Sunday, December 17, 2023

Setting up the Holiday Races

 It's nearing that time of year again when the track goes up and stays up for weeks. It's the holidays! That means a nice big track weaving in and out of our massive Lego city. This will be the 3rd year my daughter and I have put this together, and it really is a great source of fun for the entire holiday period. 

There will be plenty of time when it'll just be me around here, so I'm going to get started on the basics, so she has to worry only about decor. She's 6 years old, after all, so everything has to be just right. Before that all happens, I'm going to be running some preliminary races featuring pretty much every car. I'm going to run them in groups for an endurance race. Haven't decided on the length yet, but it will probably be pretty long. 

The 917/10 is a screamer, although it hasn't raced in anger yet. That'll happen soon.

Now that I have a good assortment of cars, I can pretty safely say that most of them are competitive with each other right out of the box. The NSR cars, as well as the cars from Thunderslot, are pretty much ready to run, and I haven't had to do more than a little tire sanding and a little lubricating on most of them. You can count on them performing from the beginning, and it doesn't matter what car you pick. 

The Slot.it cars have all required a bit more tuning to keep up with the NSR and Thunderslot cars, but they DO keep up. Cars like the Alfa and the Matra are still contenders and frequently end up on the dais. So while they often come in at 10 bucks less than the other brands, Slot.it cars are actually one of the better deals, as well as infinitely upgradeable. You really can't go wrong with one, especially if you like to noodle with the cars. Not that they need it...they're actually great runners right out of the box, but they also have the potential to be much faster. 

It's well worth it to bet on this car. I think I've gotten this thing tuned perfectly.

I didn't add any slot cars this season [yet], but I haven't had all that much time with last year's batch of cars, so I couldn't justify getting new ones just now. I might pick up a couple here and there, but not too many. 

I'll split the Classics in half and the Sports cars in half and run them in their own sessions. That way I can focus on less cars for a longer length of time. 

It could be any of the 9 sports cars I have that could win the class. So far they all are performing differently, and although I'm getting close with some of them, others are still a little troubled.

I've been looking online, and there are one, maybe two cars I have my eye on. If I end up getting them, it'll be after the holidays. Those will likely be the last cars for awhile. I really need to fun these beauties more. It's kind of gotten on me lately.