The November/December editions of Model Car Racing Magazine and Slot Magazine are out now...

   

Model Car Racing is a 60-page bi-monthly magazine produced in the US by Robert Schleicher (author of Slot Car Bible and many more slot car books). Each issue looks at a wide range of scales, formats as well as featuring recent releases.

This is the line-up for the November/December magazine:

• Carrera and Scalextric 2020 models?
  
• Shadowfax 1931 Bugatti T54
  
• Proto Slot Kits and MMK 1965 Lotus 40
  
• Track Test on 7 cars
  
• Tech Tips - tuning with weight
  
• Slot Mod tracks
  
• Vintage racing
  
• Digital racing
  
• Real race track plans
  
• History of the hobby
  
• HO racing
  
• New cars
  

The Model Car Racing website is modelcarracingmag.com. The magazine is available in the UK from Pendle Slot Racing priced £7.50 - the NovemberDecember issue is already in stock: www.pendleslotracing.co.uk/model-car-racing-mag-issue-108


   

Slot Magazine another bi-monthly publication and is also available from Pendle Slot Racing, priced £5.50. The magazine can also be bought direct from the publisher and at some WH Smiths stores in the UK. It is also available on phones and tablets via Google Play and the App Store.

Here's what's in the latest issue:

Tail of the Prancing Horse
We open a Pandora’s Box, which is the history of Ferrari’s sports cars seen through the eyes of slot car manufacturers

Williams into McLaren will go
We show you how to convert an FW07 into an M29 – a piece of cake!

Thunderbirds are Go
A review of the latest new model from Scalextric, the mid 1980’s Ford Thunderbird

2019 NSR Championships
We not only attend but race at this prestigious manufacturer backed weekend of slot racing

Goodwood Revival
Terry takes a look at some of the fabulous machines on display, especially Ferrari that tie in with the collecting feature

The Firebolt
Richard Hills tells the story of this unusual model, which was originally designed to be powered by a small jet engine

Team Alfa
Mark Hatton shows us how to create a complete race team based around one of the latest F1 teams

Ferrari ’s white elephant?
Terry delves into this overlooked Le Mans challenger and builds it as a resin kit

Wacky Races
The famous TV cartoon series is now bought to life by this new Scalextric Micro set

Galaxie Quest
We look at the possibilities of how to complete the Professor Motor1/32nd scale Ford Galaxie body kit

The Scalextric club is back
What’s in store for members of this relaunched collectors club?

NSR have just posted this fabulous video tutorial on their YouTube Channel. It's not the first white kit video they have produced - there is also one for the Porsche 908/3 and another for the Corvette C7R. It is great to see the skills of an NSR employee as they assemble the car and handle the tools they use.

The ever popular club cars provided another night of fun and really close racing. Keith has been maintaining the cars originally built by Peter and he has managed to keep them all competitive by judicious swapping of bodies and tyres etc. 

The result is a class that nearly everyone enjoys and it helps some of the newer members race a car that they know is competitive with the others. In fact Mark Grieves and Stuart Freemen excel in this class, Mark qualifying first for the A final and Stuart setting the joint fastest lap with Keith.

Kate was cheered by not qualifying for the bottom final - in fact it was between Mark Riches and Kevin Parsons who was returning to the track having competed in one of our four hour races almost a year ago. And he got down to some seriously good times although Mark Riches' greater experience of the track told in the end.

In the C final Terry slowly pulled away from Mark Riches and Andy who were fighting over second., Andy got it in the end with Kate fourth but setting her fastest ever lap of our track. 

The B saw the lead change many times with Stuart bouncing from first to last on a couple of occasions. I think everyone led at some point but in the end it was a last lap, last corner effort from Paul that took the win from Terry with Peter third and Stuart fourth. 

The A final saw Keith and Mark fight for the lead with myself and Paul contesting third. Keith won from Mark with myself third and Paul fourth. Great night.

Next week its GT3 and the last counterclockwise lappery of the year.

Keith         25

MarkG      23

Ken           21

Paul          20

Terry          19

Peter          18

Stuart          17

Andy            16

MarkR          15

Kate              14

KevinP           13

I discovered over the weekend that I live in the same town where the Red Bull 2017 Grand Prix Guides - featuring Carrera Digital132 track and Carrera cars - were filmed and edited. You might remember them - a mix of cute animation and quirky live action with the Red Bull and Toro Rosso drivers edited in...

Here's the first one:



The SheepFilms team of Brighton-based artists and filmmakers built all the tracks in one of their studios using the track plans on the Carrera website (www.carrera-toys.com/route-planner). With the Carrera track system being so big, very few of the designs fitted the three 4 x 8 foot boards, so there were quite a few tweaks. Denise, the team member who I was chatting to, created the sets on an incredibly tight schedule and also shot most of the track and car footage. She is particularly proud of the Monaco film set, which was mostly built out of the packing cases the Carrera equipment arrived in from Austria. The track plan needed considerable modification to fit the drivers' dialogue...

