Reviving The Safety Car

Since I've had my track on the table, I've gotten the Carrera cars back out and started trying to tune them to be somewhat competitive. Prior to dropping out of the championship, I had taken the magnets out, and in doing so, accidentally snapped one magnet in half.

Running the Safety Car without magnets just wasn't possible. It has too much weight and slides around everywhere. It's a great car and fun to drive, just don't try to race it. It's also probably one of the least expensive Carrera cars you can find, as loads of online retailers are selling them at huge discounts.

With its tendency to whip the tail out, this car makes a great drifter.

In an effort to get it up to speed, I put the magnets back in, but they were way too strong. The car would whip around the track at a truly unfair pace. So, I took half the magnet out that was broken, and put it in the forward position of the car.

The magnet can be seen through the six [of eight] square holes going across the bottom of the chassis. 

This made the magnet roughly as wide as the slot rails, and no wider. Now it has a tendency to break out at high speeds, just like the Slot.it cars do [without magnets]. This goes a long way towards getting this car competitive, and it might bring it back into the competition. It'll still be in a magnet class, but it'll race.

The R18 is next.

__________

Also, I rebuilt the table, widening it to about 10 feet. This allowed me to try other layouts, so I went with a version of an old favorite:

Nice fast track. I sunk the backstretch into the layout a bit.

Shot of the Alfa going through the backstretch:

Beauty.

Off The Rug

I took advantage of some spare time [and spare stuff] and put together a "table" to put layouts on. It's pretty much square, at about 8' x 8':

Layers: coffee tables, doors [w/out handles], shelving, rug. So technically, I'm not "off" the rug.

Having a square space kinda limits what I can do regarding layouts. This one is slapped together and is okay, but not a favorite. The various shelving pieces make great track gradients, especially when put under the rug. There are about two cheap ikea bookshelves worth of wood slats there.

Fun factor increased tenfold, and I can either sit on a chair or stand up and have much better view and control of the cars. It's more worth it to me to walk around to the other side of the track to reslot a car than it is to crawl around on my knees all session.
This revived both lanes as well, and I've been switching back and forth with the SCP-1 controller. My biggest fear now is having a car go off the side, so I decided to break out the barriers I never use:

Track with barriers attached....for about 15 minutes.

Let me say this: slot cars are expensive. There's a reason I don't have more track and more cars, and that's because I don't have a bunch of money. But this is the first time since I've had this track in forever that I've used the barriers that came with the kit. They were so ignored that they were buried deep in a box somewhere, along with the attachments.

And while slot cars are expensive, they're also great to look at. And putting these red and white blinders up just ruins everything. I'd rather risk losing the car over the edge than to put those up. You might think I was insane for doing something like that while running cars without magnets, but it's only me, and I haven't lost a car yet.

So they lasted 15 minutes and about two laps with the R18, plus a minute or two for some quick pics, then they were off and back in a box. They'll never be seen again. For about 0.16 seconds I thought about painting them, but figured it probably wouldn't work. Anyway, I don't need a wall to run my cars around on, I'll stick to the inside lane for now.

I mean, seriously. Maybe painted totally white, but then it's still a wall. I just want a run-off.

Back To The Garage - Tires

Now that the race season is over, I was able to take apart the cars and get them back into top shape. Since tires have become the focus of much of the improvement, special emphasis has been put there. There have also been some additions.

At the beginning of my race season I decided to try it to see how competitive the cars were with each other. That's what someone would do if they suddenly got three new cars - pit them against each other. And since I was making it up as I went along, it was easier to understand the improvements made and how the cars were affected. For example, racing against drone cars proved pretty much pointless as the Slot.it cars blew away the Carrera drones in every respect.

