Preseason Final Tuneups

 So far things are going off as planned. Yesterday I went through the last four cars and lubed/oiled and setup the chassis. Tomorrow comes the tire truing, and with any luck, track laying. It's cold outside, so I'm staying in and it's giving me a great opportunity to do this. 

The Ferrari and the M6B had already been lubed/oiled, so I flared the brushes and set the chassis to my standard "on the loose side of snug", with plans for fine tuning when the track is together. Before that can happen, I need to do some living room cleanup and organization so I can get the track layout down. I'm planning on going with this:

There are a couple of reasons I like this layout: first, the big loop is actually a bit of a brain teaser, as the entry and exit to the loop line up, so your eyes tend to keep going down the straight and not turn into the loop. I know you'd think "no it doesn't", but trust me, it does. The other straight goes under the loop, which I think adds to the mind-bendedness of the loop entry. Also, I like that I get a little bit more challenge out of the layout. I'll be able to go quite fast through the blue curves, but I'll need to be careful going through the brown ones. I'll be on the inside lane the entire way, which is also challenging. This is also a track I wanted to revisit after trying it the first time. There are a handful of layouts I want to go back to. This is just the first one that popped up. I think I might be able to add a straight or two.

The Ferrari is gonna be a hauler, no doubt about it. I expect good things from this car.

Timing of events are coming out well. I figure I've got about an hour's worth of tires to true and I'll be ready to set up the track. I'll of course be cleaning all the track pieces and making sure everything is up and running before race days begin. 

My plan after the track is setup is to begin a 'test and tune' session, where each car will get a handful of laps to get a look and have any adjustments made. This will be as much pre-race setup as I want to be doing to the entire field. After that it'll be dealt with on a more individual basis. So each car will get some untimed laps to work out on for a bit before the racing starts. I'll be taking a look at tires especially, and will go to replacements if needed.

oh....nothing. I'm just going to put this here....

A couple of quick observations:

1. I'm thinking that having only 20 cars receive points after the race might not be enough. I might extend that to 40 cars, so the rest of the field has a chance to sort themselves out a bit. Plus, having 15 cars missing out on points is a lot better than what I have planned now.

As of tonight's count, I have 55 eligible cars for these races. A full 35 cars will be eliminated and receive no points for the race, since a car needs to finish in the top 20 to score points. I can tell you that the cars run so close on my track that there are going to be a load of upsets. When more than half the field will be going off with 0 points, that's gonna hurt. We'll see how it works. If it's a disaster, I can change it on the fly and can back-credit points. The 20-car plan might sort out after a few races and actually work. If not, then I'll do that. Although the more I think about it, the more I like 40 as the cutoff point.

2. It's practically anybody's race. The track layout design is one that doesn't offer much in the way of long, fast straights, which levels the playing field for a lot of the cars. 

3. As I'm doing preseason testing, if I find the Revoslot cars are going to run off pace, I might consider the class addition. We'll see about that. They'll still race as they would normally, just their scoring would be slightly different. While still getting points for whatever place they come in, they'll also have their own separate group. So they'll have their own championship inside of a championship. Nice thing is I can make the decision to do it after the race has been run. That way I can see if it'll actually be needed or if the Revoslot cars will be directly competitive with the plastic chassis cars. 

4. Gonna be a long setup, but now that the holidays are out of the way, I don't have much blocking me. I might actually have a little more room these days, as I moved the drums to a practice room and pushed the TV back, as well as rebuild the Lego build area. 

5. I haven't done any photography lately of cars as I have been mostly setup for video and working on a project for a friend. I'll get that up and running when the time is right as well, and likely run video as well as pics. Still, I want to race, so I might not do any video so that I can focus on the racing for the time being. I miss it and want to do it. The camera will naturally come out, but I might not get wall-to-wall coverage of the first one. I am a one-man operation after all.

None of these cars has raced in anger yet.

This is going to be pretty monumental around these parts. I don't expect anything less than epic racing. One thing I did over the past 10 years is amass a pretty epic collection of racing cars. There are so many potential contenders that I really don't know how deep into it I should go. The more I think about it, the more I think that well over 3/4 of the field has a shot of winning this thing. That's really saying something. Considering how close previous races had been with the field before, I fully expect there to be more of that, with likely some pretty close calls coming forward. 

