[Ian H]

Hi Everyone

Having competed in Gareth Jex's Slot Rally GB Championship this year a thought occurred to me.

I'd like to see a Formula 1 Championship run along similar lines using Classic F1 Scalextric/MRRC machinery.

We at Bearwood have been enjoying a re-surgence of this class because:

1, Its cheap to buy.
2, Cheap to maintain.
3, The models are superb and diverse in design.
4, The racing is close.
5, The spares are abundant and easy to source.
6, There is lots of "modelling" potential with different designs and liveries.
7, The cars are just damn good fun to drive!

The kind of cars I'm talking about here are from the 1970's early 80's, such as:

Tyrrells 005, 007, 008, P34.
Ferrari 312T/3/4.
Brabham BT44, 45, 46, 49.
Renault RS01.
Ligier
BRM P160
Shadow.
March
Lotus 72, 77, 79.
Mclaren M23s

The list goes on . . . .

The cars should be as near standard as possible with as few tuning mods as possible.

e.g.

1, No magnets.
2, Standard wheels and tyres. (No alloy hubs or exotic tyres).
3, Standard gear ratios.
4, Standard guides.
5, Johnson E111 motors (no clever rewinds or trick motors).
6, You can lower cars and build scratchbuilt versions based upon an existing model using the formula above.

Races take place on Sunday at clubs on any type of track (wood, plexi etc etc).

Points allocated as per current F1 points structure.

Circa 25/30 competitors.

It would be great to see some of these models being raced again and judging by some of the recent topics I'm not alone in enjoying these cars am I?

Happy to discuss . . . .

 

[AllanI]

Ian,
We at Scale Models Racing allow different guides and you can put the front axle in a brass tube if you want. The main leveller seems to be the power (or rather lack thereof) of the Johnson motor.

Allan

 

[CJA]

Ey Up,

At Gainsbro, we have looked at this , some of us have been "experimenting" with such things for a couple of years with some success.

We have sort of derived a formula, which more members are coming round to.

This consists of the basic Scalex car, rear axle can be changed, Slotit axle, bearings, gear and wheels, NSR tyres. The front axle tube allowed.

Motor is accepted as NSR 25K short-can, but this could easily be changed.

I reckon a sort of national class is possible here, we just have to agree on details.

I think the rear axle as above is reasonable.

I think we can easily agree on a Slotit type guide.

I think we can easily agree on a front axle tube.

We need to agree on a standard motor.

I really do think the old OEM 13UO motor (Johnson) is out as a standard. We have to agree on a modern replacement.

That could be a control motor like the ScaleAuto 20k short can or similar. It just needs to be cheap, readily available, consistent and reliable !!.

vbr Chris A.

 

[Mick Kerr]

Hi Guys,
I like the idea of this.
For any kind of National series I think the Johnson is not a good option.
It's far too easy to cheat with this kind of motor.
A modern sealed motor is a much better option and the 20k Scaleauto is as good as any without having excess power.
A standard rear tyre might also be a good idea.
Cheers.
Mick.

 

[Ian H]

Thanks for your contributions guys, its encouraging to see some responses.

At this point I don't want to get too hung up on car rules and regs, we could go on forever and not get anywhere. But I'm happy to take opinion on motors, axles etc. Ideally cars should be on the track for no more than £25 all in as the original idea is to keep cars basic, cheap and reasonably equal.

What I am looking for is for clubs to discuss the idea and decide if it is something that they would like to get involved in.

I can envisage something along the lines of 6 races using circuits like Bearwood and the amazing circuit at Wolverhampton.

I'm happy to co-ordinate the championship via SLOTFORUM.

Have a chat at your next club night and decide if your club can accomodate a Grand Prix for circa 25-30 racers.

Entry fees should be minimal (circa £5.00/car) and any money raised will go to the club hosting the event or to charity and above all I want to make it absolutely clear that unlike Bernie Ecclestone I don't want to make a penny out of this!

Keep your contributions coming guys let me know what you think.

 

[John Parr]

Hi, Anglia slot racing have run an event for these cars for the last few years in December. I think this years is the 27th.

