Slot Car of the Year 2022

This is a bit of an easy one this year, even though it took forever for me to finally write this up. Ferrari 512M from Slot.it is a masterpiece. If Slot.it is going to step it up this far, the other companies have something to worry about. They already were a powerhouse slot car maker, and they have certainly put out some great stuff, but this just passes all the competition right up. Nothing that I've seen has been better.

 It showed up at the top of pretty much everybody's list as COTY, and it's not a surprise. While some brands put out some impressive cars [NSR's Porsche 917/10K and Revoslot's Ford Escort], they just weren't enough to beat this beauty. 

It's not just the looks where this car shines. It's also very nicely built on the inside, and is an extremely fast and well-balanced race car. It will win races. Lots of them.

I think it's all about the detail and workmanship. Not a millimeter was spared detail on the 512M. I'm sure this isn't the last model, and I've already heard Dave Kennedy talking about a Sunoco Special. You know I'll have to have that one. 

40 Cars

 I can't believe I have 40 cars now. I remember writing a post about what would be considered a "collection" and how many cars can possibly be run in the format that I have chosen. Running time trials forces you to look at each car and figure out how to make it win. When you're racing against other people, you only need to focus on your car, which is much easier. Time trials also force you to not play favorites, since it's a matter of milliseconds and it's difficult to gauge the winning car while driving it. 

Back when I wrote that post, I was reaching a crossroads and needed to decide which direction I'd be going. I was prepared to switch to a different class of cars from Slot.it, when I started looking elsewhere. No knock on Slot.it. I love them. I just had picked up everything that was available to me. 

Moving to another brand took a little time, but I eventually did it. Now I have nice coverage of four brands with plenty of options to choose from.

Back when I had only eight cars. Seems like a million years ago.

Are 40 cars too many? For my style of racing, I'd say no, but I don't know if I'm going to hit a threshold or not. Thing is, I can easily split my racing into subgroups and have loads of great challenges. And if I want to do particular things, I can do them with the confidence that it's not too much to handle in one session. 

I still practice the method of tuning the cars that came in last place first, trying to get them back into the show. What used to be one car in the old days has worked up to 4-5 cars now. It's easier to focus on getting the slower cars up to speed than trying to get the frontrunners to outrun each other. Other than tape-cleaning the tires, the cars race as they are, so any car that dogs it or struggles for time gets looked at and tuned up. 

When deciding which cars to race in a session, I've been finding that a random selection process works the best. I purposefully will put 2-3 of the slower, freshly re-tuned cars in the race, and sprinkle the rest of the field with a car or three from each brand. I try to do it in a random sort of way: I have separated my collection up into same brands/models so I can reach in and grab a car without looking and be happy with the selection. Sounds kinda dumb and kinda forced, but it works. I can basically take one car from each box and have a great field. Sure, not everybody gets a chance to race that day, but everybody does sooner or later. And if any cars get through the cracks and don't ever get picked, then I'll force those cars into the next race. 

A Peck [?] of Porsches. 917/10k

I've been working a lot, so my time has been limited. I leave the track layout up for up to a week, and put cars on when I get the chance. Seems lately that I don't get more than about 20 minutes or so before I have to do something else, but at least I get some racing in. Annoying part is having to dust down the track every time I want to race a car. Leaving a layout setup for a week brings a whole lot of dust and debris. No chance to run without a thorough dusting first.

I have to say that what is really important to this whole process is that I stuck with Classics, even if they came from different brands. They're more or less outfitted the same, so it comes down to workmanship and the car's form. This allows me to be even more random in which cars I select to race a particular session. Gotta hand it to the car brands for keeping the integrity there. It would be super easy and super wrong to just start putting faster motors in a car, or something like that. I have to give the brands credit for sticking within the limits of each class. This gives me 40 competitive cars.

We'll see what happens when we get to 80.