The biggest surprise to me was how each track design revealed things about each car. I would think I'd have a car figured out, all running great, and the next day I'd design a new track and it would suffer all over it. That kind of showed me that a car has to be fully thought-out in regards to tuning, and not just kinda tuned for the specific track that it might be running on at the moment. It made a difference whether a car had to negotiate a 180º, or a 45º or a switchback. The Alfa, for example, would rip right through a switchback, and handle a single-piece 1/60 turn with maximum dexterity, but it would get really loose in a 180º. The Shell Ford, on the other hand, would lumber through just about any turn, yet feel more planted and handle the sharp turns more like a wave than a jerky curve. It has a nice little drift without making you feel like you're losing control. More like you've got a lot of control, and this is what you can do with it. There's confidence there, and it's built-in to the car.

Slot.it Ford GT40 #8 - This car is running so well right now I think it would easily sweep a series. 

I'm at risk of creating a tire war, and I don't think I have the proper tires in order to truly judge each brand, so I'm going to say right here that these are the tires that I have, and that's what I'm going to use for the future, so I will be talking about them.

I mentioned that I got a couple sets of Paul Gage urethane tires, and they really are fantastic. There's a noticeable difference on my track between the PG's and the stock C-1 rubber tires from Slot.it. Not that the C-1's aren't good tires...I think they're pretty great for what you get on a car in the box...but I think that urethane is simply a grippier compound than rubber. I plan on revisiting a few tracks and times from the earlier races and see what the cars can run now with the urethanes. I especially like the sidewalls and how much more realistic they look. It makes the rear tires seem more substantial.

The Alfa Romeo is also setup on Paul Gage urethanes. While the grip is certainly better, the overall difference isn't as noticeable as with the #8 Ford.

Recently on Slot Car Illustrated's forum, tire manufacturer Super Tires had a few contests, and they gave out free tires and wheels of their latest design. I won a set of Boogie Boy tires on some new 15x10 wheels. While a bit larger than the standard for my cars, I couldn't resist trying them to see what they were like.

Super Tires Boogie Boy. They're the ones that look like you ran over E.T.

Here's the thing: they're silicone. I've read all over the place that silicone tires don't play well with urethane and rubber [good buddies]. At first I figured I would wait until I got a set of urethane Yellow Dog Super Tires [soonish], since I had never thought about running silicone and cleaning track, etc. I had always planned on rubber. Urethane is much more at home in the environment of my attic.

Then I thought about it: I've been pretty much only running one lane all this time, so why not let the #11 car run the outside lane. Fair enough, I'll go with the "plan B" of silicone tire usage, which is to let them clean the track as you go, since they'll pick up all the loose crap anyway. Give it a tapedown every 25 or so laps and after three or four times you're in good shape.
Once there, the results are very impressive. While the car has a change in its stature due to the larger wheels, it still grips better than the rubber did. This bodes well for if I decide to get silicones in the future, as they are every bit as grippy as urethane. I guess it just matters how much I'm willing to do in prep to get racing. I can say now that I prefer a standard single pass wipedown of the track with a lint-free cloth, and am not into alcohol or any other weird chemical things. I'm hoping to stay away from too much of that sort of thing in slot cars. If it doesn't play well with latex paint, then it's not going on my cars.

I think the color is cool. It's fun, it's only on the tread and not the sidewall, and you only notice it really when it's sitting. Okay, maybe a little bit when it's moving. These tires go to the practical edge with very little room for adjustment as they're larger than the standard size for the car. The right sized wheels and tires would make this car scream.

[side view] Looks fast. I'd need fronts too. 

The Super Tires 15x10 wheels are pretty fantastic. Tires fit like a glove, and there's loads of patch. I plan on looking for a car that these would fit better on. I suspect it would be something in the Group C category, of which I haven't bought any cars yet.

By the time I get to the bottom of this post, I can pretty much convince myself out of using silicone, but I could totally see why someone would. They're mighty fine and seem like they'd last a very long time. Many people swear by them. You could almost say that the silicone/urethane/rubber issue is one of the more opinionated topics of all slot car racing. For me, not so much. I find benefits to each, and could certainly argue for each one.

I believe I'll be doing mostly urethanes from here on out, although I do want to try a few sets of the softer compound rubber tires that are available. I also want to try some more generic urethane tires so see if there's a noticeable difference to me at my home track. At 3.50 a set, I'd be a fool not to try them. The PG's are great, but the shipping is brutal.