New Cars: NSR Gulf Porsche 917K #10 & #9 Brands Hatch 1000k

 I'm starting to realize something. I may never be able to let a sweet Gulf car pass me by. One thing that got me back into the hobby was the thought that I could actually own one of these, even if I couldn't fit into it or drive it. But since I was a kid I have loved this livery more than any other. 

NSR Gulf Porsche 917K #10

Winner of the 1970 1000k at Brands Hatch. Driven by Pedro Rodriguez and and Leo Kinnunen.

I've seen reviews of this car that comment on the lack of orange along the sides like the other Gulf cars, but I like it. The only way you don't see the orange is in a direct profile shot like the one below. And even then there is a nice big Gulf logo on the side. Plus the lack of orange on the side really shows off the flowing curves very nicely.

feeling curvy. might delete later idk

I have expectations for NSR cars right out of the box, as I now have a good collection of them and have seen how they usually are upon arrival. This car was no different. After the setup I let it drone run 1000 laps. Then I ran it against the #19 Gulf car and it was immediately comparable. I'm satisfied this car will set impressive lap times. 

Of course, some things are impossible to resist, one of those being that there was another car released at the same time as this one, from the same race, and now it's here:

#9 Gulf Porsche 917K Brands Hatch 1000k 1970. Driven by Jo Siffert and Brian Redman. It didn't finish, but it looked good not doing it.

I have an absolute LOAD of cars now. It's going to need separate sessions just to be able to take the time to focus on them so they get the attention they deserve. That's SIX cars now that are still in varying levels of tuneup needs. Some haven't had any work done on them at all. It'll be some assembly line stuff for sure. 

All of this has brought me to lean pretty heavily on a piece of accessory that I was pretty sure I wouldn't ever need. Now I'm starting to think I do, for a few reasons. It's a tire truer. While the tried-and-true piece of sandpaper taped to the track can do in a pinch, I think I need to put more work into my tires. I've always thought that, just haven't had the nerve to buy the dang thing. I never thought I would need it, but I'm almost at 30 cars. I have reviews sitting waiting to be finished. I need to race them. I might have to temporarily shelve a large percentage of my cars just to get the new cars a chance for some track time. 

NSR Gulf Brands Hatch 1000k 1970

I also want to come up with a track design that I can keep up for awhile that won't get in my way. That's tricky since that means it has to be square-ish, so I'll need to work on that. I want to have the track down so I can put a car on and race whenever. I'll need something like that if I'm going to try to do any kind of race, which I'm intending to do soon. 

Gulf Team Photo

The Gulf Team has a significant advantage in the Team Championship, coming in with four cars. The best two score for the team each race, so that gives them a considerable edge. All the other teams [Rothmans, Shell, Sunoco] have two cars each, so they'll have to accept the points from both entries, without the benefit of multiple cars fighting for two spots. I expect the Gulf Team to do quite well, as all four cars are competitive and could podium finish at any time. While a Gulf car might not win the overall championship, they're going to be practically unstoppable as a team.

A few days later....

Both cars have been setup and are ready to race.

Working on the YouTube Channel

 Sunday:

Now that I have the Canon 90D, I've been kitting it out a little bit, readying for some serious video stuff for YouTube. When I was doing stuff before, I was struggling with the 500D to get usable footage. It wasn't the smartest camera when it came to things like focus and light. So I didn't do all that much stuff back then, instead focusing on larger videos with smaller snippets of video. Lots of editing and fixing in post. 

But that's changed now. I can think in the current and work on things and see results. I've been recording snippets for upcoming videos, and even have started a few new episodes. I think I'm going to get happy results from it. The tests so far are proving very positive. 

