Weekend Testing and Notes

 My daughter came running into the house, pointing at the cars and wanting to race. I was thinking of setting something up anyway, so away we went. I didn't do much more than a simple oval with some squiggly parts, but that's totally okay with her. She ran cars while I did some tuning. I needed to setup the Hippie Car, as well as work out some of the Group 2 cars. 

I did a lube/oil, and later today I'm going to true the tires. 

While I was doing that, my daughter got out what she says is now her "favorite car" and raced that. 

She has very good taste.

I hadn't finished the tires on the Hippie Car yet, so I ran a few others. I wanted to see how they've been doing since they haven't ran much lately. Most all are just fine. I have a few problems with a few cars that I need to deal with, and I will get to those, but I want to get as much racing done as I can. 

I'll be modifying the track layout to make it a little more competitive. Then each car will get 100 laps to set the fastest overall time. Every car is eligible, and I intend on running each one. 

Since this will be the first race of a new season, it will be scored from 50 points for 1st down to, I think, 1 point for 48th. I'm pretty sure that's right.

Various points battles will take place:

 A Team Championship, whereby the fastest 2 cars from each team carry their points over for Team points. 

 A Class Championship, with Classic, Group 2 and Garage 56 cars race for their respective classes, as well as an overall win. Five bonus points will be awarded the winner of each class.

The race will be timed with the Carrera lap counter and take place over a period of a few sessions during this week. Each car will have their tires scrubbed, and the track will be wiped down prior to each session. 

I'll try to get as much pics, video and other info as I can. 

Funny Story

 So, whenever I buy a new car, I always update the sidebar to include it, which means including a picture of it linking to the post. So each time I buy a car, I have to take pictures of 47...no...48 cars. I like to keep the format typically the same; side view angle with the same shot. And what I'll typically do is light them a particular way for the session so that they all look good, are accurate representations, and have a nice overall uniform look. 

The Lola, and all the rest of the cars, are on the right sidebar. They're lit up with Lego City in the background.

I enjoy photography. It's been a hobby of mine for a number of years. I like to practice here with lighting and getting a nice shot of a nice car. I like that this slot car hobby can have so many spin-off aspects to it. I've found a way to incorporate photography, video, audio...all of it into slot cars. No, I didn't invent anything. But I love that they can all come together into one cohesive thing.

So a funny thing happened. I just got the Hippie Car [I love the name, so easy to recognize], and as I was taking pics of the cars for the sidebar, I went through the whole batch, finished up, loaded them into the computer, edited them, and started uploading. I got all the way to the bottom where the oldest cars are, and I realized I didn't have pictures for about five of them. I checked and double checked, and sure enough, I somehow missed getting pics of them. 

So I went back to the boxes and looked, and didn't see any of the missing cars. I must have misplaced them somehow. It was 5 cars, including the new Carrera Porsche, so I knew it had to be somewhere nearby. So I started looking around. My apartment is small, and there are only so many places to put things. I turned the whole place upside down looking for them. Every box, drawer, bag, sack or stack of anything was gone through. 

I keep my cars in stackable plastic sandwich boxes. Each one neatly holds three cars, and the boxes lock together in a stack. Makes it very convenient. Unfortunately not all of my boxes are like that. I also have a different set of boxes, stackable, yet not lockable. They're larger and could hold easily ten cars stacked on each other. Two of the boxes have two layers of cars in each of them. 

So after pretty much giving up, I check the boxes one more time, and wouldn't you know it, I found the cars buried on the bottom row of one of the large boxes. 

So that does it. I'm going to have to get rid of those boxes and move to the others. I'll have to shop around for them, but I should be able to find them without much trouble. They're popular at discount stores. I like the lockable ones better because they're much more fit for holding the cars. The big boxes feel like everything's loose inside. 

Tried to find a pic of my storage boxes, but I guess I haven't taken many shots of them. That plastic stack in the middle of the shot from the old, blurry Canon 500D days is them.

I can't have cars disappearing like that, even if technically there were always there to begin with, just hidden under a cover in a box. Plus, I want the tighter, more convenient stacking of the locking boxes. 

So now I have to reshoot the cars for the sidebar. Setup takes about 15 minutes and the shoot takes about an hour. 45 minutes to edit, another 45 to upload them to the sidebar. If you look on the right right now you can see which ones I missed. Oh, and to answer a question: no, I don't have a particular order the cars go in, nor do I have any form of checklist I follow [except the sidebar]. 

