[tamar.nelwan]

Dear Slotrace friends
It took a year longer than planned, as did a lot of plans during the Covid 19 pandemic, but under the current conditions...
...the Src Eindhoven has decided to go a head and organise their 7th edition of the Low Lands Suzuka Double Digital event.

Back on track..but not completely business as usual
As usual the double feature will include DiSCA GT3 racing on Saturday and the Suzuka 6hrs with DiSCA WEC cars (LMP1, LMP2, LMGT) on Sunday.
The last race had bumper grids of 16 teams for the WEC and a staggering 23 teams for GT3, off course we love and hope to see you all again.
After spending almost 1,5 year under social distancing conditions...we missed you.
When you return to our club in Best..you'll find that the track hasn't changed, the hospitality hasn't changed, but the required footwear for your Slotcars has.
The Suzuka double Digital will be the first event run to DiSCA 2022 rules, meaning the new harder and taller (20,8mmø) Scaleauto SC-2020 procomp 4 wheels for the GT3's...
...and the new taller (20,8mmø) Slot.it PT1171G25 tires for the WEC races.
With the G25 replacing both the "old N18 and F22 compound" there will be no longer a need to "change compounds" during the race.
So far for the regular slotrace stuff...onto the more serious changes.

Above: Bumper grids for the 2020 6hrs WEC race 16 cars divided in GT LM, LMP2 and LMP1, Below: Busy crowd @ the line up for the 2020 GT3 race. 23 teams, 23 cars and 49 drivers competing

Max 15 teams for both GT3 and WEC
Although Covid related restrictions are being lifted more and more, as good hosts we want to remain prudent, stay cautious and keep all those attending as safe & healthy as possible. Unfortunately this will mean that we need to perform some crowd control and have chosen to limit the number of attending teams for both the GT3 and WEC races to 15 teams. Due to the limited number we will accept one GT3 entry per WEC team but will increase the number of allowed drivers to more than 3.
We will also ask all of those attending to be able to supply or a Covid vaccination proof or a max 72 hrs old PCR test.
For those planning to attend from abroad, these will be required for your international travels anyway. So be advised that when you do...to sort these matters well in time.

Entry fees & Registration
Teams that want to enter this event will be able to apply via the online entry form.
The Registration for the 2020 event will open on Oct 16th 18:00hrs GMT+2 (a link to the form will be posted here) and will close on Nov 20th.
Entry fees will be €80 for the WEC race and an additional 20 p/team for the GT3 support races.

If by Saturday Nov 20 we have more than 15 entries we will have to make a selection on who's in and who will go on the reserve list.

Although a fast finger is important in our beloved hobby, we do not think it should a decisive factor in the registration process.
So in case a selection will have to be made, the status of the Team registration (full description of car & min number of drivers), status of entry fee payment and previous participation(s) will be amongst the selection criteria,
On Nov 22nd the Src Eindhoven will publish the list of 15 teams that will be accepted for the 6hrs WEC race, with a further 4 applications to be placed on a reserve list.

Accepted entries are required to have payed their entry fee in full by December 4th, in case of non payment the first team on the reserve list will be granted an entry etc etc.
Final instructions, including the final entry list, firmware for chip and controller, and any travel considerations will be issued to team captains on Jan 5th.

As I mentioned earlier, Covid related restrictions are being lifted more and more, but there's always the chance that things will change during the coming winter months.
Should a team be prohibited to participate due to newly imposed Covid (travel) restrictions a full refund of the entry fees will be made.

But I'm positive that we wil be able to meet once again..next Januari.
As usual I will be more than happy to answer any "international" queries here on the forum or via PM.
You can also follow the developments for the Suzuka Double Digital event via the Event page of SRC Eindhoven on facebook.


On behalf of the Src Eindhoven
With kind regards
Tamar

 

[GRUNZ]

Nice Tamar. Well done to you and the rest of the SRC Eindhoven team to support this event.
I do not know what the situation will be so I cannot promise anything at this stage.
I would love to be there.

Question about the procomp 4: I have not been able to get any (pendle, evotech, etc. show no signs of these tyres).
Are you going to hand them to the teams or each team should cater for their tyres?

