I have been asked for video of my permanent Carrera Evolution layout that lives outdoors... permanently. 
The earliest video that I can find is dated 2002 and shows the layout in its original phase being a simple long format. Later it became L shaped and then the L was extended. So approximately half of the track sections have been exposed to all sorts of weather for 20 years and it wears it well. The stainless-steel rails show no sign of tarnishing/corrosion and the plastic has not become brittle. General pollution builds up so I have to give it a scrub if it has not been used for a long time. Spider's webs are a constant feature and can provide "trophy dirt" on the cars if not cleaned away. Birds mess can accumulate but again the Carrera track is impervious. Curious cats can be a challenge but bribery with treats is a quick way to divert them.
In its current form the layout is about 13 metres in length and it has a single cross-over section so one lap is just over 26 metres and takes about 15 seconds. Driving in the rain is good fun, light snow can be fun also!
The controller connections are standard Carrera but are underneath and reasonably sheltered.  The power-pack is in the adjacent shed (controllers are stored in there).  There are water-proofed infra-red sensors embedded in the track with wiring run into the shed where there is a 25-way parallel port connector for a lap-top computer when required. 
There are booster cables.

Early video:-



Current layout onboard view:-



Current layout overview:-



Cat Video:-

I read with interest, the post from a couple of years back about the routed J-Trak solution being discussed (https://slotracer.online/community/showt...p?tid=1709) but couldn't find any more information on it. 

I am using a variation of the 'standard' J-Trak as the basis of a Scalextric hiring business (as yet, without any business...) but I'm already thinking about v2.0 of the modules. My thoughts turned to routed modules and instead, of reinventing the slotcar wheel, wondered if it had already been done. It looks like Jason got fairly down the routed track but I wondered if there were any further advances with it.

If I use routed modules, i would make the modules smaller, so that they are lighter, more manageable and fit in a car, rather than a van. Then I saw the post referenced above and LOVE the modules being the shape of the track. This is so much more elegant, I think, are much more manageable, less wastage in terms of mdf/whatever and scenery requirements. 

Has anyone had a go at making something like this and what are the experiences, good or bad?

Thanks,

Connal

Not the Scalextric stand, Brighton seafront just now... 

   

              
Hi All,

This is my first posting.

I have inherited some vintage (pre 1980) Carrera cars, equipment and track.

See attached photos.

   

I would be interested of these were of any interest to a collector.

Look forward to receiving your thoughts.

Simon

   

A long time coming, but Teamslot's Zakspeed Escort Mk2 project is just about to be unleashed on the slot car world - and beyond this sumptuous trio, there are some intriguing surprises in store. Rumour has it that Steve from Staffs Slot Cars UK will be wandering round the UK Slot Car Festival today showing these pre-production samples to everyone and anyone. They're Group 5 Zakspeed Escorts, so I'm sure he'll have a busy day.

   

The first car is the UK-Exclusive SRE21 Rothmans Zakspeed Escort. In real life, this is a replica - and most of the Zakspeed Escorts around these days are replicas - but has quite a following at car shows and has the honour of being recreated by fans for the Assetto Corsa racing simulation game. The car has a Honda S2000 engine - which is moderately sacrilegious, but apparently sounds awesome. Staffs announced this model a very long time ago, it was delayed, then Covid arrived, Teamslot's 2021 plans disappeared in to a premises move... but now it's imminent. And it does look great...

   

So what about the Zakspeed Escort story? Founded by Erich Zakowski in 1968 and run by his son Peter out of their base near the Nürburgring, Zakspeed became the official Ford team in the DRM. Having won three DRM titles - one with a Capri and two with Mk1 Escorts - Zakspeed built six two-litre versions of the new Mk2 Escort RS1800 to race in the 1975 DRM - then a Group 2 series. Hans Heyer took the title with the Group 2 Escort in both '75 and '76. When the series was opened up to Group 5 in 1977, Zakspeed developed two Group 5 cars from the Group 2 Escorts - subsequently building three entirely new cars with a lighter space-frame chassis. Genuine Zakspeed Escorts were always an extremely rare breed.

   

The Hans Heyer Mampe-sponsored car is most certainly the best known of the Group 5 Escorts - in part because the livery was carried over to the awesome Group 5 Capri, which appeared mid-season in 1978. The 1977 Mampe Ford Zakspeed Escorts were run for Hans Heyer and Armin Hahne, initially proving heavy and not match for the Schnitzer-run BMWs. The space-frame chassis changed things - Heyer winning the Mainz-Finthen race on the new car's debut. By the end of 1977, Hahne also had the new lighter car and Zakspeed ran a third Toshiba-sponsored car for Thomas Betzler. They also experimented with a long-tail body. Heyer finished a creditable fourth in the championship.

