was not happy as I didn't had a fast and stable pace, but on the other hand I raced with a car I prepared the previous night and had not the time to catch the feeling of it. Although I got the points of the first place and now I am first on the championship race, I am disappointed as I always want to win on the track and not on the technical inspection bench. But this is racing, history has shown that the fastest guy does not always win.


All cars were NSR moslers except the ones of Christos Fokianos, Freddy Vagger and Konstantinos Mpalas.

Second race for my brother's race in the local club championship series. This is the LMP class race, inline only.
Let's see results and his point of view for the race:















Since the day before the race, I knew that I was not going to have the fastest car on the grid but I was betting to have the most stable and trusty. Let's see if i was right after all...

During qualifying I had a good feeling of the car. I managed to quickly make a good lap and then forced in order to improve it. I couldn't succeed and I ended up 3rd in the grid. I chose the red lane to start, instead of the blue.

I have a great start and manage to maintain a fast and stable pace. I complete my first heat, in red lane, with a sinlge deslot and I find myself second behind Chris, who also had one deslot if I recall well. Amerikanos and Dimitris had various deslots, while George managed to maintain a good pace and finshed 3 seconds behind me.

Second heat is at green lane, the one which based on results seems to be the slower from the four. My goal is simple, loose as less time as possible and stay close to the lead, avoiding deslots, which I achieve. I complete the second heat without a single deslot. I find my self second to George who was running in blue, the fastest lane. Chris was right behind me, while Dimitris and Amerikanos kept on loosing ground to the lead.

We are at the middle of the race and my third heat is on blue lane, the fastest. Again my goal is to avoid deslots and maintain a fast pace. I complete the heat again without deslots and I am now first, 2,5 seconds ahead of Chris. George tried to set the fastest lap on white lane, his best lane according to test results, which led him to a couple of mistakes and more than one lap behind me on this heat, 6 seconds overall. The three of us will battle for the win.

Fourth and final heat, I am running on white lane, the second fastest for most of the racers. 3-4 laps before the end I loose my concentration and make a mistake. The marshal (which incidentally was Chris) grabs my car to put it back in the slot but another racer deslots in the same spot. The marshal panickes and leaves my car aside trying to put the other racer back in his lane. I end up loosing 6-8 seconds (I have to check it and confrim this time on the analytical race results table, it seemed an eternity at the moment) but still finish ahead of George and the other racers in my group.

On the final results I am second, 2,5 seconds after Chris, but since he had announced before the race that he will be participating unoficially, which is the reason he raced practically alone and undisturbed in the last group, I ended up collecting the points of the first place.

It was overall a good race. I was happy as I had a fast and stable pace. A little disappointing in the end, as I found my self 2nd due to my silly and unjustified mistake (along with some bad marshalling). I was right that my car was not the fastest on the grid, actually I had the 4th fastest lap of the race, but I believe it was the most stable and trusty. For the next race I must find the speed I am lacking in order to compete for the pole position and fastest lap in order to get the maximum points from a race.




Cars and drivers according to final result (not according to numbering in photo)

1. Niskopoulos Christos - Scaleauto Radical
2. Koulouridis Petros - Avant Slot Peugeot 908
3. George Petris - Scaleauto Radical
4. Dimitris Dimas - Scaleauto Radical
5. Amerikanos - Scaleauto Radical
6. Andovich Giacomo - SCX Audi R8 Pro
7. Neratzis Giannis - Scaleauto Radical
8. Gaitanis Alexis - Spirit Dallara
9. Fokianos Giannis - Scaleauto Radical
10. Niskopoulos Thanos - Spirit Dallara
11. Zourmpanos George - Scaleauto Radical
12. Verganelakis Nikos - Scaleauto Radical
13. Fokianos Christos - NSR Audi R18
14. Samouris Giannis - NSR Audi R18

Recently my bro decided to get back to club racing. The first race series is a GT inline class.
Below are results, a pic of the cars and remarks of my brother about his race.

















During qualifying I had a good feeling of the car. I should have stopped and made minor adjustments/corrections on the controller settings to cope up with green lane's problematic voltage, instead of trying to push harder and result in mistakes. The first lesson of the day.

