Winter Holdup

 So this is kinda not so slot car related, but it kinda affects things here, so I'll mention it. About a week after my last post, I went to a couple of concerts, stayed out way too late, and somehow ended up with vertigo. That's what the doc says. One of the bad parts of having vertigo is it make it pretty difficult to get up and down off the floor. So I haven't been doing much racing lately. In fact, I tried it once and it lasted about the time it took me to sit down with some track pieces in my hand. 

It's probably going to be awhile. I don't know how long this will take to right itself completely, and neither does the doc. Also, I have a new job starting soon, and that'll help straighten this out. So there's stuff going on. 

I also decided to not buy cars for awhile. I have a lot and should focus on those. As much as I love new things, there has to be a limit. And since I'm not racing right now, there's no sense in buying more cars. 

So I'm on a bit of an unexpected hiatus. Not much I can do about that. I miss my table. 

New Car: NSR Ford MKIV Martini Racing

 I'm back from my summer off-season, so I haven't been racing at all. I guess this car might be a fantasy livery. I can't find any information of Martini Racing in the 1967 Le Mans when the MKIV won it all. But that was the red #1 Shelby American entry with A.J. Foyt and Dan Gurney driving. I'm pretty sure the MKIV only raced one year then was outlawed. Of course, facts be damned here at Mikey Hanson Slot Cars.

Big Sexy.

This design was called the "Breadtruck" I guess, due to it's lack of rear view. It's a beast of a car. Not expecting it at all to handle as well as a GT40 does. 

Hard to say where this car is going to do best. It'll have to really perform to make up the size difference. 

New Car: Thunderslot Ferrari Can-Am 350 Riverside 1967

Well, I'm back from my summer vacation and all rested and ready for another fantastic slot car season. A lot of it was spent playing guitar, which is a pretty great way to do it. A few trips, but nothing special. Mostly solving musical loose ends. And now that they are completed, we can get back into it. Right after I went on vacation, I got two cars that have been patiently waiting to do stuff. 

 This one kinda goes in the "need to own" pile, along with the Revoslot Datsun 510, Slot.it Ferrari 512M, to name a few others. Cars that are being released that are absolute must-haves. And this Ferrari is another one of those cars. 

Thunderslot already makes great cars...maybe even the best cars...so picking up this one is a no brainer for that fact alone. Great looking and absolutely solid build quality. It'll be nice watching all the new converts to Thunderslot, although it'll make finding cars more difficult due to their popularity. That's okay. 

This is a Ferrari, although licensing issues prevent them calling it one. That's okay. It's still a great car and it's not going to effect me in the slightest that it might be missing a badge or two.

The view most competitors will get of this car. Nice of them to display everything.

Performance-wise, I expect this car to handle and perform similarly to the McLaren M6A. Longish nose, short but boxy back end. Probably not quite as adept as the Elva, but should still keep up with it. Of course, being a Thunderslot car puts it in an instant contender status, which is a good place to start. 

Slot cars these days are so well made that you can depend on them almost completely to be what they claim to be. And this is not just in design, which is getting much better, by the way, but also in production. You can rely on results telling you things and you wouldn't have to factor in excuses like "maybe this car is a dud." I haven't found any duds. Like, none. I can pretty safely say that the brands of cars that I own meet up to all expectations of them. There isn't the floppy, wishy-washy thing where you're hoping to get a good one and not a bad one. 

This is kinda the reason why I decided I didn't want to review slot cars on YouTube. There's nothing to say about them. They're all tuned to the hilt, they all have top shelf ingredients, and they all come from manufacturers that have built reputations on making quality slot cars for hobby racing. So for me to come on here and say that "Brand X is definitively the best" doesn't really work. That's why we race them. But for you to be able to take a car out of the box today, give it a little oil/lube and tire sanding and THAT'S ALL you need to do. 

I expect that I won't have to replace or upgrade a thing on this car, or any other of the 55 or so cars I have now. They're just that good. This car is no different.

Late Summer Break

 This is something I normally do around April or May, and usually lasts until June, but due to circumstances I wasn't able to take my usual break, so it's timing out now. This is a break from dedicating weekends to racing. It gives me a chance to work on other things, get out in the sun, and re-energize myself for the winter. 

