[MrFlippant]

Point of View video of digital racing on MajorMagless' track in Sammamish, WA. His track is a Scalextric Sport Digital system track (SuperSlot Digital) using an upgraded C7030 6 car base with PB-Pro SHA. He has two custom racing line curved lane change sections which make excellent paths for a perfect lap. He also has a custom bent track hill section from the base level to the top at one end. It's an excellent track.

The cars raced were Fly Lola which were tuned by MajorMagless. Although they sounded noisy to the camera mounted to the roof of one of them, they were exceptionally smooth and quiet running cars, and were a joy to drive. I don't know the exact changes he made to them, but I believe new gearing was involved.

I hope you enjoy this video!

 

[sealevel]

That looks like a terrific home track, Mr. F.

Any chance your friend will post a layout or overview shot? You lost me on the "custom bent track hill section from the base level to the top at one end". I saw a rise at the end of the table with a hairpin and what appeared to be a down section that looped under the rising track. Is that correct?

Anyway, kudos to all involved in the video, and thanks for sharing.

Cheers!

 

[Ember]

Cool video Mr Flip. Though, I'm feeling a little queasy now. Would be interested to see some still shots of the track.

Cheers
Embs

 

[MrFlippant]

Yeah, I forgot to get some overview shots to mix in with the POV stuff. It does help break things up a bit. Here's a photo of the track:

The bent track is the uphill portion just about in the center of the track. He warmed two straight tracks and used a press he made to form one convex and one concave. They're essentially Sport versions of the Carrera bridge pieces. He only did two because the downhill is done on the main straight where the pits are.

 

[Profoxcg]

nice ! what kind of cars ?

 

[zarko]

QUOTE (Ember @ 17 May 2011, 02:55) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I'm feeling a little queasy now.
Tell me about it... This video should have a 'health warning' sign next to it!

Nice track btw

 

[MrFlippant]

QUOTE (Profoxcg @ 16 May 2011, 22:14) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>nice ! what kind of cars ?

QUOTE (MrFlippant @ 16 May 2011, 17:11) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>The cars raced were Fly Lola which were tuned by MajorMagless. Although they sounded noisy to the camera mounted to the roof of one of them, they were exceptionally smooth and quiet running cars, and were a joy to drive. I don't know the exact changes he made to them, but I believe new gearing was involved.

That's all I know.

 

[Keeto]

Awesome stuff!!!

 

[chris99]

Looks great. Can you give us tips about where & how to fix the camera - just masking taped to the bonnet?
Cheers
Chris

 

[MrFlippant]

I just use a wad of blue tack stuff for hanging posters and such. That way it's easy to get a good angle on any car, and it won't cause problems with the car's finish... at least so far. The keychain spy cameras are pretty small and light, but up on top of a car they do effect handling, so you have to take corners slow. That's a good idea for video anyway, actually. That entire video was shot with all the cars going painfully slow for the drivers, easily 1/4 the speed the cars can reliably race at. But when you film at real racing speed, all you see is a blur of color flashing around. The kind of thing that could have a US Navy SEAL chundering his lunch in a second. ;-)

So yeah... spycam on the roof with blue tack, and very slow driving.

 

[Rich68]

Nice work! Its so inspirational and great to see a brace Lolas tearing around the track! Thanks for posting it up!

 

[miveson]

Flip,

Lovely video. The cars are Fly Lola T70's - cracking looking cars.

Whoever was driving the Yellow Thruxton Lola really needed to change lanes and overtake.

Mark

 

[MrFlippant]

Yeah, but then all you'd see in the rear view is track, or the occasional car zooming up to pass. Same with the front view...
In order to get enjoyable footage, the cars had to keep near the camera car. We tried to get them to pass and be passed by the camera car, but it's hard to catch good passes on film because of all the corners. One of these days I'll try to get some kind of fish-eye lens for a wider field of view to get better footage on twisty tracks.

 

[MajorMagless]

For starters, I appologize for not responding until now, I had completely forgotten Mr Flippant had posted this.

Seeing it on video, it is clear we should have gone even slower than our 'slow' speed.

Ok, to answer your questions...

Cars:

• Fly Lola T70
• My original plan was to chip my Fly 917s & 512s but realised they're too fragile for digital racing, the Lolas are fairly sturdy
• These are probably my favorite set of cars to drive

Mods to cars:

• Removed magnets
• Added a little weight here and there
• Replaced stub axles with solid brass axles (readily available at my lobal hobby store)
• Trued and coated front tires with nail polish
• Trued rear wheels
• Replaced rear tires with Yellow Dog #1007 urethanes
• Replaced gears with TSRF 64 pitch glass reinforced nylon gears (very cheap and quiet)

Racing line CLCs:

• Basically the modificed CLC chicane created a while back, by ShawnBMX I believe

Custom Elevation section:

• I always wanted a sport version of the Carrera overpass and finally decided to try and make my own. A complete overpass consists of 4 full length straights: 2 curved in a convex manner and 2 concave. This particular layout only uses one of each to give me a 6" elevation change in two full straights. As MrF mentioned, I cook them in the oven (thanks Honey!) for 20 minutes then clamp them into a wood jig I created while they cool. Once cool, you need to use a flat blade screwdriver to bend back the portions of the rails that have kinked into the slot.
• The only catch is that is running cars with low and strong magnets, the magnetic attraction can become too strong as the car reaches the convex apex and the car will suddenly stick like glue. So far, this has only been an issue for my son's triple magnet screamer.

I don't have any of my track pics available for linking on another site anywhere. There isn't a way to post them here directly is there (without a slotforum gallery anyway)?

 

[Ember]

Mjr, I'm surprised to hear you cooked the track pieces (Isn't that an old song? If I knew you were coming I'd have baked a straight.)

I've managed to get plenty of not-so-subtle bend out of them without such drastic measures. If you use a gentle stretch and squash method. Hard to describe the actual action but it comes to stretching across the top for a convex while compressing the bottom of the track. Slow and steady a little at a time does it, but it does make for a really smooth transition and you don't need to worry about kinked rails.

Embs

 

[MajorMagless]

QUOTE (Ember @ 26 May 2011, 16:50) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>If I knew you were coming I'd have baked a straight.

LOL - I may have to use that one!

QUOTE (Ember @ 26 May 2011, 16:50) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>I've managed to get plenty of not-so-subtle bend out of them without such drastic measures. If you use a gentle stretch and squash method. Hard to describe the actual action but it comes to stretching across the top for a convex while compressing the bottom of the track. Slow and steady a little at a time does it, but it does make for a really smooth transition and you don't need to worry about kinked rails.

Embs

I understand what you mean about 'working' it to get a fair amount of flex/curve. However, what I was originally trying to accomplish was even more drastic than what I currently have and the track wouldn't hold the desired shape well - it would slowly flatten back out. One might be able to get a similar amount of curve by just working it, but I already had the jig so it was a lot easier to bake me some straights.

As for working them, my neighbors kid managed to work over quite a bit of my track back in my carpet racing days. Apparently, she thought the track was a train track and walked all over it pretending to be a choo-choo. Some could be flattened but many were so bad I ended up re-using them as wild off road sections for my Ninco Raid trucks so it wasn't a total loss.

"If I knew she was coming, I'd have hid my straights!"

Mike