I had a great start as all other competents had deslots and lost their rhythm. I managed to finish the first heat ahead of them and second in total behind Amerikanos. If I recall well I had 4 deslots, 2 at the end when I tried to control my rhythm in order to avoid mistaked, which led me to them!!! The car was not as fast as the Moslers but i felt it stable and reliable.

On the second heat I managed to stay ahead o Dimitris even only for 307 milliseconds. The car continued to feel safe and relative fast. I had 3 deslots.

From the start of the third heat something looked bad. The car was not stable during cornering and had lost part of its acceleration. I had several deslots in places where during testing the car behaved excellently. I lost time, had more 5-6 deslots and finished third.

During the last heat I tried to control my rhythm but the car was getting worst. The tires were full of grain. My laps were a lot slower than they should be.
There was an incident with me and G.Petris which resulted in me losing one lap and finally completing 34 laps instead of 33, ending 7th. The stewart reviewed the results and deducted my last lap from my total time bringing me in the 5th place.

Another lesson of the day, if there is suspicion of grain on the tires I must stop and clean them. It is preferable to lose a few seconds on the "pits" than having a bad car which drives me in mistakes.

It was overall a good race, a little disappointing in the end, as I found my self 1st in the middle of the race but ended up 5th, but my goal was achieved as I finished in the top 5. The good thing is that I remebered how it is to race and learned a few things which will be put immediately in use during the rest of the season.

Car type final classification:

1. NSR Mosler
2. NSR Mosler
3. Slot it Ferrari F40
4. Slot it Ferrari F40
5. Slot it Porsche GT1
6. NSR Mosler
7. Scaleauto Honda HSV-R
8. Slot it Nissan R390
9. Scaleauto Pagani Zonda
10. NSR Mosler
11. NSR Mosler
12. Slot it Mclaren GTR
13. Slot it Mclaren GTR
14. Slot it Ferrari F40
15. Slot it Nissan R390

Another Scaleauto car recently entered our racers stable. The new Pagani Zonda in the green livery:


First thing to do is open the car to see inside, check for problems, lubricate etc. The magnets are held in place by 2 mag holders screwed in the motor pod. In one of the them the screw was almost stripped and all of the screws were too tight. Using a good screwdriver very gently, I managed to unscrew them all and I threw them away.
Next, I tried to loosen the motor pod. Somehow glue from the 2 rear difusers had got into the rear pod mounting screw holes and the pod was glued to the chassis at the rear end. When I managed to free it up, one screw hole was broken. Possibly due to overtightening of the pod screw, the chassis around the hole broke. So no rear mounting points for this one. (I must note here that the chassis was replaced, free of charge by the local Scaleauto importer here, but he only had the grey version so this will be tested later). Fortunately the motor pod has 6 screws (similar to Slot it evo6) so I could still use the fronts and the middle ones to be able to run the car for now.
Scaleauto provides a leaflet of instructions and an extra set of very low front tires. The leaflet suggests to remove the stock fronts and install the low profiled ones for racing. Both the stock fronts and the rears are of the same compound, the 'spirits', which is great for Ninco, with the rears being higher and wider. So I installed the fronts at the back and the low profiled in front and kept the larger ones for later use.
The motor is a closed can 22k boxer type (code: SC-26) in inline configuration. The ratio is 9/27, which just about right for most large-home or medium-club tracks. After installing the bottom set screws (no need for the upper) in the front axle setup blocks and loosening the pod and body screws, the car was ready to hit the track.
For this car the test track is our friends' Hercules 2 lane Ninco track. It's relatively fast and has only a tight inner section but also some fast R4 corners. On this track the car showed good power and acceleration, but the closed can motor with the high distance from the rails, the lack of suspension and the unglued and untreated tires, did not help traction. Still it was evident that the front end of the car was excellent, you could enter a turn very agressively and it still managed to make the turn nicely. Best lap was around 8.7s where an NSR Corvette with treated supergrips and 12/34 gearing, laps at 8.4s, a Slot it Lola with 12/28 and Spirit rear tires laps also at 8.4s and Avant slot LMPs lap at 8.1s-8.2s (with orange motor, alu wheels all around and spirit tires). Not bad for a start, still it feels slower than the Mercedes we already tuned (which has an open can motor).
Next project to add suspension and glue and treat tires, and then work on the grey chassis with an A/W MB SongNa motor and whatever it takes to make it a winner.

