It wasn't going to be so large, but the deeper I started getting into it, the longer it got. I eventually had to stop or risk having to cut the part that was the whole point, which was the Track Layout piece at the end.
I've been thinking more and more about practical racing applications now that I have a permanent track. The first season I was able to keep it fresh by constantly changing the layout, but now that it's permanent, it doesn't really make sense to run a series of 20 races if it's always at the same race track. It would almost make sense to run way less races and do more tuning and testing sessions first.
The nice thing about the current race format is I get some time with each car each session. Cars don't sit out unless I sit them out, and that's only happened to the Carreras.
Speaking of Carreras, I thought it would be fun to put up some laps and at least get them on the board with some numbers. After I ran them I had to run everybody else, though. So now we're talking SEVEN cars, which will be interesting to see if I can handle. I think my limit is going to be somewhere around 10-12.
Audi R-8 Safety Car
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| There was a time when I had such a blast with this car. It was fast, like a rabbit, and at the time seemed to have nothing but grip. Then it got completely outclassed by the Slot.it cars, and I eventually gave up on it. |
Audi R-18
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| Each slot car set is going to have the easy fun car and the difficult, slick car. This one is the latter, for sure. It's never been my favorite slot car, weighs twice as much as a Slot.it car, and comes during a period of not very attractive race cars. Take the top off, add some Lego, and you've got a nice GoPro camera car. |
I decided to run a short time trial to get some good lap times in. 25 laps, no offs,
Car Time Lap
#11 2:06.52 5.04
#8 2:07.02 5.08
#2 2:07.19 5.08
#5 2:01.32 4.84
LH 2:05.72 5.00
R18 2:30.12 6.00
SC 2:25.77 5.80
So these will be benchmark numbers for the cars. I figure that's in the wheelhouse for most of them, so the numbers from here on out shouldn't be too far off unless the car has a particularly bad outing. Doing it this way will allow me to run a shorter test run [25 laps] to get my time, and I can work on cars individually instead of having a big race.
The R18 and the Safety Car, while liking the larger layout better, are still way behind. A second a lap is difficult to make up. I could see if it was more like .5, but expecting a car with comparatively bad tires to outrun the low-5's is asking a lot.
I also don't expect the #5 to post sub-5 numbers all the time. I think it's pretty safe to say respectable track average is right around 5 seconds per lap.
I'm also starting a few spreadsheets to keep track of data on my cars, races, times and other stuff. That way I don't have to either keep it in my head or refer back to old blog posts, which is what I've been doing.
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| Here's a basic info sheet of my cars. [click to enhance] |
I have a car info spreadsheet and have just built a 25-lap Time Trial database, so I'll be able to gauge progress over the long run. It's much easier for me to run upstairs and run 25-laps with one car and come back later if I need to. Doing something like a 100-lapper with all my cars takes forever to run, even though you wouldn't think so. I'll also be able to focus on one car and move it along the time trial list, even running more than one trial. I'll just need to go back and make it up with the other cars.
I'm considering running a timed super-endurance. Something that would run laps against at set time, say 1/2 hour or an hour per car, most laps wins. I tried something like that long long ago, but it didn't have much effect as it was only a very small track with only a few cars. There were only a few laps separating all three, and that was after 10 minutes.
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