Quieting down the Revoslot Cars

 Now that I have the Tire Truer [and I'll likely be talking about the benefits of it for awhile], I'm starting to think of a few things that I'm looking to do. I know what I said about keeping these cars as close to box stock as I can while making few modifications, but with the tire "issue" out of the way, now I can see what might need to be done, or at least tried. 

And while I still have the Slot.it cars to put on the Tire Truer, my main concern right now is to quiet down the seven Revoslot cars that I have. They all make basically the same sound: a loud grind. 

This beauty is a lot of fun to drive, but man is it loud.

Harry at HomeRacingWorld has been doing a great series on his YouTube channel tuning his Revoslot cars, which I have been watching because we got the same cars at almost the same time. He talked about the issue causing so much noise, and it's that the cars come stock with a 12-tooth pinion. He suggested replacing that with a 9 tooth, did the thing, then showed off the cars running. It was certainly impressive and sounded much better. Then I was on Dave Kennedy's Sunday Chat and asked him about it, and he confirmed it. 

Since I didn't have access to the particular pinions Harry was talking about, I bought what my local dealer has in those measurements. I only got a couple to start, and if they work, I'll order more. I suspect they will. I also bought a Pinion Puller by Slot.it to make the job easier. And since I have 7 cars to change, tools like that save a lot of headache. 

UPDATE:

I got a chance to do it, so I started with the Escorts. Both of them came with 12-tooth pinions, and I planned to swap them out for 9-tooth pinions. That should cause less gear mesh issues. 

Using the pinion puller was pretty intuitive. I was able to swap out each pinion in a couple of minutes. The puller stayed nice and straight and didi an admirable job. 

After changing the pinions, I tested the cars. They were not only quieter, but they ran a lot smoother. No more of that grind, more like the sound of an aluminum chassis slot car. The sound is more like a small note than a loud noise. There is still a vibration issue in some of the cars, but I have some stuff to fix that. 

Since I had the pinion puller out, I thought I would mess around with one of the Alfa GTAs and see if I could get them quieter. They came with 9-tooth pinions, but I noticed on both Alfas that the pinion was sitting pretty far off the motor and was making contact with the spur gear on the back half. I pressed the pinion in so it was just off what looked like the obvious place it should be. This gave me more flexibility with the motor position, which have me more control over gear mesh. So that's a win!

My opinion is that the Revoslot Ford Escorts should come with 9-tooth pinions and not 12-tooth. Dave Kennedy was right in saying this was a mistake that needs to be fixed.

Overdrive Sprint Race - Saturday Special Invitational

 Alright, sports fans! A three-day weekend means it's time to go racing! This race is reserved for the cars that have gone through the Overdrive Tire Truer. At the time of this writing, that's 22 cars, but it's possible more cars will be added as time goes by. First round will be 25 laps, 2nd round of Top 10 cars will be 50 laps.

The track layout has been expanded from the previous test track to include a 360° loop overpass. All cars race on the inside lane. 

I was doing some practice laps and found it to be a little tricky to remember when the loop happens. I mean, it's there, and it's not going anywhere. But when you're driving it, something about going under it cleanly on the front stretch and having a somewhat blind turn into the loop adds to the challenge of keeping the speed up. Using this many 1/60's will make this a tighter, technical track anyway.

The Revoslot cars haven't been through the Truer yet, but they likely will towards the end of this first wave of 22 cars. They should be eligible to race when their time comes. Of the 22 cars, every one of them went through the Truer without issue, and I tested them after to make sure everything was okay. One car that gave me concern is the Tergal 908. It looked like the rubber was starting to flake off the outside edges of the tires. I'll run them as-is and keep an eye on them. If they act up I'll switch to urethanes. 

