[moped rider]

Following on from a topic elsewhere, I firmly believe that clubs should have a rethink and change the designs of many of their circuits.

It has been stated that it is absolutely impossible for a box standard car to race properly on a typical club circuit without opening up the body and doing some work.

Well, a bit of lateral thinking needs to be applied then.

Surely you design the club circuit to make it possible to race box standard cars without the need to open them up.

If club circuits are too long or too tricky and put too much strain on a typical off the shelf slot car, then make them shorter and less winding so that cars can race off the shelf.

The multi lane fun will be just the same without the need to do all the work to the cars.

I don't have to do at home what I appear to have to do to prepare a car for a club event. If the club circuits were more like my home circuits then I would not have to do this preperation and nor would anybody else.

Moped

(PS the root cause of this post is the logic of the argument used by others elsewhere. It had not previously occured to me to blame the circuit for the need to do so much preperation to a car! )

 

[Intergrali]

QUOTE clubs should have a rethink and change the designs of many of their circuits.

what a load of f***in carp!

circuits are built to be a challenge, although you really do need to see it.

 

[astro]

I am mainly a home racer. I have been to clubs a bit intend to go more BECAUSE they are different. I would not go out to 'race' on a size 4 scalextric circuit set up on a carpet in a bedroom.

Professional and Amateur motorsport takes commitment, dedication, money, experience and so on. I think it is a good thing that club racing takes the same, and is different to home racing.

I didnt see millions of home racers drawn to mopeds caterham challenge, which was supposed to prove that home racers wanted box standard home racing conditions. There are a lot of different sorts of clubs aimed at different levels of slotter, but the dumbed down club that moped proposes seems to appeal to no-one.

 

[Jamie]

You say what you feel Inte...

Moped, I must have missed the thread that triggered this post.

My reply to your question, the only circuits where car preparation is more then likely necessary is routed, by all accounts these smooth circuits really highlight car faults, out of round wheels etc. A while back I went to a routed track with some RTR out of box cars, I soon found it was very hard to remain competitive as all the cars faults previously hidden on Plexi/home circuits came to light!

Talking of Plexi track, I don't agree with your post statement at all, out of box cars run perfectly happy on normal Scalextric type circuits without the need for modifications. We run RTR cars at Farnham and it works, people can modify if they wish or race box stock, both classes of racers compete successfully.

To alter the track design to allow cars to run better? Rather than simplify or alter the circuit design (which like Inte I agree & feel it wouldn't be necessary) no matter how technical the circuit design you eventually learn it, it just takes longer - I just don't see where your point is, RTR cars run fine on plastic tracks.

Personally I think equal power to all lanes so no lane has a power advantage and roughly equal lanes, again no lane has a big advantage over the others.

Anyway, I don't mind these sorts of posts even if intended to provoke (as per Inte) its good, better than a quiet forum.

Jamie

 

[Intergrali]

you know this

I'll always speak my mind and try not to get deleted... "yawn"

 

[Intergrali]

you know this

I'll always speak my mind and try not to get deleted... "yawn"

 

[Difflock]

How many times must I repeat? "It is the fundamental right of each & every slot jockey to demand round tyres, if not round wheels too." An addendum to that statement could read "the axle bearings shall not rotate with said axle, and as such shall be properly secured within the chassis."

Anyway - ppl have the right to do what they want with the toy cars; any car from the big names will run straight from its box, but I have seen the transformation that 10-20 minutes tinkering can achieve.

Club circuits should be far larger than someone's circuit at home. That's the point of having a club with the inherent larger floorspace available. I'm not saying that racing at home is no good, far from it. It's just a different type of racing, actually having a track where you can see the cars running flat out at some stage, whether the magnatraction works or not. Anyone for a huge Paris-Dakar/Safari Raid track? Once again a different type of racing within the hobby.

Mark.

 

[astro]

Jamie, the other thread was the fly trophy one, and the point there was not modification of cars, but gluing in motors and bearings so they would last race day, higher velocities and braking strains than on home circuits etc. General prep rather than customisation.

 

[a Bill]

It doesn't matter where I play with my toy cars, they all get the same preparation. So dumbing down the track won't affect me in any way at all.

If you're main concern is getting newbies a chance to race like they do at home then perhaps you could lower the voltage a bit at the club track for their race. I can't say how big a difference it makes in 1/32nd scale cars but in HO cars just going from 18v to 16v tamed them down quite a bit. On some nights we'd do the exact opposite. Instead of racing at 18v we'd crank it up to 21v. Those cars were a handful at that voltage

Round wheels, round tires, straight axles and decent motors. You won't find those in any production toy car.

 

[peter]

I agree with Mark above.