 

[EJI]

Hi Ian,

I am sure Scale Models would be interested in hosting a round of this event.

We have just started runing this class and it is superb.

Eric

 

[David Lawson]

We've been running Scalextric F1 cars every month for quite some time at the Southend Slot Racing Club and it is a very popular class. We run them almost box standard other than Ortmann rears.

David

 

[Hobby]

Hi Ian.
With Respect.
I think there is 'legs' in your idea, however....
The whole 'series' will either start and continue to grow, or fail at the first hurdle on the model specification rules. All the proposed Scalex/MRRC models are obsolete and although there are plenty of them around, the price and condition varies considerably. £25.00 to include buying and 'tuning' a model to get a reasonable, reliable, 'raceable' model on all types of track for a National series is optimistic, to say the least. The replys already, show you there is a large difference in opinion as to what a 'Standard' or near standard model should be, and there is the crux of the matter.
All the best in your endevour, I would be interested in a properly 'modified' formula, using a control motor, but free choice as to wheels, tyres, gears, guides, front axle set up etc. My model would probably cost £50-60 pounds to get 'on the grid'
Best Wishes,
Bill.

 

[Coopdevil]

Firstly anything 70s F1 fills me with glee as I'm a child of the 70s and I've been moaning for years that we never race these things which, for me, was where I started with slotcars.

Couple of weeks ago at Wolverhampton, Phil Insull was talking about wanting to get a 70s F1 meeting running in 2012 but was struggling to see a gap in the calendar. It's not just finding a free weekend but ensuring that racers aren't being asked to support 3/4 meetings on consecutive weekends coupled with the increasing cost of petrol and economic downturn. So a series of six meetings would be pushing it to put it mildly (I also think we are at saturation point with the sheer amount of classic style meetings, but that's for another thread).

Spec motor - sounds good on paper, but Ian James came up with a standard motor for his forthcoming BTTC meeting at Wolverhampton which was immediately discontinued, then replaced with an equivalent which you then couldn't acquire for love nor money anywhere! You can now get the motor but once bitten twice shy and I'd be happier with a selection of motors of roughly similar performance (as the International Proxy Series does) or simply an upper rev limit.

Tyres - What's a standard Scalextric tyre? The one that came on the car in 1980? Or a modern reproduction from a number of manufacturers? Seems easier to say either "Ortmanns" only or go with anything that fits the original hub.

My over-riding concern is that a car built to go on old Scalextric classic plexitrack (at Bearwood) might prove to be uninteresting on bigger tracks such as Wolverhampton, Wellingborough, Oaklands etc. where we are used to racing faster machinery. If the regs are more open then we might end up seeing cars built for specific tracks which would be working against the budget idea.

At the end of the day though (sun goes down etc.) you'll never get a committee decision on rules, so regard all suggestions/demands as merely advice that might be useful then write down some rules and stick to them.

Anybody at Wolverhampton 1.5l/3l this Sunday? We could have a chat about it then.

Coop

 

[Mr.M]

QUOTE (Hobby @ 15 Nov 2011, 10:29) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>My model would probably cost £50-60 pounds to get 'on the grid'

Hi Ian,

I'm not sure who exactly you are aiming at, but a statement like Bill's above is bound to put off the "fun first" element. You mention that Slot Rally was part of your inspiration, and that has classes to cater for the "Bills" of this world, and also a larger proportion of standard classes to make it seem like you have a chance with your box standard car. Perhaps if there is enough interest from both camps, you could have a "drivers" class and a "tuners" class run separately.

As David Lawson suggests above, they can be run without any added cost or time consuming modifications. In fact three of the four clubs I race at have them as a regular class, and I think the Petersfield club has been running them since they were the latest model

, but I'm not sure as I have only been going for the last 19 years. We even tried the Ortmann tyres addition for a while, but abandoned that as original tyres are no harder to obtain. One of our newer members even bought a mint boxed Brabham from a swapmeet for a fiver and was immediately on the pace!

Hope you get something sorted.

Cheers,

Jim

 

[conti_rowland]

Ever since I began my Monza track i've been thinking of an event such as this.

Could it be an International series run part full entrance and part proxy?

