I believe there’s a Sloting Plus guide that fits just perfect for wood racing , give it a go mate and tell us how it runs with it 😉

 

You don't need a sprung guide on a flat wood track.

...I agree, Slotingplus is the best on wood

 

We raced almost exclusively on wood tracks and nobody used sprung guides. Not all pickup braid is the same, you need to use braid with some spring. Some braid will stay flattened out once it is fully compressed, you will need to use something that springs back. A spring loaded pickup would compensate for braids that lack spring, but would also tend to lift the front of the car.
I have done well with Slot.it tinned copper braid and the Slot Car Corner branded braid.

 

I like the NSR Slotinvasion guides, but I don't have that much experence on wood

 

I've use solder wick braid on a lot of cars, it's thin so I doubled it up, it's also cheap and comes on a roll

 

One thing that you don't want is a guide flag that is too loose in the holder. A loose guide flag will not stay perpendicular in the corners making it more likely that the car will de-slot. It would be nice if all guide flags were a perfect fit in their holders, but that is seldom the case. I like to use guide flags that have a screw and washer as a retainer. I can adjust the screw so that the guide will stay perpendicular, but still turn smoothly, but that rules out having the guide spring loaded. Some cars use springs to keep the guide centered, I have never been able to do any testing to see if there is any advantage with respect to handling to that arrangement. One advantage might be that in a live marshalled race it would be easier to get the car back in the slot. My cars almost always have aftermarket wires and I arrange those so that the guide will be centered when it is out of the slot.

 

I vote for Slotting Plus deep wood guide. 2nd best is Slot Invasion in various guises.

 

got the 4959 in all my NSR cars, haven't tried the slotting plus version but the NSR is good