 

[tamar.nelwan]

Hello Gio
Probably a combination of both:
1 teams should cater for their own Procomp 4 SC-2020 wheels.
2 I usually stock some parts in reserve to be able to help out (not hand out) those who didn't

Availability & Demand = Chicken & Egg
As for the availability..well that's a bit of chicken & egg situation.
This "new" Procomp 4 became available, was tested en chosen for DiSCA GT3 just before Covid closed down all racing back in 2020.
So no racing, no demand, no reason for retailers/ distributers to order and stock them.

A similar situation arose recently here in the Benelux @ Slotracefriends, Diepenbeek, Belgium.
This was their for the first Digital Sprint under DiSCA rules. With N18 and F22 no longer available they chose to run their 1st event with the new PT1171G25 tires.
Suppliers had only the PT1207G25 in stock, but were very happy and fast to order PT1171G25 once the demand was there.

So I'd suggest you all start putting in requests for the Scaleauto SC-2020 Procomp 4 wheels at your regular supplier...and once the demand is there...they will become part of regular stock in no time

With kind regards
Tamar.

 

[GRUNZ]

Maybe the UK contingent of disca racers will put enough pressure at Pendle for getting some.

 

[tamar.nelwan]

Dear slot friends
Sorting out some details for the online registration form.
Opening of registration postponed till 20:00 hrs GTM+2

With kind regards
Tamar

 

[tamar.nelwan]

Dear Slot friends
From 20:05 GMT+2 you will be able to register your team via the online form

On behalf of the Src Eindhoven
With kind regards
Tamar

 

[davincislot]

Team S-Druckt has registered and paid

 

[TomVL]

DSCA registered 2 teams, LMP1 & LMP2

 

[frp1700]

Corvette Racing, Corvette C8R #64 Le Mans 2021, registered for LM GT

 

[tamar.nelwan]

Okeeee !!!???
Opened the registration @ 20:05 GMT +2, finished cooking and had dinner.
By the time I'd done the dishes and thought... lets see how the registration proces was doing.
So I open up the spread sheet and thought I accidentally had opened the 2019 sheet as it had 14 registrations.
Looked at the time stamp and no...correct sheet all timestamps 2021.
Just posted the 15th...my own team

Burden of succes ?!?
So most happy to see so many of you wanting to attent this event, will be good to see you all again, for some it will have been almost exactly 2 years.
With 7 registrations so far, the Dutch could possibly fill half the grid. Brexit obviously doesn't seem to apply to slot racing.
UK represented by two teams and several usual suspects still wanting to apply.
Racing Danes also seem roaring and ready to go
Some new faces too, well at least for DiSCA WEC, strong Belgium contingent of no less than 4 teams that have applied their registration so far.
A very nice spread of cars in all classes too: 6 cars for LMP1, 3 cars for LMP2 and 6 cars in LMGT.
And this is after just a couple of hours, even though we have already 15 registrations, the registration will remain open till Nov 20th.
So if you have a team and are seriously interested in attending this event...do apply your registration.

As mentioned before the Src Eindhoven will decide by Nov 22nd who will be granted an entry, and who will end up on the reserve list.
We want to be good hosts for as many of you as possible, let as many drivers race as possible...but we do have only 15 places on the rostrum.
Looks like we're in for a tough one...what can I say...the burden of succes.😇

On behalf of the SRC Eindhoven
with kind regards
Tamar

 

[LMP]

Welcome to my world.

Thanks to everyone for supporting DiSCA racing. This is fantastic to witness.

 

[Henri]

Over the past year Marc and I have been trying to encourage digital driving, proud , to be able to join 9 members of Slipstream!

 

[GRUNZ]

Very nice. I think we all want to get back on track.

 

[zero5]

Hi Tamar

What's the format for the GT3 racing on Saturday?
The SC-2020 sponges are a bit like rocking horse droppings, very scarce
Slotcar-boutique had some when iI checked just after the announcement was made but at £51 delivered to the UK for 3 sets, that's not happening, is it? They where the only place that had any, looked at other retailers in Europe as well but no-one had any

Gio, doubt Sean at Pendle will want to get a handful of these as not really worth their while?