I haven't used the camera much as a camera, I must say. I've taken shots, but I haven't really gotten serious just yet. The video aspect of the camera is so much better than my old one was that I'm captivated by it. That'll pass, and when it does I'll have a fantastic camera to take pictures with. The few car shots I've done I've liked very much, and plan to do another run tonight while I still have everything setup from today's shoot. I'm getting into shooting the more conventional 45° angle, which requires a little different approach than the straight 90° angle shot I like shooting so much. But this camera just gets such great detail that I want to shoot that way. 

Last night I was working on some footage and discovered that it had some focus issues going through it. I figured out the problem later, and am going to try again in a day or two. Now that I have the 90D I'm really wanting to do great stuff with it. I don't want to put anything half-assed up and call it a day. 

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I'm going to compress this process into this one post so that my blog doesn't get filled up with tech info that might not interest most slot car fans. 

Tuesday: 

I just ordered a few things to go with the camera to help make better videos; a light kit and a field recorder. The light kit will have two flat LED lights with stands, and the field recorder mounts right on the tripod under the camera and will be able to hold up to 4 microphone inputs. Both of those things should be here Monday. 

I know it might seem light I'm diving headlong into something suddenly, but this is something I've wanted to do for a long time now, and I'm finally at a technical level to be able to pull it off the way it's been rolling around in my head all these years. In the nineties, I had a working system that could make digitally shot and edited movies with sound effects, music and everything. And with what I just ordered, I'll have a considerable amount of options at my disposal. I won't be using it for just the slot car videos. I'll be doing a lot of other stuff that'll put this gear to work. Suffice it to say I'm very excited by the possibilities.

Once that stuff arrives, I'll need to go through testing to get familiar with the system, which means I'll likely be re-shooting all of those snippets that I've made so far. They'll make good test material, so they'll be easy to shoot while I focus on the gory tech stuff. 

I have microphones, but I suspect I'll be adding more in the near future. Once this recorder comes I'll begin testing and find out which mic is going to work best for what I'm doing. I think I know which one that will be, but I'm going to test others on the chance I find something even better.

Regarding the lights; every one of my videos has lighting applied to it to make the picture clearer, even if it's just standard house lights. I've been waiting to get a set of actual photo/video lights, and found an affordable pair that I can expand if I need to. They're energy efficient, light, don't take up much space and can be mounted virtually anywhere. 

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Wednesday:

I just ordered a couple of slot cars.  I did have one of them on my list, and one of them is an impulse buy. Both of them should come in the next few days, and they'll both round out some of the race teams that have been forming in my collection. I'll also be using them as test subjects for my new video gear. 

I just recorded a 28 minute long video that was not able to be uploaded. I think I hit the maximum, so I'll have to pay attention to that and make my takes shorter, maybe around 15 minutes at the most.

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Thursday:

I got a call while I was at work today from the camera shop saying my gear has arrived. I got off too late to pick it up tonight, so I'll go first thing in the morning so I can have some time with it before work. I think I should be okay with what I have here, but I'll ask the guy at the shop if he carries accessories for the Tascam as well as for the lights. 

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Friday:

I got up early and was down at the camera shop when they opened up. Got both things and didn't get any other accessories, except for a couple of batteries for the lights. I'm going to go to the music store tomorrow and pic up some mic cables. 

So, the stuff! Yes, it's glorious. I'm very impressed with the lights, actually much more impressed than I was expecting to be. There are two of them, and they're each about the size of a laptop computer....just larger than an iPad. Anyhow, the light quality is pretty great, and very even. The color temp on the lights works great too, and matches up nicely with my camera settings. These are going to be extremely versatile. I'm already thinking of getting one more. Nice that there's already room in the bag for one mroe light fixture. 

I haven't tried the Tascam yet, as I need time to get it going and don't have it right now. The lights take no time to test, but the Tascam is going to be a bit of a beast. I have to go to bed early tonight, but I'll be up early tomorrow and will start on it then. 

