[Michael363672]

Hi all you digital racers out there

I was wondering how you run your races nights?

Is it a run what you brung?
Club cars or IORC Classes
You pre arrange a class with set cars allowed

Does anyone set different power levels for different cars in same race or even different fuel burn rates?

So what do you do then? Or would like to do

Michael

 

[Mr Modifier]

Great question. I'm also very interested.

My portable digital layout is geared towards party hire and charity/fund raising events (the former to pay for my slot car habit, the latter to make me feel good about myself!!!)

It will also serve as a club track if we (me and my racing buddy) can get a club going next year.

First event is in 2 weeks for my son's school to raise money for classroom equipment.

The classes I am intending to run are:

Transit conversions (based on DPR super resistant F430's)
NASCAR (based on SCX chipped with single seater chips OR Scalextric Taurus with the same chips)
Road Rockets (Super Resistant DPR F430's, GT-R's and 997's)
Cobra Concepts (AutoArt Shelby Cobra Concepts chipped with a single seater chip and, as they have lights and my track is lit, run in the dark!)

All vehicles are identical or evenly matched so it is all about driver skill.

When we start a club next year this will all change of course - maybe we need some form of classification system - timing a car running around the track at full throttle on 50% power to give a time - classes could be run on lap time windows and each car could be tested prior to racing to ensure fairness. Now there's a thought....

I am inclined to suggest the majority of classes based on DPR if only because chips can be swapped between cars which keeps members' costs down.

 

[Billy_Cart]

As I have the only digital track in the group we usually race my cars when at my track.

We generally race the following classes;-

- Aussie V8's
- NASCAR
- Muscle Cars (Camaro's & Mustangs)
- Mini's

A couple of guys have their own V8 which they have chipped and will race, at this stage we have no set up rules and all fuel burn rates are the same for all car classes.

We find it is best to race in classes of similar type cars to keep it competitive.

 

[mikefi]

HI,Its seasonal rug racing for me

Nice big flowing track loads of R3 and R4 bends and pit lane and of course SSDC

Classes of car that I have managed to assemble

start the night off with boxters so everyone gets the hang of track without trashing nice cars

Scalextric nascars inline taurus and grand prix with a little lead over guide fast and tight racing

GTs....Aston Martin dbr9s,ferrari 430,jag xkrs,

American muscle....Mustangs, both camaros.,and Carerra plymouth...NON MAG with lots of lead over guide and infront of motors much slower and great sliding action

JGTC.......Scalextric nissan skylines..magnets in front pockets, sprung guides, a little lead over guide and scaleauto 20.000rpm ball bearing motors WOW great noise and superfast with a little tail action

nice finale to evening

Nice big box of Beer!!!!!

Great winter therapy

 

[MrFlippant]

My club runs like this:
When you arrive, there is time for practice. You can practice with your series car, or just run any old car you feel like. This is just a free form, free run period.
After that, we run either IROC or the series race.
IROC: Host provides the cars, and either takes input from the group or simply makes a choice. In most cases, the set is equally configured within normal tolerances.
Series: Each racer brings his/her own car. Series races have specific class rules to ensure that all racers are on even group and the winner is decided more by skill than what's under the hood. We usually allow some blueprinting, which is setting up the car to run smoothly, but not changing any parts except for stock parts from the same maker that only replace, not upgrade, defective parts. Again, the cars are more or less equal within the tolerances of the product.
We run mostly no mag, but have run IROC races that are magnet, and even some that are beyond magless, reducing the traction of the car's tires to make them slide around even more.

Most of our races have been simple lap limited races to see who gets all the laps first. We used to run time limited races to see who could get the most laps in the time, but the bug in the base that stops counting laps during the race over sequence has changed that. This is the C7030 PB-Pro base, by the way. I don't know if the APB has the same issue.

Setting up fuel has been low on the list for us, as we tend to run heat racing where drivers rotate through the lanes. These races tend to be so short that it's nearly impossible to set up a fuel burn that requires refueling before the race is over. It is something I hope to try soon, though, such as during an endurance race.

 

[Scootcar50]

I know this is under the heading of Scaly but figured I will add this any way.

For my group of friends with 3 different Carrera Digital tracks between us.

We run the same cars at the 3 tracks, rotating each week - that's what we call a season (3 races) then we start a new season with a different line-up.

We run 12 X 50 lap races and the current line-up is.

Mini Cooper S
Aussie V8 Super cars
BMW Z4's
Hot Rods
Ferrari 599
Nissan GT500
Ford Capri
Peugeot 908
F1
KTM X-Bow
1:24 Cheetah
1:24 Ferrari

Cheers

 

[Minardi]

At my home track we do It like this;
Make the classes based on the cars we have, like Touring, GT, Endurance, F1 etc.
I have an excel-list with the cars, the class they belong to and a lap time, written down under race conditions. If there are too many cars that belongl for example in the touring catergory, I divide them in subclasses based on laptimes. At the moment we have about 100 cars, divided in 6 classes which can have their own sub classes. Like GT, I have GT1 for the fastest GT cars, till GT3 for the slowest. Every other week we race a different class, for a period of 12 months. So yes, some classes are raced twice, but It all depends on participation, during summer or holidays It happens that races are not held or do not count. In a 12 month period, last year we had 10 race nights that counted for the championship.

So for example, for touring I have 2 Scalextric Leons, A BMW WTCC, 3 Astra's, 3 Vectra's. When a racing night is scheduled for touring cars, I will pick the 6 cars that are closest in lap time. During the first half hour, people can choose between these cars. After that It is qualify (5 min.), race 1 (amount of laps depends, usually around 30-40), race 2 with same cars, but starting positions the other way around. Finish first race 1, start last race 2.