But when I look down the list of cars, it's just going to be crazy good. The tight track will slightly favor the shorter cars, putting all the 908 and Elva and such in a really nice position. I'd expect good racing from the 917/10s, the Lolas, the 512Ms....I could go on. It's insane to think about. I can't put a top 3 together, or even pick a winner. So I'll be focused on making sure each car is running well prior to the race, and they can sort out the rest of the details.

Why Do I Do It This Way?

 In the 10 years I've been doing this blog, I don't think I ever explained why I approach slot cars the way that I do. I don't think it's particularly weird or anything, just a little different. If anything, I'd say it's a slightly refined approach to what most people do anyway. 

My attitude with slot cars has been pretty consistent through the years: what comes in the box should be good enough for the car to run, and with tweaks it can run even better. Sounds realistic to a lot of people I'm sure. And I learned that, for the most part, that's true. I'd say the only thing that would probably be a needed replacement on many cars would be tires. Other than that, they should run well out of the box and better once set up. 

I guess you could say I have expectations, but if I'm paying 70 bucks plus for a car, I'd like it to not only run, but run well.

Naturally there are racers at clubs and even at home that go way above and beyond any of this, and that's great. This is in no way a claim that my way is better than anybody else's. In fact, I don't even think it's "my way." Feels more like just a way. And that way is to get the most out of the car that you bought without having to fork over for replacement parts just to get it to compete.

Thankfully many brands of cars these days run a similar setup, so it's possible to race other brands against each other fairly and competitively. This blog is proving that.

So I'd like to be able to buy a car from a manufacturer and know that it would run fine out of the box, and I think these days many manufacturers do just that. I will tune them and tweak them 'til the cows come home, as is my right. But I'm going to do so without motor swaps or expensive higher-performance parts. Sure, I have a handful of screws and such for when I lose one, and I have loads of replacement tires for when they are needed, but I generally don't do anything upgradey to the cars I run. I want to see if what the companies make will do the job. Sure, occasionally I'll get a car with problems, and I have before. But those were all individual events and not design flaws. And part of the fun is getting those cars to work well despite whatever problems they might come with. With some it's an uphill battle, but with others it's a success when they show improvement.

Something like this McLaren M6B, which has absolutely no design flaws, slips in all quiet like so nobody notices. Then WHAMMY! Wins it all and is Champion of Life [or something equally important]

I have enough cars now to do loads of different comparisons. Makes, brands, teams, constructors...and others that I'm sure I can come up with. I'm curious to finally find out what is the fastest brand on my track, and I think I have enough samples to come to some conclusions. Setting up a series of races and getting some good endurance challenges out of them should help figure that out. Running 57 cars can take awhile, so I'll likely do long races over multiple days. Short races are unsatisfying. I'd like to run 100-lap heats if I can, and do them in small groups so I can spend a little time with the cars as well. Then do updates here with pics and all that.

You might be wondering how the different brands of cars can compete against one another. Some are clearly more expensive than others, and some brands have the reputation of being the fastest and the best. But when cars across all manufacturers are made with similar motors and parts and construction, it's possible to tweak a car to get more out of it, which makes it more competitive. I've had plenty of examples of various brands being hundredths off from each other on lap times. After all, they might look good on paper, but they still have to race. And I will be trying to get the most out of each car. As the series goes on I'll tweak and tune the cars so they can remain on equal footing throughout the competition. I'd be hard-pressed to believe that anybody would run away with it, rather it could get pretty hairy towards the end. I have my suspicions and predictions going in, but I don't know how confident I am in some of them. I've seen enough with these cars to know that pretty much any car could win at any time. I can think of a half dozen "favorites" to win it all out of my collection.

So there it is. I hope this somewhat explains what I'm all about and why I do it this way. I'm excited to find out just how well these cars are going to do. Will it be some hotshot from outta nowhere or some 10 year-old car that's just going to spank the britches off the whippersnappers? Will the Gulf Team reign supreme? Or will it be some journeyman in an Elva? Do tires matter, and if so, will replacement tires give cars an edge over others? What about the cars running the secret gaskets? 

