Don't know the answer to this question because I use my track each day with many different cars, and I haven't got a lap counter, but "lots" seems to be a reasonable reply. Extraordinarily, perhaps, I find slot cars more exciting than their 1:1 counterparts these days.

 

I voted, was just a guesstimate though. I race weekly as part of a group. Even though I race on wood & my track is plastic, before each race night (Tuesday) I'll usually get the upcoming cars out & give them all a good whirl around to make sure nothing obvious is broken/about to break/come unstuck etc etc.

Also, I do use my track while preparing cars to give a very basic feel of how they perform, and other times I'll just head out to the track, put my favourite car (or 4) on for a drive just to chill out .....I may lose track of laps during these sessions



cheers

 

I race every week on my home track so plenty of laps.

 

Tuesday nights, 10 racers
Each class, 15 laps x 4 lanes x 10 = 600 laps
Formation laps 4? x 4 lanes x 10 = 160 laps
3 classes 3 x (600 + 160) = 2280 laps
Practice prior to racing = 1000 laps
Personal use = ???? ( naturally FIA agreements and budgetary controls restrict testing to avoid competitive advantage being obtained by certain teams) maybe 300 - 400 laps but dont tell anyone.

Can you wear carrera track out?

 

Tuesday nights, 10 racers
Each class, 15 laps x 4 lanes x 10 = 600 laps
Formation laps 4? x 4 lanes x 10 = 160 laps
3 classes 3 x (600 + 160) = 2280 laps
Practice prior to racing = 1000 laps
Personal use = ???? ( naturally FIA agreements and budgetary controls restrict testing to avoid competitive advantage being obtained by certain teams) maybe 300 - 400 laps but dont tell anyone.

Can you wear carrera track out?

300 to 400

 

You can try

For me some weeks it's none, other times upwards of 2 thousand in an afternoon. When i'm working on my scenery i tend to focus on that as dust and debris detract from the lapping experience. Last night was a little under 1000, none today, and the next few days will be 10 odd hours of Bathurst per day so the shed tv will be on casting foxtel and i'll be doing all the laps, oh and tuning my Slot.it Ferrari 512 that's been sitting unassembled for weeks.

 

Of late daily I have been setting the lap counter to eighty laps and roughly split them between two cars in each lane trying to beat the other car's lap record. That puts me in the thousand or so lap club.

 

Tuesday nites, we have a small group that races brass chassis 1/24 cars on my track. We run about 2-3 hours on 4 lanes and turn 600-700 laps. Which is actually over 1500 total lap for 4 lanes. I may go down to the building where the track is once a week and test out something but don't run a lot of laps. My brother brings in some of his friends and every few weeks they may play for 3-4 hours. Lap counter is never set, so I don't know how many laps they actually run. There are several people that have keys to the building. They can race any time they want with family as long as they call and tell me. Track gets used and it doesn't make sense to do all that work building a track and having it set un-used.

 

Not enough! That's for sure. 😕

 

Currently none, because my track is still in the process of being changed from Ninco to Policar, but I'd guess it's an avergae of 500-1000, plus more if it's a week when a race meeting is held here.

Ever since Grah1 suggested the One Mile Challenge here on SlotForum during 2020's Covid lockdown, I've used it as a measure of a car's performance relative to others. 1 mile was 78 laps of my old track, so I'd do 30 laps with the car on each of the track's four lanes to bed tyres in and fine-tune settings, then a timed mile on my favourite lane. Add to that 20 or so beforehand to find a decent basic set-up, and I'd easily do 220 laps per car. Sounds like a lot, but using a rough average of 7 seconds a lap, it's about 25 minutes plus tinkering time, so let's say 40 minutes per car.

I've recorded one-mile times for 258 cars, so since 23rd April 2020, which is the date of my first post on the One Mile Challenge thread, I've spent at least 107 hours driving round a round in circles trying to achieve the perfect mile. Sad!

And then you need to add the time taken taking pointless photos to illustrate the One Mile Challenge thread!

 

Zero
I'm not a home racer
AlanW

 

Around 1500 to 2500 laps depending on how much time I get on my days off to run cars.