John

 

[Bentley]

Hi Tamar

What's the format for the GT3 racing on Saturday?
The SC-2020 sponges are a bit like rocking horse droppings, very scarce
Slotcar-boutique had some when iI checked just after the announcement was made but at £51 delivered to the UK for 3 sets, that's not happening, is it? They where the only place that had any, looked at other retailers in Europe as well but no-one had any

Gio, doubt Sean at Pendle will want to get a handful of these as not really worth their while?

John

I agree John, I've looked everywhere not been able to find any, and as you say expensive to ship to the UK

 

[tamar.nelwan]

Hello John, Dave.
As we're going to limit the number of GT3 entries we might go for a longer race time. Hence also the switch to Procomp4. You should be able to run more than 3 hrs on one set.
Again availability will be a demand and supply thingy.
Agree that shipping costs for just a pair of tires is a bit costly...But then again If you guys want to buy them I doubt Sean will have any problems selling them to you.
Here's a hint for you all....Procomp4 is better than Procomp3 😇
A small chat with Scaleauto is on the agenda for this week. Might be that I'll order a big bunch of them so we'll be able to supply all teams.
Will also aks Scaleauto to beef up production for 2022.

With kind regards
Tamar

 

[zero5]

Can't really see why we can't just use handout G25's as well in GT3?
My main concern is the overall cost of buying a set of wheels with sponge tyres on them.
I think that between the Rockingham/Exiles teams we must have 20 sets of the older ones. Now useless to us. Not due to the change of compound. They're just worn out, as in undersized to get 1.8mm ride height. We use a 0.0mm offset mount in our GT3 spec cars. This has come at a fairly expensive cost (usually about £9 pair)
A packet (4) of G25 is 1/3 less than a set of S/A SC2020 wheels/sponge.
So is 1 set of wheels/sponge going to last longer than 3 sets of G25?

John

 

[GRUNZ]

Gio, doubt Sean at Pendle will want to get a handful of these as not really worth their while?

Hi John
it appears that sponge tyres are not that popular in 1/32 in general.
Which is a pity - although at the beginning I was not a big fan of them.

 

[LMP]

I was under the impression that the latest GT3 regs allowed used, varnished sponges on the front axel. But it’s not written so perhaps that was forgotten. I will add it to the next issue. If anyone wants to add that as a local rule for now I’d be happy to see it implemented and afford some recyclability to old sponges.

The GT3 technical formula is based around 1 hour races for sponge tyres. The tech regs are codependent on the race format in order to work effectively.

I have always and will always discourage any changes to race format or tyre selection when it comes to GT3 because the consequences of messing with things that don’t seem that critical at first glance, are in my opinion, detrimental to the formula’s effectiveness. Long raceare not appropriate for these cars. The motors overheat. Some tyres are not appropriate for these cars, due to the GC balance, grip management, and achieving the 62mm width on some cars (Scalextric bodies, mainly).

NSR wheels and tyres on GT3 seem to have been established as a benchmark rubber alternative, but only in short digital races (club racing) or in longer analogue races using the same technical formula. I’ve not seen a case study for longer digital races with an NSR setup, but I’d be comfortable in risking that as the safest bet.

Conversly we have plenty of data that both ProComp3 and 4 work very well for the cars and race lengths they are designed around.

GT3 on any G25 would be absolutely wild. The cars will be way too fast given their width and the behaviour of the tyre. They are already arguably “too fast” after several seasons of development which is one reason behind looking at the harder ProComp4.

This is a mixture of my personal opinions and a DiSCA stance, seeing as Suzuka 2022 will be an independent event and not part of any championship Tamar and SRC Eindhoven can of course do as they please, but I felt it prudent to provide this information.

Despite everything, whichever tyre is chosen should of course be something that’s available!

 

[GRUNZ]

A small chat with Scaleauto is on the agenda for this week. Might be that I'll order a big bunch of them so we'll be able to supply all teams.
Will also aks Scaleauto to beef up production for 2022.

If you can get a nice order, people could buy them in the little SRC shop.