         

And here's the Monaco video guide...



If you search "Red Bull slot car video" in Google you'll find most of the season's videos on the Red Bull website. Here's another that's on YouTube - a guide to Suzuka...




And the postscript is... I am now the proud owner of the Carrera Ferrari 458 that was used as the camera car in some of the videos

1. You make a call to a govt department, you get diverted.................the person you need to talk to is off (probably another sicky) and nobody else is dealing with the info you require.
   
2. Website language choice - which version of English do you prefer...but there's NEVER an English option always some other version we English don't use
   
3. Missed calls (5 or more times in the last 10 minutes)...doesn't bother to leave a message and it's from a private number
   
4. petrol price hike in TT week
   
5. Public sector pay rises above what everyone in the private sector gets and they still whinge
   
6. Disproportionate representation of minority interests in the media
   
7. BBC bias
   

That'll do for starters

If I search for something and under "Item Location" tick the box "UK Only" I still get presented with items that are in China. I don't mind buying stuff from Peoples Republic of China and have done several times but if I am keen for quick delivery, Its a pain to have sort through "erroneous" listings to check where the item will come from.
This includes clearly bogus listings that state London as the item location but when you check the business address it is in Shenzhen in Peoples Republic of China.
For example:- https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2x-car-batter...2783697454
   
Of course, it would be handy if one could check a GB VAT Ref but there is no such facility in the public domain.

Leo

How many of the programs these days claiming to have celebrities in them have Z listers and relatives of, or so called social media/blogger type people.
They don't count as Celebs in my book, I am like: who ??
 Not that most of these programs appeal to me anyways, but if it say celeb in the title one should expect household names

So having admittedly not followed the all the races, I stumbled across the season finale today just after the 2nd race.
I saw the "incident" with Turkington, and the last race was great, with Karma coming good (whatever you think of the incident it wasn't Turkington's fault).

But back to topic, I saw a Scalextric sponsor logo on one of the drivers visor and thought how cheeky is that !
Not only do they make less than half the grid in slot form, the cars are not the best driving things IMO.

All it needs is the rest of the field (BMW 330, Ford Focus, Audi S3, Vauxhall Astra, Merc A class, Toyota Corolla), and all the current liveries.
Then just concentrate on ensuring all of the guide is in the slot, and having enough plastic and/or design around the motor to back axle area to eliminates the flex and all could be rosy.
The tyres, I can forgive, they aren't the only make to rely heavily on magnets for traction.

Yes they may be designed for their own track system with magnets, but a little thought in design could go a long way to making them useful non magnet and wood racers.

   

What it says on the tin - a must-have for Scalextric Digital racers - and it is on offer at Pendle Slot Racing in the UK at the moment: www.pendleslotracing.co.uk/inox-mx3-lubricant-needle-bottle-60ml

Pendles currently sell both the 60ml bottle with needle applicator and the 125ml pump spray. The bigger bottle works out better value, but I'd definitely recommend decanting into dropper bottles before you use it - please don't waste your Inox and get your cars, track and everything else filthy  by using the pump spray. Less is more (and more is less) with Inox.

What I do with Inox is put a drop of the stuff on each braid of a couple of cars and run them round the track, lane changers and pit lane at the start of the session - but only if I haven't used the track for a while. That's really all you need - just a few drops will give you a smooth digital racing session and protect the track afterwards (don't wipe it off!). My first 60ml bottle has lasted me five years...

At WHO/digital we use Inox with the first six cars on track at the start of the day or the evening - that's all we need for our 120+ foot layouts. It solves so many annoying issues it makes no sense at all not to use it. You know what to do.

   

   

Team Slot TS-12802 - Alpine A310 V6 GTP - Le Mans 1978

There is some excitement brewing about a new Team Slot car due to be released soon. There have been some very nice Alpines in the Team Slot line-up over the years - mostly rally versions - but this car promises to be a perfect partner to the previous A310 Le Mans GTP release. Steve at Staffs Slot Cars - Team Slot's UK distributor - sent us these pictures of samples of the bodywork. Pictures of the complete car will be posted next week.

         

The two Team Slot models of the A310 Le Mans GTP are of the same car, but different liveries - Alpine employee Bernard Décure entered his Alpine A310 GTP in the Le Mans 24 hours in both 1977 and 1978. Team Slot have already produced the red and blue Poisson Dieppois #87 car from 1977 (TS-12801). The car qualified 55th and retired from the race after 137 laps with a water leak. Returning in 1978 with the blue and white #73 livery plus Behar sponsorship, Guy de Saint-Pierre and Marcel Mignot sadly failed to qualify for the race. However, it wasn't all bad news for Alpine - Renault finally won the race with the mighty Renault-Alpine A442B sports prototype.

Recent Team Slot Alpines have featured the TS12 long can 22k rpm motor in an inline configuration, a brass pinion and improved plastic crown gear in a 9/27 ratio, aluminium rear wheels, brass bearings and a sprung guide. RRP is £54.99.