How About Some Love for the Alfa?

 The #2 Alfa Romeo 33/3 from Slot.it. 

One of the first three cars I got, the Alfa Romeo stands out as easily one of the most fun cars to drive. It absolutely dominates the curves and shorter tracks. Some cars have a specialty, and you'd think this car would too, but then it goes off and wins a race on the longest, fastest track I've built yet. And it handily beat the competition. 

If you've read from the early days here, the Alfa has had a pretty glorious reputation, routinely beating the two GT40s. It won the first championship, which is why its photo sits on the top of the main page. It is an absolute animal. No other car I own is so short, so spry, so wide or so quick.

And the funny thing about this car....this car, the Slot.it Alfa Romeo 33/3 #2, is that it came from the factory with a warped chassis. A slight warp, but enough of one that some of the German online stores mentioned it in the description. I didn't buy it off one that did. In fact, I didn't even know about it until after I had it for awhile and noticed the warping myself. What ends up occurring is the rear part of the side panel is low enough to drag on the track. It was already pretty low to begin with, so any lower would be problematic. I couldn't figure out a way to make the body conform to the chassis warp, so I took the dremel to the bottom of the side panel. I took off as little as possible, so it still will occasionally make a scraping sound around a turn. 

But I'm totally okay with all of that. It's okay if the car has a curious, however minor defect. It just makes it that much more of a challenge to perform well. Strangely enough, I haven't noticed any real performance issues, although I'd sure like to get another Alfa so I can do side-to-side comparisons. 

This car won the Summer Salami. It beat the Matra, and did so coming cold out of the garage. The Matra has had laps on this track. The Alfa has had not many. Ten. Fifteen tops. That sort of thing happens when you get new cars. They tend to get run more often, especially if they're good. And the Alfa obviously is a very good car, despite it's warpage. It kinda gives it more personality, if anything. 

The Original Three. 

I have a thing for the Classics, that's obvious. Also for Slot.it, also obvious. If I was going to try to explain where the Alfa fits in the competitive realm of Slot.it cars, I'd say it's the short-track and technical track dominator. It makes other cars feel heavy and cumbersome by comparison. 

What happens if none of the cars can catch the Alfa? I mean, he's been beaten before, but what would happen in a 20 race season? Would a car like the Matra, which is essentially like a longer Alfa, be able to beat it? Or is it just dumb luck and the Alfa happens to be tuned the best? I don't know. The Alfa has gotten comfortable in its skin, so it almost tells me what it wants. I can't remember how long it's been since the setup cost the Alfa a race. I'd have to look, but I think crashing out was more of a thing than performance ever was. 

I'm very happy with how this car is doing. That it can come out of the garage to win like that is pretty epic. It needed virtually nothing to win it. And it needs nothing now. It has very quickly improved its odds of winning races. I don't expect it to win everything from here on out. I'm just really happy it won this race.

You could be thinking, but dude you could decide who wins the race easily and just write whatever shit you want. 

Yeah, I could, but I don't. I don't even look at the clock when I'm racing. I push Start at the beginning and Stop at the end. I don't know the time until then. So all I have to work with while doing the time trials is the car before me. Since I don't know the absolute time while driving, I can't do a race comparing to it. So every car has to put in the best race it can. And when you do it that way, it's really easy to think a car is performing one way and their result is something much different. I've run cars I'm sure had a chance to win, but ended up not only not winning but being in the lower end of the pack. 

So I like to keep an element of surprise. I suppose I could get a decent lap counter, and set it and forget it. But I like the mystery. If you're driving in a race, you don't have the time to go checking your lap times with competitors. You race. That's what I like to do. And that's what the Alfa Romeo is very good at.