Overdrive Sprint Race Semi Final Notes:

First Round - 25 timed laps

Trued tires only

10 cars advance to Finals

Results:

Car                              Time          Lap      Offs           

1. Elva #47                       1:41.03       4.04        0

2. Lola T70 #21                1:42.69       4.11        0                  

3. Elva #2                         1:42.83        4.11       0                    

4. Lola T70III #7              1:44.22       4.16        0                   

5. Lola T70 Red                1:44.33       4.16       0

6. Jaegermeister 917/10    1:46.45       4.24        0                    

7. Lola T70 Blue               1:48.00       4.32        0

8. Bosch 917/10                1:48.29       4.33        0

9. Elf 908                          1:48.63       4.33        1  

10 Rothmans 908              1:48.79       4.36        0

11. Gulf 917 #10               1:48.84       4.36        0                 

12. Uniroyal 917/10          1:50.47       4.4          0                   

13. Sunoco M6A               1:51.39       4.44        0

14. Gulf 917 #9                 1:51.89       4.46        0

15. Lola T70 MKIII #8     1:52.28       4.48        0

16. Tergal 908                   1:57.28       4.68        0

17. Gulf 908                      1:57.75       4.68        1

18. Rothmans 917             1:58.25       4.72        0

19. Lucky 917                   1:59.23       4.76        0 

20. L&M #7                      2:00.14       4.8          1

21. Sunoco 908                 2:02.06       4.88        0                                                                      

22. L&M #6                      2:02.28       4.89        0

Okay, let's talk about some cars. Since the track was pretty tight with an extended overpass, I approached the master power like I would for a technical layout: set to about 2.5 and left there. This allowed plenty of throttle and more control over the car itself. I didn't need more power than that, so I went with the shorter setup. I think the cars benefitted from it.

Most of the field had completed their runs when this car got going. It didn't once slide out, no matter how hard I pushed it. Kept setting high laps, even late into the race. Absolutely crushed it.

While another late entry, I thought the red Lola ran a fantastic race. It has that same smoothness that the #21 Lola has. The trued tires have made this car whisper quiet and masterfully efficient. A respectable 5th place today.

Had the Elf car not wrecked today it would have been in the top 5. It ruled the 908s today, even while crashing. And it was all my fault. All of the crashes were on the last 180° turn. Otherwise it was running very well. Crash out and still finish in the top 10. Impressive. 

The best a Gulf Team car could do was 11th place. In order for them to be a dominant team, they're going to have to have better showings than that. While the #10 ran a smooth race, and the 917 wasn't the ideal car for this layout, it still isn't enough.

While I'm not surprised this car is giving me issues, it's still giving me issues. At first I thought I fixed it, being a tire rub. Now I'm not so sure. Intermittent power loss throughout the race. Suddenly it would run at about 80%, then it would be back again.

One of these cars runs really well. 

The other two are L&M cars.

And that oughta do it for this race. I'd say the tire truer certainly improved every car it got involved with, and also helped point out what needs to be done to the cars now that the tires have been taken care of. Lots of setup and adjustment on these cars now. 

If you're wondering whether to get a tire truer, think of it like this: if you're the kind of person that has multiple cars, have experimented with sanding tires freehand, have issues getting your cars to settle down, or just want to be a stickler for things, then YES. A tire truer is a necessity. Know that you'll need a power supply to run it, something like this:

Although it costs as much as two cars, the benefit it gives ALL the cars is totally worth it. Each car is a pleasure to drive now and they handle fantastically. I'm going to do the rest this week and get everyone ready for the Championship season.

New Tire Truer and Some timed laps

Okay, it's here.

The tire truer is the RSM4 from Overdrive Slotservice, the company I buy most of my cars from. They're a really great company located in southern Germany. 

The RSM4 is a very nicely made, precision instrument. It comes with everything you see in the photo and requires a little assembly. The idea is that you would true a set of tires on the axle it comes with, allowing you to have more control and precision over each car. There are available swivel arms with preset bearings, but I'm going to try it with my own from one of my cars and see how that works. I'll use one set of bearings for all the cars in a brand. A quick search tells me that NSR axles are 2.37mm and Slot.it axles are 2.38mm. So I'll have to use a set from each respective brand for the entire line. Thunderslot also [surprisingly to me] uses a 2.38mm axle, so I'll be able to do them and whatever Slot.it cars might need it together.

