[Slot.it]

Hi all.
As those who follow the development of oXigen may already know, this was the first event to be held all with the production ICs from China (testing batch).
Besides, the sw was a new release whose aim was to fix the bugs which surfaced during the previous rounds.

Well, I am really happy to post that the final leg of the Italian oXigen championship in Rovigo was a complete technical success.
No significant issues to report on the car IC, car-controller and controller-dongle link, dongle, lap counting, driving...

Literally, we couldn't have hoped for a more succesful event.

The whole system even recovered gracefully from a mid race black out caused by a faulty connector. No laps were lost.
Quality of driving remained excellent from the start until the end of the three hours period - which means that even with less than perfect braids, there was no loss of performance. I tend to think that all racing we have been doing may be the most extensive testing ever made before launching a digital system for slot cars.
This is key. We've put it into the hands of hundreds of people, from Chicago to Italy, young kids and experienced racers alike, and we've been listening to their comments. We've raced in different environments, each time learning new things and improving the system. Now I think it is ready. There are some minor points, some edges to polish, but it works like I envisioned it to. Of course it will be developed for years to come.

About the race: around 30 racers from Sicily to Milano - more than 1000 km apart - came in 10 teams, amongst which possibly a few of the best plastic car drivers in the world, winners of Slot.it European 24hrs Championship, Spanish and Italian sprint Championships, and Ninco World cup races. Others were experienced club racers, and one team was formed by less experienced club racers.

All drivers behaved quite well, intentional rear bumping was rare and a few drive through penalties helped to keep the fairplay.

In the end, Milano Slot (Milano, nothern Italy) won the race, ahead of the ASC Catania (Sicily, south) team, followed closely by PRS Rovigo (north).

PRS Rovigo wins overall the championship, followed by ASC Catania, and Slot UP Amazing

The track (very large 8 lane Ninco)

Typical LC arrangement

The 'totem'

Race Winners - Milano 90

Championship winners PRS Rovigo (one driver left as he bacame sick, I'm taking his place)

Regards
Maurizio

 

[MrFlippant]

FaaaaaaanTAStic! Absolutely incredible! Great job, guys! Great job!

 

[Doug]

Hi Maurizio - a very impressive race. Well done on getting it right and thanks for posting the photos.

 

[Slot.it]

Thank you.
BTW I posted the wrong photo

Championship winners:
PRS Rovigo (one driver left as he bacame sick during the race, I'm taking his place during prizegiving)
Tommaso Melioli, Luca Fabbri, Lorenzo Cuomo (missing)

 

[fabim]

Hi Maurizio ,

Happy to know that everything is working perfectly, but I have a question. when OXIGEN is available for sale?? I am anxious to put to work here !!!!!!

 

[astro]

Congratulations on the successful testing and exciting race event!

 

[Slot.it]

The RSS feed from Italiaslot:

http://italiaslot.com/modules.php?name=New...=0&thold=-1

I have some footage as well and will put it on line soon.

Now regarding sales: like I said elsewhere, this month we'll start selling small quantities to selected customers (shops with track in their premises). In the meanwhile, we'll wait for more chips from China, and refine what's needed to be refined, based on the feedback from these early customers.

Regards
Maurizio

 

[Martyn_]

Those photgraphs on italiaslot are great, Maurizio. You can really see the guys getting into the event.
Come on, get that video posted!

 

[Slot.it]

I'm working on it, I'm notoriously awful at video...

 

[Slot.it]

There! some footage of oXigen racing in Rovigo

 

[UshCha]

How many cars were racing at one time? The pics seem only to show 8 or 9!

 

[Minardi]

...I count 10 cars leaving pit lane in the video. Looks very impressive.

The first thing that comes to mind watching the video is that I think 8 lanes is too much for digital. I understand that with 12 cars you need room on the track, but part of the fun is looking for gaps, blocking etc. I have a 2 lane digital track at home and wouldn't want more lanes with a max of 6 cars. How did you guys experience this ? I would say go for 4 lanes on club tracks when racing digital. oh, before I forget, congratulations Maurizio, this looks all very promising and professional.

 

[UshCha]

Minardi,
Thats what I was getting at 8 lanes would need all 20 cars to make it interesting. Less than that and its not really showing Digital at its best. Plus with 8 lanes it would be hard to define the best line which is what digital is all about. While the video does show the system working well in terms of digital raceing its not pushing the system that hard. A realistic line of 10 to twelve cars nearly nose to tail jocking for position would tell if there were any barley perceptible lags in the system and any cross talk between cars and controllers would be checked in case cars started to blank each other going in a long line round say a harpin and decending to give even more potential blanking. Personally with 8 lanes you would need 24 cars which is more than the system can achieve I believe. Even than is only the same as scalextric. It would habve been better to restrict the cars to only 2 or at most 3 lanes.

 

[GTR XU-1]

Great Video Maurizio! Good to see some of the more advanced digital systems in action. Whilst I agree with the concept of three to four lane racing for digital, it is great to see your system working with a sizable field of cars. Well done!

Dave

 

[Martyn_]

Thank you for posting the video Maurizio. I think the 8 lanes was good as an advertisement for the oXigen system. Perhaps five or six lanes would have shown tighter racing and be more useful for club events.

I heard the commentator count 10 cars out of the pits.

 

[Slot.it]

Yes it was 10, not eleven, sorry - we had no car #9, hence the confusion.
Lane 8 was for marshalling and pit lane entry only, lane 1 was not used (no LC into lane 1), hence, you could only race on 6 lanes in fact.

The day after the race was analog ('classic' cars for the Slot.it championship) hence the 8 laner.

 

[Litus]

Big, Maurizio!

For me:
6 cars = 2 lanes
12 cars = 4 lanes
16 cars = 4 lanes or max. 5

 

[Chip of FDSC]

Thank you for the video update Maurizio, grazie

This is very exciting to see your dream come true.
One day (I hope) I shall give you some of my money for this system.

I hope to participate in an Oxigen race in England one day. I heard rumours of one. Fingers crossed.

Keep up the excellent work!! I'm a big fan of Oxigen.

 

[Slot.it]

FYI, raced again last Wed night at the Modena Slot Club, and everything went smooth, and this time I was not even there

 

[GdPAT]

Did not see any frogs around ... there I go !

Actually digital was created to overtake cars and have maybe a more "realistic" race than gigantic 10-lines raceways.

More people on less track surface. 1/32 cars on a scale raceway.

So you can see people trying to overtake on line 2 or 7 and you will see people overtaking car on lane 4 by getting on lane 5 .. or 3 in a couple of months !

We often race on 6 line tracks, but I think the track design is much more sympathetic on 4 ways.

As noticed before, with more than 10/12 cars, 6 running lines is more appreciable. But the very important thing is the way the car wil come back after getting out of the track.
So we often see that lane 1 and 6 are important for the fluidity of trafic. Not used for racing, but as "accelerating zone"

Digital is good for you!