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.

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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.