New Car: NSR Porsche 917K Hippie Car

 Here she is, first and last car of the year for me, the NSR Porsche 917K Hippie Car:

A beautiful car with an absolutely stunning paint job. I think this pic captures it pretty well.

Right around xmas of 2022, after making a pretty large amount of car purchases, I realized I needed a new bass guitar. My old one [Gibson EB3] is limited in what it can do, and I was looking for something a little more flexible. I found it in a Fender Jaguar Bass. Totally excellent. Of course, dropping that kind of drip meant I couldn't buy that many slot cars for awhile. Oh well. I had loads of new ones and plenty to race, and I really haven't had the chance to do much over the last year. I think I ended up buying two slot cars throughout that time.

So I put my mind to this bass and not thinking about slot cars. Of course xmas rolled around, which is usually prime slot car season, and I finally got a chance to look at the shops and see what was new. Once I saw the Hippie Car, I knew I had to have it. 

This one's gonna be really easy to see on track.

This car ran at Watkins Glen in 1970. That fits in just right with all the other cars I have from that era, and this is my sixth 917K. The Hippie livery is from Martini, which is my first livery from that brand. I'll have to look into others. I know there is a 917/10 in a more traditional Martini striped livery. Now I guess I have a good reason to pick that one up. Can never have too many teams. 

The 917 comes with the 21.5k Shark motor, which is in line with Classics not only from NSR, but many other companies as well. That keeps them competitive with each other right out of the box. The Shark is a fantastic motor, and the overall build quality of the car is as good as you can get.

For home use on your plastic track, they can pretty much be run as-is. They come with a magnet and three magnet socket positions, but I don't use magnets, so they go on my fridge. If you currently run magnets and are looking to get more out of your slot cars, take the magnets out. I've taken them out of all my cars but the F1 cars, which run better with the magnets in the car. But for the most part, running without magnets makes you rely more on car setup, driving skill, tires and overall tuneup decisions. Running with magnets negates all those aspects. So my track is pretty much No-Mag.

I don't have any other pictures of the car currently as I just got it today, took some quick shots, then started tuning it. Tomorrow will be track day, so this writeup comes before that. I haven't gotten it on the track yet, but I'm confident that it's going to run great. That's pretty impressive to be able to make that claim from a slot car, when you think about it. 

So, what about future car purchases? Good question. There are a few things floating around out there that I want, but I suspect they'll be around for awhile. I might try to go back to a one-a-month plan again, but I'm not sure there are enough cars to justify that kind of thing right now. Maybe a car per quarter. At most I can only think of two or three that I actually want. I might have to look at a new brand. Put it this way; I usually buy two cars at a time to save on shipping charges. I didn't this time, as I only got one. 

Okay, racing tomorrow. Probably an invitational of 10 cars or so. I'll try to get pics.

Holy crap, I just thought of something. The Hippie Car already has a teammate, and you're not going to believe who it is.....

Surprise.

Yep, the Porsche Spyder 918 with the modern Hippie livery. That team is doomed.

Racing has been happening - Pictures haven't

 I've kind of been singular in my approach lately due to time and all throughout the holidays. Setting up, racing, timing, etc, then shooting pics and then posting is a lot of stuff. Sometimes a guy just likes to run some laps in peace. So that's what I've been doing. 

I was going through some posts here the other day, and I noticed that, aside from not publishing very many races lately, posts were mostly in the form of new car posts. Well, last year I went a little crazy, and this year I countered it by not buying any cars. My plan was to make it to xmas, and I did. I finally ordered my first car in over a year yesterday. It should be here in the next day or two. 

Which brings me to what I was here for: In the last four published races, a Porsche 917k has not made it into the Top 10. 

This car...this beautiful sexy beast....has not even come close to a podium yet. Shameful really.

I think I have five of them, and the best any could do was an unimpressive 11th place. I mean, 11th is the result when people think, "oh, that guy ran? didn't even notice him." 

And I don't really blame the 917 for being what it is. It's a beautiful car that should be dominating here. Admittedly, I don't run very many long layouts anymore, so it doesn't really get to take advantage of it's long body, so it's pretty regular that it gets beaten by the 908 and Lolas and such. [Crazy part: the wheelbase on the 917 is actually a little shorter than the 908.] 

I wouldn't necessarily call it "Unlucky Strike", but I wouldn't go handing it the cup just yet.

They're fast. They're reliable. They're not the kings of the corners, but they don't stink at it either. They sing on the straight track. I remember that from the attic and running them on the big layout. 

It should come to no surprise that the next car will be another 917. I couldn't resist. They are one of my favorites, and when I buy so few I tend to make them special. Anyhow, coming soon.