   

The Teamslot model is of the Escort Armin Hahne raced at the Norisring in September 1978. The two Escorts were regularly on the podium during '78 - mostly Heyer, with Hahne reeling off a string of fourth places. Hahne took the Escort to runner-up spot at the Norisring, just in front of Heyer - who was by this time racing the blisteringly fast, but extremely fragile Capri. With two second places to his name, Hahne finished ninth in the points table - Heyer claimed the Capri's first victory at the final round to finish seventh.

   

With the Mampe Ford Zakspeed cars both Capris for 1979, a Group 5 Zakspeed Escort was run with D&W sponsorship. Walter Nussbaumer raced the car at the season-opener 'Bergischer Löwe' race at Zolder, then Hans Soldeck made an impression driving the car at Diepholz, Zolder and Hockenheim - and Willi Bergmeister took over at the Nürburgring when Soldeck moved up to a Capri.

   

The Zakspeed Escorts - both the remaining Group 2 and the Group 5 examples - continued to race in private hands. Only two genuine Group 5 cars are known to have survived - one of the converted Group 2 cars in New Zealand and a space-frame car in Germany. Of course there are many convincing replicas, including this South African car, which ran at the Goodwood Festival of Speed in 2018...



There's also an homage to the Mampe Ford Zakspeed cars that raced in the UK Modified Ford Series, pictured here in the paddock at Brands Hatch earlier this year...

   

There are more Group 5 Escort liveries that can be created - and I understand that Teamslot have some interesting options with the mouldings and detailing parts to create other RS1800-based cars. However, we have these fabulous racers to look forward to very soon. And it looks like they will be a lot of fun on track with the 30k TS13 motor in an anglewinder pod...

   

The cars are available to pre-order at Pendle Slot Racing and Weevils Slot Cars now.

   

The 2023 Scalextric Club offering has broken cover on the eve of the UK Slot Car Festival - and it's a brilliant choice. First, it's another livery on the very popular Capri Mk3 and secondly, it honours a star of 1980s and 90s British club racing - Graham 'Skid' Scarborough.

   

The internet doesn't throw up many images of 1980s club racing, so it's a case of digging out magazines from the time - and books looking back - to find pictures of Skid Scaborough. This one shows (left to right) David da Costa, Tony Lanfranchi, Graham Scarborough and Gerry Marshall after the 1981 Willhire 24 hours at Snetterton. Saloon car legend Marshall became a mentor and friend to the young Scarborough, who contributes numerous anecdotes to Marshall's recent biography. Scarborough made his name with production-spec 3-litre Mk3 Capris, winning the 1982 BRSCC production saloon car championship - bagging eight of the twelve rounds, with Gerry Marshall winning two in his 2.8i and Barrie Williams ending the season with victory at Brands in his Opel Monza. Great days.

   

At the end of 1982, Scarborough bought this yellow Track Marshall-sponsored Group 1 Capri from Chuck Nicholson, who'd raced the car in the first seven rounds of the 1981 British Saloon Car Championship. Skid used the Track Marshall Capri in the Modified Saloons series in 1983 and 1984 with great success, taking the championship in 1983 and winning his class in 1984. As agreed with Chuck Nicholson, Scarborough ran the car in Track Marshall colours in 1983. 

   

For 1984, Scarborough changed the colour scheme to that of his primary sponsor, Letchworth Roofing. Although Skid had won the championship in 1983, he felt that his rivals were getting closer and he fitted the Track Marshall Capri with lightweight bonnet, doors, tailgate and plastic windows. Scarborough sold the car in 1985 as a lightweight Modified Saloon car, running for just a handful of races before being badly damaged in a racing incident.

There's a twist to the tale - because there's been a Group 1-spec Capri in Track Marshall colours being driven by Skid Scarborough in historic saloon car events...



It's not the original Track Marshall car - but it does have some of its parts. Remember those lightweight parts added to the Group 1 car for 1984? The originals were fitted to Scarborough's championship-winning production car when it was rebuilt in 1983-4 after a big crash. And they remained in place when that production car was bought by Scarborough's pal Howard Dawson in 1992 - completely unaware of the history until Skid started to root around inside. Dawson rebuilt the car to Group 1 specs, with Skid occasionally racing it in the Track Marshall colours. And when not racing the yellow car, Skid races the ex-Gerry Marshal production Capri 3.0 in the same AutoPlan livery that came second at that 1981 24-hour race at Snetterton. That ties the story up very neatly, I think.