There is so much pre-season drama building. This should be an exciting series. I would expect more to unfold over the coming days. 

Winter Notes 2025

 So I pretty successfully stayed away from slot cars for the xmas holidays. It was difficult at times, but the vertigo kept me in check. I also had a pretty heavy bout of Covid as well. Instead I focused on getting through the holidays and playing my guitar. 

But one thing I didn't do was buy slot cars, and that was pretty much the point. I didn't even look at the websites until just days before xmas, and then only briefly. I didn't want to find a car I needed to have. And up until tonight I hadn't looked for any length of time. I found at least two "buy now" cars that I wanted, but I haven't bought them yet. I probably will eventually, but I'm taking my time. I want the cars to matter, and I feel like if I get too many at a time they won't have any significance.

I'm curious how a few of the cars I've gotten recently are going to run. My last significant race day was not long after I got the P68. There are at least six cars that are midway through their initial first tuneup and haven't set a lap time yet. There's the Policar Ferrari 412P, which looks way better than I expected Policar to be, and will put it in a curious position wherever it ends up. 

So since I'm at 55 cars [57?] and taking a break from purchases, as well as feeling better from vertigo, I think I'm almost ready for a race weekend. I'll need a few days to tuneup the new cars, but that'll happen. I'm going to go with one of the more familiar track plans for me so I can go back and compare old times as well. I'm going to use my race plan that I wrote up in September 2022. Looks like this:

Racing Rules

All cars are eligible to race with exception of the F1 cars. Elimination races will consist of three events: the first 25 lap race will eliminate 12+ cars, bringing the field down to 20 for the next round. The second 50 lap race will eliminate 10 cars, bringing the field down to 10 for the third round. The third 100 lap race is the final. 

Each race will be held on a new layout, with design focus on the inside lane.

All races are crash included, which means any car that crashes does not stop the clock. 

Each car has tires tape-cleaned before each race. New cars may have tire sanding and other adjustment done. Any other adjustments are noted and must be finished before race.

A car that cannot finish the race is a DNF. A car that cannot start the race is a DNS.

If a car progresses to a higher round and then breaks down, the top car to not make the round will be substituted in. The Breakdown car will lose all points and shuffle to the back of the points grid.

Team Scoring Rule allows for only two cars maximum to carry over their points as team points at any given race.

A team that has a car DNF is still considered a team, even if only one car is left to compete.

3-lap crash rule is in effect for all races. This means if a car crashes within the first 3 laps, they can be taken off the track, inspected and tire-taped if needed, and restarted on lap 0. 

Each car will be referred to by its sponsor, model number and car number if necessary. For example, the NSR Bosch Porsche 917/10k #2 will be known as the Bosch 917/10. Gulf 917 #9, Gulf 917 #10, Gulf 908 #1, etc. 

Race scoring would look something like this:

Car                                    Time           Lap         Offs            

LM 917/10 #7                 2:21.04         2.82          0

Rothmans 917K #9         2:22.21         2.84          0

Gulf 908 #1                     2:22.23         2.84          0

LM 917/10 #6                 2:25.70         2.9            0

Gulf 917K #10                2:26.11         2.92          0 

Sunoco 908                     2:27.26         2.94          0 

Lola T70 #8                    2:28.48         2.96          0  

Bosch 917/10 #2             2:29.70         2.98          1

Gulf 917K #9                 2:34.33          3.08          0

Elva #47                         2:36.56          3.12          1 

________________________________________

Rothmans 908 #95         2:38.47          3.16          2

Lola T70 #7                    2:45.83         3.3            1                                                                                  

Ford GT40 #8                  ------------DNF------------      

The three races will look like this:

First race: Entire field elimination race - 25 lap sprint. 21st place and back are eliminated.

Second race: Top 20 cars - elimination race - 50 laps. Each car racing now eligible for points. 11th place and back eliminated.

Third race: Top 10 cars - final - 100 laps. Cars score a progressive increase of points for racing in the final.

