Holding Up

There have been over 1400 laps posted by the winners of the races so far, and that's just the races. That doesn't include the thousands of laps spent getting the hang of the cars. I started off gently with them, as they were all new, but now that I've had them for awhile, I've started pushing them.

How strong are Slot.it cars?
I'm surprised at how strong they are, and have not had any major parts fall off or become lost. I had a back plate that I had to glue back on a car, but I haven't lost any parts due to impact. That includes the three-legged mirror on the Alfa:

You would think that the ginormous rear-view mirror would have broke off by now, or at least popped off. Not only is it still firmly in place, but it acts as a third of a tripod when the car flips. 

Will Slot.it cars run on my home track?
Yes, I don't see why not. They are very well made cars, and although they have stronger motors than most of the cars you'd find in a kit [Carrera, Scalextric, Ninco], they are also better performers. Take the magnets out and they become the most fun addition you've made to the track. I run my track with no borders, and the Slot.it cars can still rip around the track, and that's without the magnets. My racing series proves that they're more than capable of being fast and a blast to drive. And once you crash them a few times you feel better about running them.

Do Slot.it cars need any other parts to work?
No. Slot.it cars come Ready-to-run [RTR], and should operate right out of the box without trouble. The fun, as you can probably tell, comes from tweaking them to within an inch on their lives. You can do a lot of this without every buying extra parts. And these are just the cars to do it. Of course parts are plentiful and easy to find...in fact, they're probably the single largest 3rd party car and parts maker going right now. They've enhanced everything that can be, yet the cars are absolutely fun straight out of the box and onto the track.

Are Slot.it cars difficult to work on?
I don't think so. I find them to be very clean and well organized on the inside, and well made. With a bit of care, most aspects of the car can be tweaked to improve speed and handling. The most basic maintenance [clean tires, occasional oil and lube, clean chassis] will keep it going for a long time.
I will say, however, that in order to make them fast requires work. There are dozens of small things that can and should be done to cars to get them in racing shape, which is considerably different that out-of-box shape. And that says nothing about how cars continue to perform, or whether they'll handle the next track as well as the previous track.
I'm struggling with the performance of my Gulf Ford right now, and it's a considerably different car from the Shell Ford, even though they're essentially the same in construction and design. Problem is, I have tweaked the Shell car pretty seriously to get it to run faster, and I've done comparatively no tweaking to the Gulf car all this time. It was fine out of the box, so I didn't touch much except doing the most basic pre-race tuning procedures. But that's the great thing about slot cars. You never know what you can get out of a car until you try, and the differences in the two Fords proves that. It'll be a challenge to get the Gulf Ford up to speed, but it'll be totally fun. Looking forward to it.

I really like how clean the standard Slot.it car is. It makes it very easy to work on, and doesn't feel cluttered at all. This is the Alfa chassis.

What about the tires? Are the horror stories true? Will I never find the right tires for my slot car?
First, Slot.it recommends its P22 tire compound to run on Carrera track. I have a Carrera track, but it's painted with a latex exterior house paint [two coats]. This changes things, as now the track's texture is changed and grip improved. How it compares to other tracks, I don't know. But I do know that not only does the paint help, but it's a huge improvement over the straight plastic.
I spoke with Mauricio from Slot.it about it, and let him know that the stock C1 tires worked great on my track. As I've said earlier, I will be picking up some P22s to check them out when I make my parts purchase. But I believe that the C1s should work great on unpainted Carrera track. Even if they were slightly less grip than they are now, they'd still be grippy.


How are Slot.it cars overall with wear-and-tear?
Well, I took these pictures on Sunday, just two days ago:

Slot.it Ford GT40 #8 Shell

Slot.it Ford GT40 #11 Jacky Ickx Daytona '67

Slot.it Alfa Romeo 33/3 #2 Targa Florio

I think they're holding up quite well. The only noticeable blemish I've found on any of the cars is the lettering on the tires of the Alfa is starting to come off. But otherwise they look great, especially after 1400 race laps [and at least 10 times that in casual laps]. They've been off plenty of times, sometimes quite spectacularly, and have all been into the wooden sofa leg. No cracks or stress to the bodies in any way.