Bravo to Scalextric for choosing such a brilliant car - a fabulous livery that pays homage to an unsung hero. They could have played safe with the Track Marshall car, but going with the 1984 Letchworth Roofing version makes it 100% Skid Scarborough's Capri.

You can join the Scalextric Club for 2023 - or renew your membership - now on the Scalextric website: https://uk.scalextric.com/community/scalextric-club

The price has risen to £50 for the UK and £66 for the rest of the world. That gives you the Capri and the 2023 catalogue - both should arrive on your doorstep next January. Plus there's a Club members' area on the website and exclusive Club models to buy and competitions to enter

       

Scalextric BTCC fans were delighted to see another new model added to the range in this year's catalogue - the Honda Civic FK8 will appear in two 2021 BTCC liveries. Although not expected until the autumn, the Scalextric team kindly loaned me an early decorated sample to have a look at and share my impressions here at SlotRacer Online. It's important to point out that the car shown here is not the finished version. Revisions to the mould and decoration usually take place at this point in the manufacturing process - and the Civic is unlikely to be any different. This is a work in progress, but it definitely looks promising...

       

The Civic Type-R FK8 road car is the performance version of the tenth generation Civic, first released in 2017. A Honda-powered BTCC-spec racer was ready for the 2018 season, being run by Team Dynamic Motorsports (aka Halfords Yuasa Racing) for veteran Matt Neal and rookie Dan Cammish. The new car has proved competitive - Cammish in the hunt for the championship in 2019 and 2020 and Josh Cook's BTC Racing Civic being a contender in 2021...

       

Three-time champion Gordon Shedden returned to the BTCC in 2021 after a three-year break. Despite a below-par start to the season, the Scot was soon back on form with nine podiums during the year. He had to wait until Donington in October before his first win - converting pole position to a race one victory...



Shedden followed that up with his 50th BTCC win in race two - thanks to a penalty awarded to Tom Ingram for a 'bump-and-run' when he passed Shedden for the lead. The livery carried by Shedden and team mate Dan Rowbottom at Donington is slightly different from the Scalextric model, which is the early season car...

       

Scalextric seem to have captured the shape very nicely - and there's plenty of detail in the tooling, whilst also looking robust enough for some on-track BTCC action. It's possible the colour on my images isn't perfect, but the Cataclean logos on the doors could be more vivid - and the grey stripes on front quarter panels and onto the bonnet look a little light to me. It's that sort of detail that usually gets cleared up before the model is signed-off for production.

Underneath, the in-line layout is identical to previous BTCC models...

         

There's a nice Honda 'H' cut-out over the motor and a welcome return to the standard 16mm wheels. At the front, the tyres just touch the surface of my set-up plate. Loosening the body screws gets some body float - sandpapering the chassis sides and removing various tabs should create a very satisfying rattle.

And here are some vital statistics of the new car vs the previous (FK2) Civic model...

• Wheelbase: 83mm - vs 82mm
  
• Rear track: 59mm - vs 58mm
  
• Length: 143mm - vs 131mm
  
• Height: 42mm - vs 42mm
  

The main difference is the length - also a longer than the BMW 125i (136mm), but not as long as the BMW 330i (148mm), VW (150mm) or MG6 (146mm).

I'll compare track performance with the 'old' Civic in the next post...

   

There's not been much build up - although we've had a preview on the SlotRacer homepage all week - but this weekend sees the return of the UK Slot Car Festival at the British Motor Museum at Gaydon.

As we're still not quite 'post-pandemic', it won't be quite the same - some exhibitors won't be there and a few regular visitors may be giving the weekend a miss too. It has been quite hard to pin down exactly what the line-up for the weekend will be. Jason and I pulled together a few hints and guesses for the homepage article - and there's been a bit more on people's social media feeds this week... but nothing official.

• There are rumours that Fly will be there - and with a special car with UKSF branded packaging. But whether that just means Fly are shipping stuff over for their distributor to show, who knows?
  
• Sadly George Turner won't be at Gaydon. He has some great new products that we'll showcase at SlotRacer - just a shame people won't be able to enjoy a good natter with George over the weekend.
  
• Steve from Staffs Slot Cars will be there Saturday - and I'll be posting up pictures that he's send me of some new Teamslot cars, plus some Staffs wheels.
  
• There will be plenty of tracks of various scales - but no news on any competitions this time.
  
• And the Scalextric Family Funday remains a mystery.
  

If you're still making up your mind - it's going to be great! Even if not up to it's pre-Covid glory, there isn't a better slot car show in the UK...