Place     Points      3rd race bonus     2nd race bonus     Points

1.             21             +10                        +1                   32  

2.             20             +8                          +1                   29

3.             19             +6                          +1                   26

4.             18             +5                          +1                   24

5.             17             +5                          +1                   23

6.             16             +4                          +1                   21

7.             15             +4                          +1                   20

8.             14             +3                          +1                   18

9.             13             +3                          +1                   17

10.           12             +3                          +1                   16

2nd Race Elimination

11.            11                                         +1                   12

12.            10                                        +1                    11

13.            9                                          +1                    10

14.            8                                          +1                     9

15.            7                                          +1                     8

16.            6                                          +1                     7

17.            5                                          +1                     6

18.            4                                          +1                     5

19.            3                                          +1                     4

20.            2                                          +1                     3

1st Race Elimination

Each car scoring from 21-32+ receives 0 points for the three races. No bonus points or negative points will be rewarded.

Team points will be distributed to the two fastest cars on the team, regardless of how many cars compete. The points distributed will be carried over from their daily point totals. Team championship will happen, as will an individual championship and a constructor's championship. 

__________

I like this scoring for a number of reasons. First, I think it spreads the scoring out a little bit with round bonuses provided. This will award consistency throughout multiple events. I also like that the early victims of elimination get no points, which will help inspire more competition on the slower end. There are a lot of cars that will come home with nothing, so they'll need to work just to get the smallest amount of points. 

This will make it harder for teams to dominate. Short races yield unexpected results. Not entirely uncommon for a really fast car to be derailed by something, hurting their chances for a good result. 

To win, you'll have to be dominant in three races. And while yes, you only have to score in the upper half of the field to go onto the next round, it's still going to be a challenge to find out where that cutoff is and how fast to go on the track. 

Plan is to get started in the next couple of weeks, maybe as early as next week.

If, during the first race, the results show significant grouping...and I'm thinking of the Revoslot cars in particular...I might have to look into breaking it off into classes. If all the Revoslots race near each other but well off the pace of the rest of the field, then I'll have to consider making a GT class. This would likely change the scoring, but I think that's something I could probably do after the race has been run. If all this were to happen, they would still race Le Mans style and compete for an overall win as well as a class win. And it wouldn't bother me at all to break it up into classes. I have 10 of the GT Revoslot cars, which is more than enough to have a great race. That would leave 45 cars to race in the Classics class. But since those are all Le Mans and Can Am cars, they can all race together in the big group. This would be more in case the Revoslot cars, with their aluminum chassis and different setup and design, couldn't keep up with the rest of the field. I'm not sure about that yet, so I'm waiting to see the results. I'll probably know halfway through the first heat whether it'll work or not. 

Winter Holdup

 So this is kinda not so slot car related, but it kinda affects things here, so I'll mention it. About a week after my last post, I went to a couple of concerts, stayed out way too late, and somehow ended up with vertigo. That's what the doc says. One of the bad parts of having vertigo is it make it pretty difficult to get up and down off the floor. So I haven't been doing much racing lately. In fact, I tried it once and it lasted about the time it took me to sit down with some track pieces in my hand. 

It's probably going to be awhile. I don't know how long this will take to right itself completely, and neither does the doc. Also, I have a new job starting soon, and that'll help straighten this out. So there's stuff going on. 

I also decided to not buy cars for awhile. I have a lot and should focus on those. As much as I love new things, there has to be a limit. And since I'm not racing right now, there's no sense in buying more cars. 

So I'm on a bit of an unexpected hiatus. Not much I can do about that. I miss my table. 

New Car: NSR Ford MKIV Martini Racing

 I'm back from my summer off-season, so I haven't been racing at all. I guess this car might be a fantasy livery. I can't find any information of Martini Racing in the 1967 Le Mans when the MKIV won it all. But that was the red #1 Shelby American entry with A.J. Foyt and Dan Gurney driving. I'm pretty sure the MKIV only raced one year then was outlawed. Of course, facts be damned here at Mikey Hanson Slot Cars.

Big Sexy.

This design was called the "Breadtruck" I guess, due to it's lack of rear view. It's a beast of a car. Not expecting it at all to handle as well as a GT40 does. 

Hard to say where this car is going to do best. It'll have to really perform to make up the size difference. 