You gotta understand...I do this so that I don't burn out. I found this trick to work with most of my hobbies. If you force yourself to take a timed vacation from your hobbies, you'll come back to them with new interest. Now that doesn't mean I stop shopping. Most certainly not. I also don't stop running /r/slotcars. I just take a break from the physical aspect of setting up the track and racing on the floor on the weekend. 

This last batch of race cars has been so good that I can't pick a favorite out of the bunch. Each time I look at the last 6 or so cars that I've picked up, my favorite changes each time.

Usually the break lasts about a month or so. I'm trying to time it so it's right around when the weather changes. Plus there are a lot of concerts coming up, and I've been doing loads of show photography these days. But I'll probably end up buying a car or two during the break. I'm waiting on the Thunderslot Ferrari. Also want to pick up a couple of the GT40 MKIV cars from NSR. And then the holiday cars start showing up. 

So I'm hoping this all works out. Pretty sure it will. And it's not like I'm burned out and at risk of stopping. On the contrary. I'm forcing myself to do this. But I know that it'll matter later. It always does.

Such good cars this batch.

__________

So what's coming?

I'm going to start up the racing series right when I get back. I've thought it all out now, and have gotten to a place where I can go ahead and do it. I'm going to post results here, and have been planning video coverage as well. I have rules that'll be well established for the series. Because of the huge amount of cars, I'm going to feature less track layouts, which means less overall races. It'll still be something like 11 or 15 races instead of the planned 21. I'll have everything laid out with easy explanations. 

Despite not racing, that doesn't take photography off during the break, nor does it mean I won't be posting here. I'm going to see if I can stretch the break to the end of August. We'll see if that works. 

Don't forget to get outside this summer. Stay well.

New Car: Policar Ferrari 412P - 1000km Spa 1967

 a.k.a. the 2nd car driven by Willy Mairesse that I own

a.k.a. a new brand enters the competition

POLICAR Ferrari 412P

Most people that race slot cars would probably be saying, "okay, so?" right about now, but I have my reasons. First off, the Ferrari 412P fits right in with all my other cars. It also happens to be YELLOW. And it's also from Policar. I've been wanting one of those for awhile now. Yes, sure, this car has been around for awhile, can be found at usually a very affordable sale price, comes from a relatively new brand. 

Or does it....?

Fresh out of the box. Still has the magnet in it. 

Policar is a subsidiary of Slot.it. In fact, it could very well be the other way around and I just don't know. Either way, they are very much related and it shows. This car is practically a Slot.it., with chassis, hardware and construction matching Slot.it cars. Even the tires seem to be the same quality stock that comes on Slot.it releases.

Adding a new brand is always interesting, and with cars from Thunderslot, NSR, Slot.it, Revoslot, Carrera, and now Policar, this should make for a good race. I would expect the Policar to keep up with the Slot.it cars. 

And that's a lot of the motivation for picking this car up. I was willing to take the chance that a Policar slot car is going to be inferior to a Slot.it car, but I don't see it so far. I'll have to get closer to it, and it'll really tell on the track. Policar is pretty widely available here, and they have some cool cars, plus they come in at a cheaper price point than Slot.it cars do. Why that is, I'm not sure. 

With all that said, maybe that's why this car intrigues me. Maybe it's the assumption that because it might be a less expensive car, it's going to run towards the back of the pack. Or maybe it's just those new brand questions that come up whenever you try a new brand. Although I gotta say it really really REALLY looks like a Slot.it car. 

Anyhow, this car is going to get its chance to perform. However it ends up, it was worth it. My expectation is that it'll keep up with the pack, and might have surprises. I'm hoping I like it enough to trigger my desire to buy more of their cars. Given the amount of brands I have, it might make sense to make a brand championship to go along with all the other ways I'm going to be scoring cars. And with this car on the track, the ghost of Willy Mairesse will have another chance to win. Garage time...

TUNING NOTES: After cracking the top off and taking a look inside, it's very much a Slot.it car. I think you should buy some of these. 