And then there's the museum too...



And if you want to see more of what to expect, don't forget our SlotRacer preview: https://slotracer.online/

If you are going, a request from us at SlotRacer Online... It would be brilliant if you could share any news, images or video clips here on the forum, so those of us who aren't able to go can have a look.

And if you aren't going, but want to get in the slot car festival vibe, why not go for a stroll down Slotcar Alley: https://slotracer.online/slotcar-alley/

Racer Sideways have yet another GT3 model on its way - and this one is a little left-field... The Lexus RC F GT3.

       

Rather like the road car, this GT racer may have passed you by if you don't live in North America. On that side of the pond, the Lexus has a strong fan-base and the RC F GT3 has notched up GTD class wins in numerous IMSA WeatherTech events - mostly  down to the Canadian AIM Vasser Sullivan team cars. Although never in the running for GTD honours at Daytona in 2020, this video of the cars in action at the Rolex 24 is worth watching...



The Lexus has had a more modest time of it in Europe. Although experiencing some early successes in the Nürburgring Endurance Series with Farnbacher Racing and Emil Frey Racing in 2015 and 16, the most significant European highlight for the Lexus RC F GT3 is this dramatic last-lap win at the 2018 Blancpain Endurance Series 1000kms of Paul Ricard...



2018 was certainly a vintage year for the number of manufacturers competing for wins in GT3 series - and for some superb races. Sadly, Lexus only got on top of their reliability issues for that remarkable Paul Ricard race - plus a podium for the second Emil Frey car at Silverstone.

You'll have noticed from the videos that the Lexus GT3 race car certainly has a very pleasing muscular stance - a look that Sideways have not over-cooked at all...

       

The scale width should be 63.44mm and the height 39.7mm - we'll have to see how the first white kits measure up. There's a very nice 360-degree animation on the Toyota Gazoo Racing website here, if you want to compare the car to the Racer model...

   

There are enough liveries to create a decent line of slot car releases - from North America, Europe and Japan...

       

       

       

The European customer programme was ended at the end of  2020, but Lexus continue support for the RC F GT3 in North America with the AIM Vasser Sullivan team running three cars in 2022 and scoring two IMSA GTD podiums so far. K-Tunes Racing run a RC F GT3 in the GT300 category of this year's Japanese Super GT - not to be confused with the rather different GT500 version of the Lexan RC F, which won the 2016 Super GT championship in the hands of Heikki Kovalainen and Kohei Hirate.

There's no definite schedule for the release of this car, but the project does seem to be gathering pace and the official word is "2022". The product code will be SWCAR07 and the official name 'Japon RC F GT3'.

   

The fiftieth running of the 24 hours of the Nürburgring takes place this weekend. The official ADAC 24h Rennen Nürburgring began in 1970, borrowing the 'amateur' touring car format of the Spa 24 Hours. As the touring car scene lost its way in the late 90s, the Nürburgring event opened up to the resurgent GT class two years earlier than Spa - although the German race has maintained a broad class structure, with the GT3 cars at the top of the pyramid. Here are some highlights from the previous 49 races...



After pre-qualifying races earlier in the month, 138 cars are on the entry list to tackle the green hell of the Nordschleife, plus whatever weather the Eifel mountains have in store. Those cars are covered by 21 different classes - from the top SP9 (GT3) class through other GT, touring car, road car and experimental classes. The full entry list and explanation of the classes can be found on the official website here: https://www.24h-rennen.de/en/the-protagonists/

Yes, the circuit is over 15 miles long, but 138 cars varying between just under 100bhp to over 700bhp makes this race a hair-raising 24 hours. And when the rain comes down and thick fog descends...



Weather forecasts for this weekend are hedging their bets, but a little rain and some early-morning mist are likely.

Coverage - in English or German - of qualifying and the full race is available free on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/24hnbr

There's coverage of two qualifying sessions today (Thursday) - the first has just finished and the second is from 7.25 to 10.30pm UK time. There's also in-car live footage, with a separate stream for each of a dozen cars across three classes - a brilliant way to get acclimatised to the Nordschleife. And there's a fixed camera in the pit lane to give a permanent live stream of what's going on there.

On Friday, the two sessions are at 13:05-14:25 hrs and 16:45-20:00 hrs UK time.

The race day stream begins at 12.50 UK time on Saturday lunchtime and continues through the start of the race at 3pm (UK time) until the dust has settled on the post-race celebrations around 3.30 on Sunday afternoon.

There's much more to read on the excellent official website: https://www.24h-rennen.de/en/home/