As far as spec goes i'm happy to agree what others think but think the standard modern motor idea is fundamental to level the field. Other mod's should be minimum and tyres should be Ortman so that they too are readily available.

Cheers

Andi

 

[rogerbass]

I went to the Haynes Motor Museum model show on Sunday and was talking to the Four Lane Black Top guys who run a 70's 80's F1 class at their club www.flbt.co.uk.

 

[Ian H]

Some useful and interesting contributions here.

As I said before lets see which clubs are willing and capable of hosting a Grand Prix.

Having driven on the Wolverhampton circuit recently I don't think that classic F1's would be either slow or uninteresting on the International circuit, after all racing is racing isn't it?

As long as the cars are on a reasonably level playing field I don't think it matters in fact Classic F1s going at near scale speeds would be a breath of fresh air!

Happy to discuss.

 

[Ian H]

QUOTE Could it be an International series run part full entrance and part proxy?

If the series has legs perhaps that could be a future development?

Perhaps not in 2012 but perhaps in later years?

 

[Ian H]

QUOTE Hi Ian.
With Respect.
I think there is 'legs' in your idea, however....
The whole 'series' will either start and continue to grow, or fail at the first hurdle on the model specification rules. All the proposed Scalex/MRRC models are obsolete and although there are plenty of them around, the price and condition varies considerably. £25.00 to include buying and 'tuning' a model to get a reasonable, reliable, 'raceable' model on all types of track for a National series is optimistic, to say the least. The replys already, show you there is a large difference in opinion as to what a 'Standard' or near standard model should be, and there is the crux of the matter.
All the best in your endevour, I would be interested in a properly 'modified' formula, using a control motor, but free choice as to wheels, tyres, gears, guides, front axle set up etc. My model would probably cost £50-60 pounds to get 'on the grid'
Best Wishes,
Bill.

Bill

Thanks for your contribution.

I'll have to say that it is not my experience to see those sort of costs for getting these old F1's up and running.

For example (refer to pictures above):

The French Tyrrell 005 above was bought at Milton Keynes swapmeet for £15.00 and a brand new set of rear tyres cost £1.00 each = £17.00. The Tyrrell is 2/10ths of a second off the class leader at Bearwood.

The Beta March cost 99 pence off ebay, I put some time and effort into the rebuild and the whole thing cost less than £20.00 and that is including £4.00 on rattle cans of paint (See MONZA GORILLA thread in my signature for full details).

The BRM and SHADOW cost some time and effort because they were in my collection from childhood but even if you had to buy new you could get these running for less than £10.00.

The Tyrrell P34 is a converted 007 which cost me £2.99 off ebay. It goes like stink and drives really nicely, I'd love to give it a blast around a good routed track.

The T4 Ferrari is a converted 312 T3 and the most expensive item was the decals from INDYCALS = £7.95. I love it though!

These are the kind of cars that are probably at the back of most racers collection somewhere and I think its a shame that it there where they are languishing.

Dig em out chaps,tidy em up and have some fun!

It could cost you £50-£60 . . . . . but it needn't.

 

[Coopdevil]

I think TBH, a single one-off meeting needs to be run before any talk of a national series is made. Check the CSCRA website for a free date, pick one, pick some rules that will be fine for a one-off and announce it here, invite everyone to Bearwood. As people say "yeah, I'll come" you'll get some idea of the interest although admittedly not everyone who says they will come actually will.

Coop

 

[Ian H]

Coopdevil.

Super idea!

Really positive, many thanks!

I'll consult with the Jedi Masters at Bearwood and see what they think!

 

[AllanI]

QUOTE (Mick Kerr @ 15 Nov 2011, 00:10) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>For any kind of National series I think the Johnson is not a good option.
It's far too easy to cheat with this kind of motor.
Mick,
Please can you explain ?

Allan

 

[CJA]

Ey Up Alan,

what Mick means, is that the 13UO type motor is easy to open up and re-assemble with little sign of the fact.

This enables arm tweeks, magnet tweeks, etc etc, which can give an advantage !!.

Partially the reason I suggested a control motor, eg the ScaleAuto 20k motor.

Cheap, consistent, and reliable.

vbr Chris A.