Reynard 2KQ

No.29 Le Mans 2003

Jean-Luc Maury-Laribiere - Christophe Pillon - Pacal Fabre

By bleep

History of Sloting Plus

A little about the Spanish company Sloting Plus, it is a very small family based company. (information sent to me which may have lost something in translation ) Miguel Miret has had a passion for road circuits since childhood he received his first Scalextric circuit at the age of ten. A long period of abstinence faultered in 1996, when he noticing slotting was experiencing a real resurrection in Spain thanks to companies such as Fly and Ninco. For the last ten years Miguel has attended the Riudoms Club and has organized and participated in races eventually becoming the Club President. He is a keen driver, though his true interest is the preparation of cars. In 2006, Miguel launched his own brand of racing parts, hence the birth of Sloting Plus.

The man himself Miguel Miret

The Body work

Oh boy this is nice the tampo printing crisp clean and sharp lots of very nice little detailing if you look closely at the headlights you will even see the little Michelin man inside. My only reservation is this particular 1:1 car has been modeled before. Though information from Sloting Plus is that they wanted to pay homage to Adrian Reynard. To this end they have added a card in the box with a photo and brief about Adrian Reynard. This doesn't trouble me that much as this is a beautiful representation and in my case it's going to be used for racing as the man intended. The rear wing usually the most suspect part of this type of car in this case is mounted off the chassis seems quite sturdy yet flexible enough to take a few hits.

The Wheels

The wheels are a set of four Sloting Plus universal alloys with inserts, showing the brake disks. The fronts are blue with the rears in silver just like the 1:1. They are actually very nice wheels but then what would we expect from a performance parts manufacturer. My only reservation on the wheels is I wish they could have been a couple of mm wider, which would involve a narrower boss on the gearing or the wheels to allow it to fit in because of the angle winder set-up, perhaps this is something Sloting Plus could look to produce in the future. The stock tyres are tampo printed Sloting Plus are well aware the first thing the racer will do is swap the tyres for some that they prefer locally, so they consider the stock tyres mainly for the collector who would prefer display on the shelf. On my initial testing I left the standard tyres on the car just glued them and found them fine, I also softened them and found that improved them. I must admit I have now swapped them for some we use at our club, each step the car has got faster and faster. Just on an impression, the actual rubber on the stock tyres is too much, a lower profile tyre would have looked better from the collectors point of view.

Can you see in the lights the Michelin Man in the lights?

The Driver

As you can see the driver is nicely detailed in this car and has a gloss finish this is a limited pre-production model. The cars to be released the driver figure will be in a matt finish. Again looking to save weight the driver is just the upper torso but it's certainly sufficient to give the right overall appearance.

The dimensions of the real car can be found http://www.mulsannescorner.com/reynard2kq-debut.html

The Chassis

This has already lead to lots of conjecture as the proto type images were released earlier in the year. I can confirm that this is totally new, no other slotcar manufacturer has or is involved in any part of the manufacture of this car. The chassis itself is lightweight at 68g it is made of a rigid plastic, as you can see it's a floating motor mount that has three points of connection. At the foremost connection it is strengthened with a flexi connector. The rear has two fixing screws into the chassis it is also able to move on some very small intricate joints. As the screws are loosened the motor mount is able to rock but the rear axle stays in place. The body sits on top of the chassis hence parts of the chassis are painted to match in with the body. Which can also be loosened to suit your driving style and allowing body rock. Setting the exact balance to your racing surface is going to be the key in how well this car will perform. The chassis also comes with four holes to take 2mm grub screws which allows the exact setup of the ride height of the front axle.

The Magnet

At this point I must mention the magnet which protrudes below the chassis by 1mm I was a bit worried that this may cause a problem if the track was slightly uneven but on initial testing on Scalex Sport it sat well above the track and did not give any reason for concern. The magnet itself is not overly powerfully and it will let go if pushed so the car has to be driven and it's not just full throttle right round the track. Information from Sloting Plus is that this is only there for the occasional user they totally expect it to be taken out by the serious racer. That said I personally do not race with magnets so it has been removed which is a simple task of releasing two screws should you need to do the same.

The Guide

Is another point for discussion the guide is white, this has caused problems with some timing systems though as yet I have had no problems with this one it is perhaps because it does not allow light through it. The Guide itself is mounted in the car with a screw fitting which I do like, especially with this one as the washer is part of the screw saving lots of fiddling around. It is deep enough to run on wood and not too deep to interfere on plastic. Because of the way it has been wired it self centers well which in racing terms is a must.

The Motor

Again I must mention this is a pre production model and the actual models will have a complete cover on the motor (As Shown below) not the semitransparent one shown here, though I like this one I think it looks good. You can also see it is a 21k motor with 320g.cm torque with the standard gearing 11 x 32 it will certainly work for the home racer, but it's just as good and has plenty of punch on a decent sized club track. The gearing is "so smooth" again a reflection on the companies history of competition parts. I hate cars that rattle and would rather race a slightly slower car than one that sounds awful as it goes round, this one impressed me from the start with virtually no noise at all from the running gear whatsoever.

I have already eluded to the negative aspects of the angle winder set-up involving the width but that's the only fault I can find it certainly gives this car a beautiful balanced performance. The power to the motor is provided via a nice pair flexible silicone wires which are guided through the chassis through a set of boxes. The motor itself slots in the mount at one end and is held firmly in place with a couple of 2mm screws at the other and doesn't budge under pressure.

 
The motor as it will be released.


All the plastic parts are made in China with the mechanical parts made in Spain.

Track Test

Well I think I have already given away the point I'm impressed with this car. I did drive it round my track which is Scalextric Sport with the magnet in place just to try it out. My home track has some nice 4.5 meter long straights on it, what was apparent instantly is this car is FAST! But any car can be fast on the straights, it's how rapid it gets to fast and how well it tackles the more intricate parts that will decide if it is a winner or not. With the magnet and no adjustments this car lapped my track faster than anything else I own!

So pop the magnet out and the real test begins, could I emulate the performance by tweaking the motor mount, altering the tyres and all those other little things that racers do to make their cars go well? The answer is NO! I couldn't get it to match it's own personal best "BUT" I did get it to match the lap time of my current fastest car to 100th of a second! Not only that the motors torque is superb. It was nice and quiet, really well balanced it didn't seem hard to drive. This was it's first time out, I was over the moon, I wanted to go on the forum and tell everyone about it hence I sat in and wrote this for you instead. I can't wait to get it down the club and race it with a bit more fine tuning I reckon this is going to be the next car to beat. This is the view the competition will see.(Below) Oh yes and the car has been off the track a few times at full tilt "well you have to test it don't you " and the rear wing is still in place and complete.