Driving the Group C Porsche

I've been wanting a Group C car ever since reading so many accounts of people winning races with them. Not that I'm going to go out racing probably ever, but it would be sure cool to own a couple for the home track. I picked this Leyton House Porsche 962C because I found it absolutely striking, as did my wife. Slot cars have to be a pleasure to look at, since that's what you're doing when you race them. And this one certainly is...from it's aggressive front end, the sweeping curves down the length of the body, to the huge tail on the back.

Since I already had a #11 car in the Jacky Ickx Ford GT40, I'm going to call this Leyton House, or LH for short. Or the Porsche, since it's pretty much THE only Porsche that I own.

When I first unpacked the car, I did the usual things to it:

• Sanded the tires
• Rebuilt the front end so the tires touch the track
• Lube and oil gears and axles
• Setup the pod and body float

But when I ran it with all the other cars it was a bit difficult to drive. It came off a lot and didn't seem to have good overall speed. It was also a little noisy, which I needed to fix.
So I took a closer look and noticed one of the front wheels was not touching the track. I fixed that, and then reset the pod float slightly tighter. That ended up getting rid of the noise.

The Porsche [left] with the Inline motor and the GT40 [right] with the Sidewinder. The motor is the same Orange bell motor on both cars, which is about the only similarity between them. The Porsche pod is narrower and has four screws. The Ford's EVO6 pod has six adjustable pod screws.

I decided just to focus on driving this car. I put the rest of the cars in the pit box [I usually have them all out and ready when I race] and got to work dialing in my controller settings for the car. As I went I realized that it needed particular settings that other cars didn't. It needed to be set with no brakes at all. It needed less power trim and minimum speed and seemed to have a wide power band. It's not the kind of car you want to whip the tail out around corners with. It's the one you want to run through them at high overall speed without breaking traction. And it can be done. Once I discovered how to drive this car I realized what was possible.

When you punch the Fords, they jump up to speed and then top out. But the Porsche is running these same turns, just not a loosely, and making competitive times.

In the twisty uphill section of my track, the car goes into tractor mode, winding its way up the mountain. Once it gets on the back straight, instead of burning rubber and running off, it continuously builds up speed, until it's going much faster than any of the other cars. And although it's got that massive tail, it doesn't become an issue if you don't try to give gas in the corner. Running through the huge sweeping left-hander is done with the wheels firmly planted...no drift there. And back onto the front straight before you know it.

This car has already crashed a few times and been upside down at least twice.

So instead of just driving ballsy and going for it, it pays to drive a bit more tactically with this car. Without brakes the car doesn't aggressively slow down, which means you don't wait until the last minute going into a corner to let off, which means you don't toss the tail out. Without brakes you maintain a better overall speed and can run through the corners more smoothly. You'd think brakes would help you control the car, but that's not the situation I'm finding. What helps control the car is a solid throttle approach without punching it. It responds so well to subtle changes that you can slow down or speed up in what feels like fractions.

The Porsche comes with a 9/28 Pinion/Gear layout.

I suspect if I pick up another Group C car it's going to drive much like this one does. I'm not finished with working on it, in fact I'm just getting started. There are things binding that shouldn't be. Things keeping my tires from resting on the track.

I race my cars. Slot cars are beauties and all, but I could never buy one that I'd put up in a box to never race. Heck, never even unpack. What's the fun of that?

So here we go. A car that drives different than the others. That's going to mean something in some of these races, I'm sure, whether good or bad. I'm going to run another round of time trials tomorrow [hopefully], and we'll see if any of this R&D is helping out.

If I can't get races in tomorrow, I have some days off coming up, including two where my wife and daughter will be out of town. I'm considering running an endurance race then. Something nice and long to separate the sheep from the other sheep.