[cheater]

This is an interesting and cogent question.

I do agree with the post indicating that many modern RTR slot cars have quality problems but, especially in the 1/32 arena, the selection and appearance of the cars has improved vastly (notice that I didn't say the scale accuracy has improved vastly).

In the next ten years nothing will really change unless the slot car user community organizes to speak with a consensus voice as to the kinds and quality of cars desired. As the situation currently exists, the manufacturing community produces what their research or sales history indicates will sell. Unless the people who buy the products find some way of expressing their specific desires in a unified voice, that is not going to change.

To put it another way, the slot car industry suffers from a leadership vacuum and has no sense of purpose or direction. Excuse the metaphor, but slot racing is a ship without a rudder, with no planned port of call, though the good news is the boat still floats.

Over on SCI is a voluminous thread entitled "Scale and Accuracy-Do you care?" in the 1/32 forum. This future topic is part of the discussion, with a ridiculous number of posts by a seriously-deranged opinionated old fart - me!

 

[cheater]

Astro, Jonny S:

Please take a look at the SCI thread I referred to earlier here, as your points about "agreement" are very much involved in what we have been discussing over there.

My main position is that there ought to be some way the users of slot car products can more effectively communicate their desires to the manufacturing base.

I don't want to rehash that thread (which is up to about 150 posts!) but a central part of the discussion involves the feasibility and usefulness of a "Slot Racing Standards Organization" in the manner of model railroading's NMRA (www.nmra.com), i.e. not any sort of mandatory regulation but rather the creation of voluntary standards.

Do take a look at that discussion if you have a sincere interest in the future of model car racing.

(Jonny S., thanks for the kind words. Astro, thanks for the honest opinion!)

 

[cheater]

Tropi, I can see that you and I have similar views on this subject. Thanks for that link, as I had not seen the thread before.

The common perception seems to be that model car racing is somehow so unique that painful lessons learned in other arenas cannot possibly be used as patterns or references for the betterment of our hobby, a view that could not be further from the truth. Yet it is a feeling seemingly shared by the majority of model car racers.

One of the saddest situations in life is that children almost never avail themselves of the experience and knowledge that reside in the minds of their immediate ancestors, in spite of the parents attempts to inculcate them. Virtually all children insist on attending the "school of hard knocks" to suffer through the same learning curve as did their parents. Model car racing seems to be equally stubborn and unwise.

As I posted over in the other thread, we say "standards" but most people hear "standardization". These are not the same thing!

 

[cheater]

My feeling is that RC cars simply don't have the "fineness" of control that slot cars enjoy.

I can recall watching the ROAR Nationals when they were here in the Atlanta area a number of years ago and I recall thinking that no one had any consistency of line. And that there was no really head to head racing.

In slot racing, I have seen many, many times where two cars ran entire heats so closely that both could have been covered with a single washcloth.