All this time I thought Thunderslot used a larger diameter axle. Turns out it's Revoslot that uses a 3mm axle. Huh...

Here's how it works: Remove the back axle from the car. I have mostly sidewinders, so I can leave the gear on. Mount the rear end to the swivel arm with bearings. Connect and mount the purple pulley. Tighten the control arm. Lower to desired position. Sand tires. 

As far as cars go, I think that I might end up doing all of them eventually. At first I thought I would do the last 6 or so cars that I bought, but each time I think about it I go back even further. Eventually got down to all but the first 5 cars, but now I'm thinking I'm going to do all of them. I'll need the larger adapter to do the Revoslot cars, but those will be done as well.

Meanwhile, I've set up a small track and will be running as many cars this week as I have time for. I might even go into the weekend, too. 

Since I was going to leave it up all week, it needed to be out of the way enough for me to live in the room as well. This layout worked pretty well for that, taking up all available floorspace without having to move my other stuff.

The layout isn't much, technically speaking, but the 4/15 curves at least make it interesting. I've been doing some room remodeling, and hopefully will have a bit more room soon. I'd like to avoid the 1/60 curves as much as possible. I had a layout with progressive curves, but it was too wide to do in my apartment without moving the couch out of the room.

Okay, so I got impatient and tried a set of tires. I figured I would do the Thunderslot and Slot.it cars first since I have the right bearings. I'm not sure if I can use the Slot.it bearings on an NSR axle, but I'm going to try. I decided to use the GT40 #11 since it never really ran right and will use the bearings for each car. It took about 15 minutes to do the tires and was much easier than I expected. 

It was a little strange at first. Usually I sand tires by hand, so I'm always putting them down for a few seconds then checking them, when on the RSM4 you just lower the wheels to the desired height and leave it until it's finished. The sanding block is designed to be moved side to side, which can help you fine tune the tire and get a nice even finish. I connected the RSM4 to my 30v/5a power supply and got started.

I went with a slower rotation to not make the tires so hot. That worked great and I like very much that it's doing a nice, even job of it. I read somewhere that a drop or so of water occasionally can help keep the tires from getting too hot and chunking away. 

The bearings worked fine and I might not buy the optional swing arms with bearings built in. Once I lined up the bearings with the open ends of the swing arm, they stayed in position the entire time. The purple pulley also needs to be properly lined up so it doesn't wobble at speed.

I did the GT40 tires as a test and got them to a very nice, even finish. I'm going to start with Thunderslot cars and see how far I can get today. My daughter is coming over and we'll be racing, but I don't know if I'll be able to do tires while that's happening. If not, then I'll start them this evening.

Car                       Time         Lap         Offs 

Lola T70III#7*   2:35.46       3.1            0    

Lola T70III#7     2:23.12       2.86          0

Lola Red^           2:50.14       3.4            0     

Lola Red             2:22.94       2.84          0

Lola Blue^          2:51.49       3.42          2 

Lola Blue            2:25.24       2.9            0

Lola T70 #21      2:22.73       2.83          0

Elva #47             2:20.20       2.8            0

Elva #2               2:22.94       2.84          0

^denotes untreated tires 

*denotes hand sanded tires

Okay....there's an obvious improvement to the cars and their lap times. I've done 10 cars so far today and every one of them has improved dramatically. Huge difference in contact and the associated smoothness and feel. Even cars that were already performing well got a significant boost. I'm not lying when I say that so far this is proving to be worth the purchase price. 

Lola T70III#7

The T70III was probably the least effected of the cars so far, but it was also one with the most hand-sanded tire work. Shaving 3/10ths of a second on a 3 second lap is pretty respectable. I'd certainly call that an improvement. It is also whisper quiet now, and handles much better at speed.