Tuesday:

Ha....yeah, I kinda thought that would happen. Once I started messing around with the Tascam it was full test mode the whole way. I have been on the setup now every waking minute of the day. It's been so crazy that I have made well over 50 videos that go over the discovery process with all the new gear I have. Oh, and that's not the end of it. Sunday, while recording a video, I turned the crank on my tripod and it broke off right in my hand. On Monday I went down to the camera shop and got a great deal on a Rollei C6i tripod. Totally great and a real tripod, not like that cheesy thing I had before. I never liked that old tripod. 

I've been testing all of my mics with the system, getting the best levels I can out of them, and seeing which ones will work best for what I need. I think I have it down to an Audio Technica ATR35s lav mic for the wide shots and racing coverage, and an AKG C1000S for standard shots. There were others I decided not to use, but they may pop up in the future. I also just picked up a USB power pack. It wasn't expensive, so hopefully it'll work. 

I also got two cars in the mail today. I'll need to get some pics of those asap and get them on the track. I have a four-day weekend coming, and no plans. So I'm doing some racing and some video shooting. 

A few weeks later:

I've gone through a lot of the system, done numerous tests and experiments, tested mics and settled on what works best for various situations, and overall got a general handle on the whole thing. I've added more things, small things, and feel like I've got a working kit now. I added a USB battery, another light, another external hard drive, and a few other things that needed replacing. 

Today: 

I uploaded this review of the NSR Porsche 917/10K box set, shot on the new equipment. It was very fun.

April 30th:

I have almost completely outfitted my kit, which I affectionately am calling the "shooting match". It's the phrase that keeps popping up whenever I'm trying to explain the thing and not call it the "rig". I solved my microphone situation by buying a new one that didn't cost much and sounded great, plus it had a cold-shoe mount for going on the camera. A Rode Videomic GOII. Very nice, clean near-field mic. I also added one more lens: a Canon EFS 18-135mm. While considered the "kit" lens for the 90D and 80D, it's hardly a "kit" lens in the true sense of the word. Kit lenses tend to be inexpensive, low-quality bashers that get you started. This is no basher. It's big, strong, effective throughout its spectrum, and very well built. It's what I'm using to shoot all of the shots of the cars on the right side of the blog now. 

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About the YouTube Channel

So I'm going to start shooting these ideas I've been sitting on, and all slot car related stuff will go on the main channel, and other stuff will go on my secondary channel, which I'll be opening up soon. That'll have my new music channel, which will have my stuff and things I'm involved in. So, bands I record, shows I film, anything I'm doing, etc. So it's going to be a holding facility for a whole bunch of various stuff. 

I probably won't be cross promoting the two, since they won't need it, and anybody who wants to could make the connection. And as more things happen, more channels will happen. 

New Box Set of Cars: NSR L&M Porsche 917/10K Laguna Seca 1972

 When I was a kid, racing slot cars on Saturday mornings with my brother, I'd spend my weekly allowance on a new slot car, hoping that I would find that special car that could win it all. It also needed to be pretty much indestructible, as the inevitable demolition derby would occur at the end of the session. Those tended to be a winner-take-all format. Loser lies in a heap of plastic and metal. 

One of the strongest and fastest/best cars I had at the time was an L&M Porsche 917/10K. It was brutally fast, which made it the target of my brother's ire. It stayed at the top of the heap for weeks, even though he and I both bought other cars to try to beat it. It lasted what seemed like an eternity in our format. Win or Wrecked. 

Which brings me to today. I'm not afraid of buying collector sets, provided they're something I'm actually after, and not just sets to collect, if you know what I mean. In other words, I'd just as easily buy these two cars as singles out of the set. Either way, doesn't matter. The set comes with a very nice box that'll look good in my bookshelf. 

NSR L&M Porsche 917/10K

I love that I can buy a car that brings back so many memories of when I was a kid. Just a larger, much better detailed format. I feel like I've grown up a little bit.

NSR released this body style not long ago, and I waited until they had a nice looking livery before buying one. The first two that came out didn't interest me, and there were a couple of "test" cars, painted one color, but that didn't interest me either. Then this collector set came out. 