I also think that fundamentally people should not need to resort to as much 'general preparation' as astro describes. While some people seem to be happy with 'mediocre' quality on slotcars - blaming it on their imense 'value for money' and thus disqualifying any (valid) complains. I do not agree with such statements. Further more - price has nothing to do with this basic functionality since we actually are able to find relatively low cost cars that run comparably well - without gluing etc. I also think that the origin of this thread is a bit odd since it seems related to a complain that one manufacturers cars needed this 'preparation' and thus they would be assumed not as good (?).

However when it then was pointed out that some other manufacturers cars also might need this 'preparation' to last on a clubtrack - then (after some initial disagreements?) the result was this thread - obviously if cars from this particular manufacturer cannot last a race on a circuit it must be the fault of the circuit... (???). The origin behind this thread looks to me as a kind of obfuscating activity - wether intentional or un-intentional is secondary.

//peter

 

[Wankel Ickx]

Oh, right. It's too hard for me so let's dumb it down. Nice idea - not!

Fiddly little home tracks have zero appeal to me now that I have experienced a long straight and sweeping curves.

Club racing elevates the hobby to new levels, requires a different skill set and is poles apart from building up ballast with carpet fluff on the front room.

It takes the average newbie several months to get up to speed on a big track with just a weekly visit, you need to persevere and have some backbone to see the learning curve through if you want to be a contender.

The other option would be to cry 'foul' and call for it to be dumbed down. Or stop going.

Not everyone wants to fettle their toys, none of us should have to; but it makes 'em better if you take the time to do a minimum of tinkering and home racers would notice the benefits too, I'm sure.

 

[uksqueezea]

I'm afraid I side with Wank on this one.
No need to apologize for being the fastest. Boys will be boys. Its up to the slower/newer guys to watch, learn and take all advice offered in a friendly spirit. They can sort out which suits and which does not as they gather more experience and get better from being dumped in the deep end of local top flight competition.

The track is just track regardless of complexity.

You have to wonder with Schumacher having done his apprenticeship chasing the likes of Prost, Senna, Mansell, Berger, Alesi, Piquet, how could he not be good.

 

[GRAH1]

Of course Moped could always buy 3 challengers set up his twisty short track on the floor of his living room and race him self till either he wins or the other 3 cars break down through lack of prep

 

[mac p]

lets look a little deeper into mopeds thoughts here, i think he may have solved many problems that have held back slot racing for years,with this in mind i would like to put forward a set of rules for clubs to run to. TRACKS, oval in shape,TWO lanes only, {maximum of two standard staights per side, standard curves to form oval.}POWER, max power to be no more than 7.5389 volts at any point on track. POINT scoring, 1st place 0 points{ this will stop the "tuners" from running away with all the pots} 2nd place 5points. EXTRA points can be gained by using twisted chassis, bent axles, loose wiresetc, if the car dose not run first time out of the box 35 points will be gained . with the larger clubs, light sensors could be placed to scan the length of the stright, to measure the oscillation of the cars ,the highest leap will gain 10 extra point{but only if it happens every lap} and it can be proved that out of round tyres have caused the leaps.with these changes in mind, i will contact P D L & electric dreams,Jim Brown porsche challange, the poppsical racers and all international proxy race organisers to take on these changes thus moving the whole of slot racing into the 16 century, mac p

 

[Intergrali]

Mac, 2 strights is a bit anal isnt it? cant we have one and a half?

also you would need a crossover to equal the running distance

 

[astro]

mac p!

 

[baldy]

moped nothing to do with your driving.

 

[LMP]

No. No. No.

The whole point of a club is to be different from home racing. Otherwise we'd race in someones loft every wednesday wouldn't we?

QUOTE It has been stated that it is absolutely impossible for a box standard car to race properly on a typical club circuit without opening up the body and doing some work.

Bullshizzle. I did absolutely nothing at all, nothing at all, to my L88 which won me my first race.

QUOTE I don't have to do at home what I appear to have to do to prepare a car for a club event.

Thats because, funnily enough, the club tracks arent exact replicas of your home layout! Hard to beleive as it is, but they aren't. Really, I'm telling the truth.

You want the circuits to be designed for standard cars. And tell me again, every club races standard cars more than classes do they? Nobody runs non-magnet racing or modified mags more than standard cars? Of course not, events for box standard cars are much more common than the weekly based club classes. Think of it from the other side, the track is there primarily for the members, not the one day eventers.

 

[LMP]

If anyone missed my point, it is that:

The club is there for the club racers and what they want, not the visitors and what they want.

 

[Intergrali]

lmp04.. you turn upto one of the club nights up north.. a out the box car sans prep will get annihilated.

even Grah's heap would beat ya!

Inte