The Red Lola. Because it's Red.

The Red Lola [as well as the Blue Lola] had brand new, untreated tires. They had only been lubed and oiled. So 6/10ths of a second is HUGE. 

That 2:22, 2:23 race time is looking more and more like it's going to be the norm for fast lap times.

I finished up the Thunderslot cars without doing before/after races. I got enough of a sample to see that there's improvement no matter what, and it's a BIG improvement. I just started the NSR cars, which are probably going to be pretty easy as they're mostly slicks. 

Seemed like most of the cars were running right around a 2.8/2.9 lap time, even if they started off wildly different. Once I did the tires, each car reacted the same way, running very smoothly and quietly. I was able to run the truer at various speeds and it sanded the tires very nicely.  It created a solid contact patch that was easy to see and feel. Cornering improved dramatically, as did acceleration. 

I think the tire truer is going to prove to be much more valuable than I expected, even if I don't use it all that often. 

New Season Scoring Procedure

 Thinking about how I will be running my next season. Gonna try this:

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 Breakdown.

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. 

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 5 points for racing in the final.

Place     Points      3rd race bonus     2nd race bonus     Points

1.             21             +5                          +1                   27  

2.             20             +5                          +1                   26

3.             19             +5                          +1                   25

4.             18             +5                          +1                   24

5.             17             +5                          +1                   23

6.             16             +5                          +1                   22

7.             15             +5                          +1                   21

8.             14             +5                          +1                   20

9.             13             +5                          +1                   19

10.           12             +5                          +1                   18

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.

__________

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. 

                   

New Car: Revoslot Ford Escort MK1 Salzburgring 2012

 No idea about the historical significance of this car, it being in a 2012 race and all. But here it is:

I love both of these cars, and they go along great with the Alfa Guilias. They're pretty much the same size, are tremendously tight and compact. I lubed/oiled/sanded this car and got it some track time. The mesh seems pretty good, although it and the Kiku are a little on the loud side. It reminded me of how loud the Porsche GT2 was when I first got it. I taped up the chassis and the vibration stopped. 

The color differences between this car and the 917/10 with the Jägermeister orange are considerable, and I'm wondering which company got it right. The new team will be the Jägermeister team, even if the colors aren't perfect. This is going to take the 917/10 from Team Kausen, which will affect that team's ability to run 3 cars. The Jägermeister team is going to be a tricky one, since I'm not really sure how the Escort is going to perform against the rest of the cars.

I didn't take many pics just yet. Just a couple quick side views. More to come.

So that's the big question; just how well the Revoslot cars are going to do against the other brands. The first two cars I got, the Ferrari and the Playstation GT2, would sometimes do well, sometimes mid-pack, sometimes not so well. The Porsche tuned up quicker and is a good runner, but the Ferrari is the one that most recently beat everybody. 

So where do we put the Escorts and the Guilias? We hope that their small size is going to make them hyper-competitive. But if the Revoslots end up in a group well off the pace and staying there, then that would answer the question. I'm kinda thinking that won't happen, but I just don't know. I setup the track today and am going to leave it out for the week, running exclusively new cars. There will be around 10 of them, and I'll be tuning and running laps. At the end I'll do some timed ones to see what's going on with them. 

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This has been the craziest pre-season I've had yet. Usually around this time a year I'm starting to think about possible holiday additions, but instead I spent the summer stocking up on cars and practically doubling my collection. I'm going to be slowing down now, and focusing on the cars that I've gotten. I'll likely pick up a car or two over the holidays, but I'm not going to go crazy. 

One thing that has been bothering me is that I have a lot of tire work to do. I'm treating tires very quickly, a bit carelessly and surely unevenly. I keep thinking that a tire truer is the way to go. I think I have enough cars to warrant it. There are at least a dozen cars in various states of doneness tire-wise. 

I already have a power supply to handle it. I just need to pick up the unit itself and a few accessories to go with it.

Nevermind. I just ordered it.