To get the big question out of the way: just one. The side view mirrors. 

The size/shape of the car is more in line with the 908, which is to say both are larger than the 917. The 917/10 has about as much nose as the 908, but a little more tail, although that little bit is mostly a thin bit sticking out the back. So I'd still consider it a short-tail in my world. It'd match up with the 908 better than the 907. 

Out of the box, both cars ran well, with the #6 needing a tire scrub to get the dust off. I lubed/oiled/set the chassis and did all my standard setup stuff, and they are both running very well. The #7 is as smooth as butter and really grips the track. Once I understood what was doing it, I gave the #6 the same treatment and it hooked right up. The two are going to be fast cars, that's for sure. 

Link to video.

Racing Related

 So now it's the workweek, and unfortunately I don't really have the time to set up the track during the week. That doesn't mean that I can't do some picture taking of slot cars.

It was a very nice day today, so I thought I'd use natural light and see how it looked on the 90D. I shot all the cars, and here are some samples:

I've been doing lots of tests in the past few evenings. I'll spare you the gory details of what was achieved, although I must say that I absolutely love the new camera and am so glad I bought it. Not a single regret. 

These pictures are something that was very difficult to do on the 500D. It just didn't have the capability to work in low light effectively. This is light from a single source; a window off to the right. I wanted to see if the 90D could handle the low light, and it performed perfectly. In fact, I haven't had a bad time since I got it.

These shots were taken with the 24mm Pancake lens. I'm finding it to be a fantastic general purpose daily shooter. The 10-18mm Ultra Wide angle is more artistic and fun, but it's nice to have options. I think they'll both be good for shooting slot cars. 

Okay, the next post will be about actual racing. My daughter's 5th birthday this weekend, so we're going to be running the cars for sure.

My Slot Car Photography and Video Gear

 I have been meaning to make a post showing the gear I use to take pictures for this blog and video for my YouTube videos. And now that I've expanded and upgraded, I thought I would go ahead and list up. It's really nothing special, and I tend to go for budget lenses.

Every picture on this blog up to this post has been shot on a Canon 500D [European name for the EOS Rebel T11]. It's a neat little DSLR, and makes a great starter camera. But you can only have a starter camera for so long before you grow out of it. And when my latest phone ends up taking higher resolution pictures than my 10 year old camera does, then it's time for an upgrade.

I like to think that I've intertwined slot car racing and photography into a single hobby for myself. 1:32 slot cars make a great model for pictures, and I never gent bored with taking them. 

The Canon 500D was a good camera, but I'm pretty sure I got some kind of short in the body that caused the flash to no longer fire, as well as kill my Speedlite, which was mounted to the camera at the time. The short also caused the camera to stop recognizing lenses and to struggle with autofocus, sometimes constantly searching but never locking.

Last week I bought a new camera body, the Canon 90D, effectively upgrading from a beginner DSLR to a Professional DSLR. It's loaded with features and high-end electronics, allowing for so much more control and clarity and precision. It's staggering. I play with the two cameras back to back and there's just no comparison. What took forever to do just to get passable results on the 500D is now much easier and much more controllable with the 90D. 

The 90D is a serious, feature-laden camera, used by professionals all over the world. Does that make me a professional? No. I have been, however, going through tests, especially comparing the two cameras, and have not come across one thing that has made me think this camera isn't right for me. I've been needing something like this, as much as someone could need a piece of gear, I guess, and I'm thrilled to finally have it. 

Not long after I bought the body, I bought a lens that I was also considering buying but thought I couldn't afford it. Turns out I could, so I went for it. It's a Canon EOS 10-18mm Ultra Wide lens. It's a lot of fun, has a really sharp picture, and can shoot up close with great results. It's fits nicely with my other lenses, as I now have something that goes wider than 18mm. That's exactly as far as I wanted to go with a wide angle lens. It'll be great for skateboarding videos and any other close action stuff, as well as interior footage, live music, etc. 

