thanks Scott for your generous appraisal!
actually I began the exercise in a fairly 'scientific format' meaning; a) say what you're going to do,
do it, c) say what you did, d) draw conclusions
what really happened though was that the study got a bit long winded and I found that any conclusions were different for each car so I added 'conculsions sections' under each car Group rather than at the end.
anyway if you'd like a simple sum up it is that:
1. weights are fundamental to making these cars go well without magnets
2. there is however a 'speed ceiling' quickly achieved beyond which no amount of weight will increase the cars performance
3. consequently the extra 'speed' that the magnet offers can never be truly replicated (which I wouldn't want anyway)
4. tyres are fundamental to the whole exercise
5. original 1960's cars (being engineered without magnets) still go (substantially) quicker than these new cars probably because the guys at Scalextric have never even tried to run these cars without magnets, which in my view is an incredible shame
6. due to the accuracy of the cars' scale its really hard to find places to put the magnets on many models
hope that helps!
Andrew