Edit 02/01/13:
I decided to push the envelope a bit more with the inline configuration. I removed the closed can motor and installed a Spirit SXXX which produces a considerable amount of mag downforce. I also added spring suspension at the side holes (soft springs possibly from a spirit 406 coupe but a set of slot its mounted on short screws would do), and a pair of very low spirit 303 rubber (similar to the small sized scaleauto, a bit wider and lower) . Gearing remained the same. Magnetic downforce as measured on magnet marshall was now at 23gr.
I also finished the grey chassis, an MB Song NA anglewinder setup, soft slot it springs, small wheels and Z0 tires in front and larger wheels with very low F22 rubber. Gearing is 11/30 and a piece of 2-3gr of lead was added right under the front axle . The motor mount has 3 screw holes to mount to the chasssis in the front, I used the shorter option. Again the car showed around 22gr of magnetic attraction on magnet marshal.
The testing ground is our new track. A 2 lane Ninco 30m extremely technical layout, with laps well above 10s. Testing was performed in both versions of the car. I also used the Mercedes SLS and a Slot it Lola as benchmarks. The results showed 2 very potent cars. The inline Zonda easily matches the performance of the Mercedes and it does produces equal or slightly better lap times, but is much easier and forgiving. The A/W is a rocket. It holds the lap record for the track and beat the Lola laptime by 0.2s.
Best laptimes after testing were:

1. A/W Zonda : 10.37s
2. Slot it Lola : 10.57s
3. Inline Zonda : 10.63s
4. Inline Mercedes SLS : 10.72s

After recently acquiring the new Scaleuto Mercedes SLS, I decided to see how it would perform under racing conditions and how it would fare against some immediate competition.



Test track is a 2lane Ninco technical layout, with a mix of most kind of curves (R1 to R4, no R5 yet) and a 12V 5amp power supply. Fastest lap is 7.31, held by an AW Slot it Nissan on a very high traction summer day, but generally the fastest car under equal conditions, is the MB Pagani Zonda closely followed by the Spirit Peugeot 406 Silhouette, the Avant Slot Pescarolo and Peugeot 908, the NSR Mosler, and the Slot its, Nissan R390, Mclaren GTR and Ferrari F40, all run around 7.5-7.6 any day. All GT cars are AW and AS LMPs are Inline, all use Spirit 303 rubber expect the Mosler than runs on Scaleauto R 20x12, motors are MB songNa and Slotit Boxer2 in AW, and Avant Slot orange Hurricane in the LMPs. Anything that runs near or below 7.7, is seriously fast.
The car was first tested on original configuration. Not very good, front tires were planted on track despite the front axle being setup as high as possible. Rear stock tires were not the best choice for Ninco (why not use the R-compound that can be found in the GT1?) so the rear end was a bit happy. Fastest lap was 9+
Switched to low profile front tires and some trued Spirit 303 rears. Loose pod and body. Lap times immediately down to 8.3s without much effort. Added a couple of soft Slot.it springs at the back (a setup that seems to work on the layouts of the Ninco tracks we use here), front screws 1/4 off, and tested again. Times improved again, it finally settled down to 8.03. Ratio was the stock 9/27 which was good for my track, although the motor is a bit wild. Overall tire diameter was 18.9mm and magnetic downforce was 26gr.
Then I tried with a 1.0mm offset AW pod, and 11/28 gearing. Needed to use a pair of new tires, which I trued round and treated the same way. The car was too fast for my track now and rather difficult to drive. It clocked one lap below 8s (at 7.985s) but it had a few offs. It was harder to drive. Tires were around 20mm and magnetic downforce was 32gr.
Same day, a Mosler was at 7.6, a stock Scaleauto GT1 was at 7.98, my NSR Corvette with stock motor, stock wheels and tires, soft suspension and 12/34 gearing was at 8.0 with some effort, and a similarly setup NSR Porsche 997 was at 8.1s. A fine set of closely matched cars that would easily provide close racing under most conditions.
Will work more on these GT racers in the future, after the addition of the NSR Audi R8.