New Car: Thunderslot McLaren M6B Can-Am Las Vegas '68

 WOW!!

Thunderslot McLaren M6B

With its beautiful cerulean blue paint job and electric blue highlights, the T&G Racing's Hollywood Sport Cars entry, driven by Jerry Titus, is an absolute threat on the concourse as well as the race track. The gorgeous livery, which consists of only ONE THING that's not a number, is absolutely stunning. It throws you back to a time before everything got invaded by advertising. It's like that with most all of the cars from that era; fast cars with sweet paint jobs, racing.

The internal works are just what I've come to expect from Thunderslot: practically perfect design and manufacturing. Lightning fast and smooth as silk. If this was your first Thunderslot car, it WOULD BE your fastest slot car. No doubt about it. I can say that in absolute confidence, and I haven't even gotten this car out on the track yet. It's still on the concourse, taking pictures.

Tuning Day for the Latest Batch

 I slept lousy last night, probably because I watched a video on how to do 120fps video with my camera. That got me to thinking, which kept me awake. I woke up at 5, started right in on the video tests, then shifted gears and decided to work on the new group of race cars. I hadn't tuned them all just yet. Some partially, some not at all. So today was focused on the T70 III, the GT40, the P68, the yellow Ferrari and the Hippy Car, which was the most completed of the cars.

Three things from the top of my head:

1. There is absolutely nothing saying Slot.it cars can't keep up with NSR and Thunderslot and others. I used to believe something to this effect, mostly because I hadn't gotten past that first level of tuning, but now I see and understand. So if I've ever disparaged Slot.it, which I don't think I haven't, I want to make it perfectly clear that they are every bit as competitive as any other brand. 

Watch out for this Slot.it car.

2. The T70 is an absolute beast.

Beast.

3. Here's the deal with the P68; because of the narrow front and rear of the car, those factor in to the handling in an immense way. At first I thought it would handle roughly like the GT40, but I was wrong. There's no rear-end weirdness whatsoever. This car is as planted and on the money as the Matra, which is a crazy concept. It's also very light, which plays directly into it's cornering ability. 

DAY TWO:

Now that the previous cars mentioned have all been dealt with, I'm moving on to quick cleanup and checking of some of the others. Nothing too fancy....a tire cleaning and 20 or so laps to make sure nothing weird is happening. Being that this is the first race of my season and has a lot of cars in various states, I thought I would give everyone a quick going over. Plus, my week extended by a day, so I have an extra day to do this. 

Most of the Classics are finished, and I'll be doing some motor adjustments to some of the GT cars to get them up to speed. 

I have the rest of the day to do the last of the cars and possibly even start the racing. I only have one errand to run, then it's all about slot cars. 

I've been thinking about it, and I'm honestly not sure I can predict who will win this. The field is so close that I'm going to run 50 lap races to get some decent scoring. I don't know if it'll be a car that has already won before, or whether it'll be one of the newer contenders. So many of these cars haven't been in a race yet. Ferrari, 917/10k, Lola, P68, the GT cars...so many have yet to compete, and the winner could be from any one of them, along with dozens of others.

I'm going to run a points system, so the last 10 cars won't score any points. I think that'll be 43 points for the winner, working down from there. Winner will also receive 3 bonus points, 2nd 2 bonus points and 3rd 1 bonus point. 

If the GT Class as a group are considerably slower than the Le Mans Class, their scores will be re-evaluated based on the Class as a separate group. That will also effect scoring for the Le Mans Class, so they would both have to be reconfigured. For example: if the entirety of the GT Class is off pace from the Le Mans Class by 3 seconds or so, yet still competitive with its own Class, then two separate scoring structures will happen, with a GT Class winner each race, as well as a similar scoring system to the Le Mans Class. 

I'll be running individual points championship, sponsor points championship and constructor's championship. Any team cars are eligible for the sponsor points championship, however only the two fastest team cars can carry their points over. The constructor's championship will be the slot car manufacturer's cup. Eligible companies at this time are: NSR, Slot.it, Thunderslot, Revoslot, Carrera. All cars are eligible to carry their points over. 

Back to the track...