This method has proven to work last season. Besides lap limited races we have the occasional endurance race. Only thing I would change is to also give points for qualifying, as that proves to be a very exciting part of the race night.

We do use fuel. As the cars that are raced together are usually very close and same make or type, so I do not need to work with different fuel rates for different cars, I will only do that for long endurance races with cars that have a bigger difference in lap time.

 

[MajorMagless]

MrF has already described most of the details how we run our club.

I just want to address the power level question...
Our series/club cars are run at 10v (or PB equivalent).
For our IROC races, we have varied the power between 9-12v with 12v being for the few cars we run with magnets (or carrera or scx which need a bit of help)

As for IROCs, getting a set of 6 cars to run as close as possible can be very time consuming. I tend to be a stickler for this and go to great lengths to try and achieve it. Yes, I love to tinker with toy cars. For the more drastic cases where one car has a hot (or dud motor) I will try and replace it. If there is still too much variance, I will use weights and in the extreme cases, I have added a 1 or 2 ohm resistor in series with the motor. This will slightly reduce power AND breaking.

Best advice is to try and keep it casual and just experiment...

Mike

 

[Reiner]

Hi

interesting for me too. At our Friday nights we have until now two classes. third in planning:

- No Magnets
- Cars with lead until nearly 85 - 95 gramm
- Ortmann tyres

Open Class:
All Types of cars and companies (NSR, Ninco, Slotit...) No limits of Motors.

NSR Porsche 917
Motor as delivered.

Plan: NSR Mosler with Anglewinder or Sidewinder

Racetrack: Raceway Eukradohr

30 rounds.. maybe 15 minutes one Race and 5-7 minutes for Qualification. 6cars. Minimum 4 cars

Best cars: Slotit - NSR - Ninco

best regards Reiner

 

[Reiner]

Hi

I forget we use

Software SSDC for the Race with the PB Pro S+H.

Class Porsche 917

In these class the cars are the same speed and the winner is cool enough and has the nerves to drive round by round with a fast time. Winner isn`t most time not the fastest because his car deslot.

Streng nerves and a good eye on our racetrack is need to be a winner. But you need a lot of practice. all driver who are not so often at the track have problems. Training is all.

regards Reiner

 

[Michael363672]

Thanks for moving it to the main digital section Doug

Some good idears here
This is the thing with digital loads of different ways to run race nights

Michael

 

[Michael363672]

At the moment we run club Nascars but one thing I am thinking off is

A LeMans type race

2 classes LMP & GT So you run 2 cars during the night 1 of each class in 3 heats each the races are run on time with points for race win etc but also 1 point per lap completed so you could get 6 gt cars or 3 & 3 but the winner wouldnt be known till the very end as each class would be assigned its own fuel useage and top speed so the LMP would be able to churn out fast laps while the GT's would be slower but go for longer before filling up and with points for laps it would not so much be about winning races as putting in consistent laps with good fuel useage

what you recon?

 

[Minardi]

Great Idea ! Only thing I don't understand is why 3 heats per class ? I would go for 2 races of an hour, 1 race with a LMP, 1 GT. Add the amount of laps in 2 races and you have a winner. I don't think you have to limit top speeds, my scalextric LMP's are faster than the GT cars anyway. You could play with the fuel usage, but don't even think It is really necessary, the diesel LMP's actually last longer these days. Nice food for thought.

 

[Wraith]

At the assc I usually choose a group of cars, often after a vote on here.

I put together 6 of the same car, just paint them differently

We then race upto 6 races each ensuring everyone uses each car once to ensure any differences in car performance are shared.

So far we have

Scalextric Sr
Lambos
F430
Aston Martin db9
Porsche 997
Porsche boxters
I forget the rest, been too long since I've been able to run the club

Scalextric high detail
Porsche 997

Working on
Ninco 1 American muscle 3 corvettes, 3 mustangs
Scalextric BMW 320i
Spirit Lola's

 

[Michael363672]

QUOTE (Minardi @ 10 Nov 2011, 06:31) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Great Idea ! Only thing I don't understand is why 3 heats per class ? I would go for 2 races of an hour, 1 race with a LMP, 1 GT.
As we often have more than six of us racing that is not an option

So we run on a rotation system everyone running each id once so by running each class 3 times you get to race two different cars
and this way the results for the evening wont unfold till the very end

Do you go with your LMP Car and build a lead or ...........

 

[Michael363672]

Anyone else have any idears

 

[injectorman]

NSR LMP Classics non mag
NSR Corvettes and 997 Porsche non mag
NSR Mosler non mag

Rick

 

[Michael363672]

You like NSR then Rick lol
but what about race format?

 

[GT6]

Two classes:

Scalextric GT3: Aston DB9, Jag XKR, Porsche 911, Ferrari 430, Audi R8, etc.- no mag, aftermarket tires, weights added for handling, otherwise stock.

Scalextric GT40 classic: no mag stock everything, all cars matched for equal performance.

10 lap qualifying to determine grids
100 lap races

The GT3s are quite equal in lap times but are varied in performance, particularly how the corner.
The Fords are almost dead equal - qualifying is typically whole field within a couple tenths of a second.

cheers
Scott

 

[Michael363672]

Just reviving this a little and with a slight change of direction

What Points system do you run for your races

ie 1st laps run do they get points etc

Michael