I expect it's going to take some time before I have the hang of this camera and lens. I'm going to keep testing and trying things. 

So here's a list of my stuff. It'll grow over time.

Cameras

Canon 500D [EOS Rebel T1I]

and now....

Canon 90D 

Lenses

Canon EFS 24mm Pancake Prime

Canon EF 50mm Nifty Fifty

Canon EFS 18-55mm

Canon EFS 55-250mm zoom

and now....

Canon EFS 10-18mm wide angle

Slik F740 Tripod

Taken with the EFS 55-250 on the 500D.

My plan was to upgrade my camera housing to something more current. There's a lot of things the 500D can't do, and it's time for me to move to the next step up. I use my gear enough to justify it, so I'm not worrying about shelling out the dough. 

I picked up a housing that's the latest and best thing out there for the price, and should not only improve the quality of the pictures I take, but should also do quite a few things on the video side that I need to do. 

The 90D does everything that I wish my 500D did, and in a much better way. This is a massive upgrade, and I'm super happy to have finally done it. I looked at the 80D and 70D as well, thinking about upgrading and saving money, but I couldn't get around the 90D and all the great features it has. Things that I can use right now. Yes, this is a professional camera. It is a very impressive piece of kit.

I also got a new lens to go with it, although I bought it a few days later. It's the 10-18mm wide angle. It's got a lot of curve in it, but it's a lot of fun. 

Shot with the 90D straight to jpeg. No editing only cropped. 90D with the 24mm Pancake.

I shoot mostly in Aperture Priority mode, which is the one controlling depth of field, or how blurry the background is. It's my favorite way to shoot, because you can work that in with your subject and single them out of the shot. The end result usually has a lot of "pop". 

The differences in sensor, focus and processing between the 500D and the 90D are practically incomparable. The gap is so stunning. The 90D has the eyes of a hawk, finding and focusing faster than YOU can, and certainly faster than the 500D can.

I've been looking at a lot of slot car videos over the years, and what has always bothered me is how difficult it is to pick up the action on a track with a camera. It seems there's this tendency for people to set a camera up in the corner and get an overview of the track and participants, rather than to focus on the action with closer footage. And overhead footage doesn't help much, as that just tends to make everything way too small and impersonal. There has to be another way, and I've been thinking about it. I think some things need to be addressed and worked out before it's possible to see good video of good slot car racing. I'm going to work on this with the new gear. I have ideas, and I'm looking forward to trying them. 

So expect lots of pictures, as well as a host of YouTube content. The 90D is going to make it so much easier to do slot car videos. I spent the day today testing the audio section of the camera. I tried 5 microphones, running either direct or through my mixer and into the camera, and I think I found the perfect combination for YouTube videos. I still have more testing to do, but once I'm in a good place I'll start putting out content. Shouldn't be too long. I've done some test videos and they've felt good so far. The further I get into the tech of this camera, the better the results. 

On the videos I've been doing, they've been mostly a straight shot of the car. I did that because I had to. The 500D didn't have anything remotely resembling autofocus for video, so I had to block a shot and stay there. Now that I don't have to do that, I can be in the shot as well, so now I'm rethinking my video surface and what happens there. I need to stay near the mixer for the time being, so I might start shooting video at my desk. But once I get a long enough mic cable, I'll be able to move to another place here, maybe the coffee table. It has a good size, is relatively mobile and I can easily put lights up. The desk is a little tricky because it's built for audio and not for video, so there's not much space there to put stuff like tripods and lights. But I'm still working on it, and so far I'm very happy with what's happening.

I forgot to mention: sometimes I use my iPhone for video, but not very often for pictures. I also have this cool little doohickey that you can clip to you phone that goes over the camera lens and adds a fisheye. Kinda fun:

So the experimentation continues. Expect things to be a little chippy around here until I have a better hang of the camera. I'm going to take a million pictures, though, and keep practicing. Kinda one of the reasons this blog exists, anyway.