 

Certainly not a valid sampling size however roughly 40% virtually not turning laps on a weekly basis is interesting. I wonder on average what percentage of being at the track is actually turning laps versus other activities such as scenery and whatnot.

 

I don't spend any time on scenery either.
Even the club tracks I race at are devoid of scenery, primarily because the tracks are buIlt and broken down every week.
Even a perm wood track I visit 2 or 3 times a year is devoid of scenery. We are there to race. Scenery is a distraction.
AlanW

 

That is a rather difficult question for me to answer. I have an HO track, but the club that I race with is regional, rather than local. As a result of that only a couple of races are held on my track during each season. People never stop by for informal sessions, every now and again I might have someone that lacks his own track spend a few hours with a test and tune session. The amount of time that I might spend running laps by myself varies greatly. I used to do a great deal of testing for a major maker of HO tires, since he passed away his family has continued the business, but thus far they have not needed my services. If I am preparing my cars for a race, I might take them for a short spin to be sure that everything is in order after they have been cleaned, adjusted and oiled. I like to have several cars for each class and obviously I would want to race the fastest ones. From time to time, I might want to pay special attention to a slower car and that could result in many test laps.
I recommend that you run at least a few dozen laps in each lane every week, that will keep oxidation and dust from building up on your track. I have one more reason for using the track once a week. My track has a computer and race management software. In its infinite wisdom Microsoft issues frequent updates to its operating system, if one of those is pending the computer might operate very slowly until the update is downloaded and installed. I leave automatic update installations turned off so that an actual race session would not be interrupted.

 

These days I can't hold/operate the controller for very long before my fingers start to seize-up. In under an hour the aching sets-in. Therefore an hour total at my driver's station is about all I can manage.
I use the SCX Rally Chrono and for those who don't know it only times 1, 5, 10, 15, or 20 laps. My cars average around 21sec per lap, so if I manage to do 20 laps without de-slotting it takes around 7 minutes.
At the moment three sessions a week is about the most I can find time for. So a good week might see 400+ laps - but then some weeks I might not find the time to do any at all.

 

Also, the number of anyone's laps is inversely proportional to the lap length. My lap is fairly long at 44+mtrs (145+ft).
Not trying to teach anyone to suck eggs, but half the track length in the same amount of available time equals double the number of laps.

 

Very good point. Perhaps the poll should also ask the number of real-world miles/kilometres we cover per week.

In my case, 78 laps is 1 mile. I answered the original poll as doing between 501-1000 laps weekly, so I drive between 6.4 and 12.8 miles per week (10.3 - 20.6 kilometres).
My average lap time is 6.5 seconds, which means I drive my weekly mileage at a thoroughly unimpressive average of 7.1mph (11.4kph).

Expressed like that, slot car racing sounds about exciting as watching paint dry, so perhaps those naysayers who say we're a bunch of weird men pointlessly playing with toy cars have a point!

 

Agree. I also have a one lane track which is around 40 metres. I try to have at least one slotcar night per week. I set the lap counter for 7 minutes and depending on the car and amount of deslots I run something between 17 and 21 laps. After 6 or 7 cars I usually start getting tired. By that time I've driven over 5 kilometers with my slotcars in one night!

 

After 6 or 7 cars I usually start getting tired. By that time I've driven over 5 kilometers with my slotcars in one night!

I typically run for a track record during virtually all of my laps and I was surprised how much energy that takes... especially if you are using hard braking. Finding that perfect point to let off and get back on it is tiring!

 

I managed to get some track time earlier this evening and ran 9 cars for 5 laps each.

 

I'll just say this... I used to run my track for hours a day.
Now, I barely touch it outside of testing. Most of my driving is once a week with the club(s) I race with.

 

Makes perfect sense. If I was younger I'd consider renting space (old barn, storage space or whatnot) and setting up one heck of a track for racing. Perhaps a couple nights a week.

My home track I simply use as an escape. Not that I have a lot to escape from but it's nice to power up the layout and have the rest of the world disappear for a few minutes. Plus there is always this or that you want to do or buy to keep it fresh.