New Car: Thunderslot Ferrari Can-Am 350 Riverside 1967

Well, I'm back from my summer vacation and all rested and ready for another fantastic slot car season. A lot of it was spent playing guitar, which is a pretty great way to do it. A few trips, but nothing special. Mostly solving musical loose ends. And now that they are completed, we can get back into it. Right after I went on vacation, I got two cars that have been patiently waiting to do stuff. 

 This one kinda goes in the "need to own" pile, along with the Revoslot Datsun 510, Slot.it Ferrari 512M, to name a few others. Cars that are being released that are absolute must-haves. And this Ferrari is another one of those cars. 

Thunderslot already makes great cars...maybe even the best cars...so picking up this one is a no brainer for that fact alone. Great looking and absolutely solid build quality. It'll be nice watching all the new converts to Thunderslot, although it'll make finding cars more difficult due to their popularity. That's okay. 

This is a Ferrari, although licensing issues prevent them calling it one. That's okay. It's still a great car and it's not going to effect me in the slightest that it might be missing a badge or two.

The view most competitors will get of this car. Nice of them to display everything.

Performance-wise, I expect this car to handle and perform similarly to the McLaren M6A. Longish nose, short but boxy back end. Probably not quite as adept as the Elva, but should still keep up with it. Of course, being a Thunderslot car puts it in an instant contender status, which is a good place to start. 

Slot cars these days are so well made that you can depend on them almost completely to be what they claim to be. And this is not just in design, which is getting much better, by the way, but also in production. You can rely on results telling you things and you wouldn't have to factor in excuses like "maybe this car is a dud." I haven't found any duds. Like, none. I can pretty safely say that the brands of cars that I own meet up to all expectations of them. There isn't the floppy, wishy-washy thing where you're hoping to get a good one and not a bad one. 

This is kinda the reason why I decided I didn't want to review slot cars on YouTube. There's nothing to say about them. They're all tuned to the hilt, they all have top shelf ingredients, and they all come from manufacturers that have built reputations on making quality slot cars for hobby racing. So for me to come on here and say that "Brand X is definitively the best" doesn't really work. That's why we race them. But for you to be able to take a car out of the box today, give it a little oil/lube and tire sanding and THAT'S ALL you need to do. 

I expect that I won't have to replace or upgrade a thing on this car, or any other of the 55 or so cars I have now. They're just that good. This car is no different.

Late Summer Break

 This is something I normally do around April or May, and usually lasts until June, but due to circumstances I wasn't able to take my usual break, so it's timing out now. This is a break from dedicating weekends to racing. It gives me a chance to work on other things, get out in the sun, and re-energize myself for the winter. 

You gotta understand...I do this so that I don't burn out. I found this trick to work with most of my hobbies. If you force yourself to take a timed vacation from your hobbies, you'll come back to them with new interest. Now that doesn't mean I stop shopping. Most certainly not. I also don't stop running /r/slotcars. I just take a break from the physical aspect of setting up the track and racing on the floor on the weekend. 

This last batch of race cars has been so good that I can't pick a favorite out of the bunch. Each time I look at the last 6 or so cars that I've picked up, my favorite changes each time.

Usually the break lasts about a month or so. I'm trying to time it so it's right around when the weather changes. Plus there are a lot of concerts coming up, and I've been doing loads of show photography these days. But I'll probably end up buying a car or two during the break. I'm waiting on the Thunderslot Ferrari. Also want to pick up a couple of the GT40 MKIV cars from NSR. And then the holiday cars start showing up. 

So I'm hoping this all works out. Pretty sure it will. And it's not like I'm burned out and at risk of stopping. On the contrary. I'm forcing myself to do this. But I know that it'll matter later. It always does.

Such good cars this batch.

__________

So what's coming?

I'm going to start up the racing series right when I get back. I've thought it all out now, and have gotten to a place where I can go ahead and do it. I'm going to post results here, and have been planning video coverage as well. I have rules that'll be well established for the series. Because of the huge amount of cars, I'm going to feature less track layouts, which means less overall races. It'll still be something like 11 or 15 races instead of the planned 21. I'll have everything laid out with easy explanations. 

Despite not racing, that doesn't take photography off during the break, nor does it mean I won't be posting here. I'm going to see if I can stretch the break to the end of August. We'll see if that works. 

Don't forget to get outside this summer. Stay well.