Dogbone Super-Micro-Sprint [Postponed]

It's been a bit since the last race, and I just painted all those track pieces I got over the holidays. It seems like it took forever, but I had also started a new job, so my hours have changed. I don't have as much opportunity to race these days, but I take it where I can get it. I'll have afternoons free this week, so I spent the day setting up the track and tuning cars. 

Here's the track layout:

Got the idea to make the dogbone oval by putting together a giant multi-radius curve section. It takes up quite a bit of the living room floor.

I got inspired to do a big oval since I had painted all those 4/15 track pieces [and 3/30], so I wanted a large, fast corner. This track is extremely fast. There's very little reason to slow down in the corners, maybe just a little bit. Otherwise the car pitches out slightly and then corrects. You can go really really fast on this track. 

So it turns out that I didn't have time to do any of this race, and I needed to pick up the track and do some things. Probably better, though, since I wanted to spend time with each car I put on the track. I think once I get a good length of free time I'll set this layout back up and do some of that. 

As I was running cars, I felt like I wanted to tune each one of them specially for this layout. There would be a lot of emphasis on the tires, although other things would also be important. But no particular type of car stood out in practice laps. One 908 would be good, the other not so good, and so on. There isn't a reason to any of it either, so it's been mostly just running lucky. But I think if I sat down and tuned each car for this track, I'd get some interesting results. That big of a track allows you to really let the cars go at speed. So the question becomes, which car can make it around the curves without breaking out?

I thought about adding something into the layout to break it up a little, but the whole point is to make it nice a big and flowing. I'll do a more precise track after this one. 

It is going to be awhile before that's going to happen, though, so this layout may have to go on the back burner for awhile. 

I also need to get a wider angle lens. 

Slot Car Of The Year 2021

 I know this is a little late, but it's something I wanted to do earlier but didn't, so I thought I would do it now. A couple things....

I only count cars that I buy, so it would have to be a car that's new in 2021, and I have to own it. I can't claim knowledge of any car I don't own. Since I've bought a lot of cars that are older than a year, many that I own won't qualify. With that, I want to present to you....

SLOT CAR OF THE YEAR 2021

NSR Gulf Porsche 908/3

There are a lot of great slot cars out there, but I own this one. So I'm calling this the Slot Car Of The Year for 2021. Everything about it is either gorgeous or spectacular, from the fantastic finish on the body to the incredible handling ability. There is absolutely nothing negative I can say about this car. 

There are a lot of people who love the Gulf livery, and a lot who are tired of it. I happen to be one of the former, and find the Gulf livery to be one of the most eye-catching of the color combinations. Nevermind the historical background of the real life cars, which I often ignore in the slot car world. Gulf is a racing pedigree, so it kinda goes without saying that's it's iconic. 

If the classic racing film "Le Mans", Steve McQueen plays Michael Delaney, a driver of the Gulf Team Porsche 917. Definitely an interesting movie for a racing enthusiast, the film footage is spectacular. It was that movie that made me a fan of the Gulf livery and Porsche in general. I think I was 10 when I saw it.

But it really isn't just about the looks of this car. If that was the case, I might give the award to the Thunderslot Sunoco M6A. The Gulf 908 is an extraordinarily good slot car in general. 

I'm already a big fan of the 908 platform. I think the shortened body and wheelbase make for a particularly good race car. It feels like the kind of car that, if you didn't own one, you'd get beaten by the person who did. Very planted, goes fast through tricky sections, and handles the straights better than some of the other cars with a similar platform: Alfa, M6A, other 908s. 

In my slot car collection, as an NSR car it sits near the top performance-wise. Definitely a podium threat, even at this early stage of the game. I haven't even really started tampering with it yet.