Could someone please point out where I plug a slot.it lighting set into on a c-type chip? Is it obvious? 

I don't have a chip handy at the moment and the lighting set instructions explicitly omit that piece of information. 

Thank you!

Hi all, I have a fixed layout, two lane (scalextric sport) track, runs on SSDC or RCS64 and am looking for like-minded 'racers' to enjoy it.  Cars are run pretty much OOB and are not race-tuned or over tinkered with. 
I race now for fun and enjoyment and the social side rather than all out to win!  The idea would be once a month for an evening, with maybe the odd blowout at a weekend with a beer or two.
I have over a hundred cars from many years of slot racing, so you don't have to bring your own and I can cater for most eras in F1 and GT/Road from the 50s to the 90s - 60s F1 tends to be analogue, two lane.
Will add a photo or two, when I can figure out how! (Advice needed)

Anyone interested??

I built this Maserati for a proxy a couple of years ago.  The body is a Mitcham carving in modelling board and then moulded and cast in resin.  The running gear is a Penelope Pitlane chassis and 18k motor both as required by the proxy rules.  The real car had an interesting history being built in a matter of six weeks before the 1965 Le Mans from the wreckage of a crashed Maserati 151/3 and a Tipo 63 frame from the Maserati 'scrapyard'. The 21st starting position was not promising, but Jo Siffert had a stellar start and was up to eighth as the cars completed the first lap. It all went terribly wrong in the next lap when Siffert spun and punctured the radiator in the Esses. He did manage to get back to the pits, but ACO regulations stated that fluids could only be refilled until 25 laps were completed and the team was forced to retire the car after just two laps.

Regards

David

   

We are back at the Barn on 18 March for our third Digital Wednesday of the year...

We will start the evening with a Club Car Team Race and end with a Trans-Am pairs race. Doors open at 6.30pm for practice, racing starts at 7 and we aim to finish all the action by 9.45. The team race will finish at 8.30, if you can only stay for part of the evening. Entry is £3 (£2 for under-16s). All equipment is provided for the team race and there should be plenty of spare places in the Trans-Am race.

Johnny Lightning and Auto World have resurrected many of the late 60s and 1970s Aurora HO slot cars - a range of bodies on updated versions of the Thunderjet 500 'Tuff Ones' and Magnatraction chassis. The Baja Bronco reappeared in the first X-Traction release of 2006 - like many of the early Auto World cars and the original Aurora models in a 'generic' paint scheme. Over the past few years, Auto World have brought HO enthusiasts real (or reality-inspired) liveries in their Stock Car Legends, Off Road and Legends of the Quarter Mile ranges. These two Baja Broncos really got me excited...

       

Those of you who know about these things will recognise the red, white and blue machine as the Parnelli Jones / Al Unser entry for the 1971 Mint 400. That's the very race Hunter S. Thompson was paid handsomely to cover for Sports Illustrated magazine. The story Thompson tells in Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas is light on the motorsport and heavy on the drug use. I think I'll give the mescaline a miss and concentrate on the background to these Auto World Broncos.

Desert racing in the US and Mexico began as soon as there were cars and trucks to race - commercial drivers would time their runs from one town to another over long stretches of desert road. Racers then modified their cars, trucks and bikes to go faster in the dusty, bumpy and extremely hot conditions. By the sixties, specialist desert racing vehicles - dune buggies - were developed using big wheels with lightweight chassis and glass fibre bodies.

The desert races started to get serious in the early 1960s, culminating in the National Off-Road Racing Association sanctioning the first Mexican 1000 Rally in 1967. That race followed the popular Peninsular Run, a 800-mile route from Tijuana in the north down the Baja California peninsular to La Paz. All of the unofficial and sanctioned races of the 60s and early 70s have wonderful stories of sabotage, booby-traps and decoys.

The winner of that first Mexican 1000 was a Mayers Manx kit-car, one of the most popular dune buggies based on the VW Beetle. The race was a hit for the organisers, entrants, sponsors and spectators and it wasn't long before the big manufacturers got in on the action - especially as the 1968 event would be covered by ABC's hugely popular Wide World of Sports programme.

At that time, Ford grabbed any opportunity for motorsport success. Their new Bronco off-road vehicle was given to experienced racing car builder Bill Stroppe and he produced a race-winner straight off the bat - Larry Minor winning the Mexican 1000 with Jack Bayer in 1968 and returning the following year to win alongside off-road legend Rod Hall. Their Stroppe Broncos all wore the same red, white and blue that features on one of the Auto World models - the same livery Parnelli Jones drove at the 1971 Mint 400 that is the backdrop for Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.

Indy 500 winner Jones was the big name of the Stroppe Bronco team. However, his driving style often proved too aggressive for off-road racing, his car rarely lasting the distance. As his regular co-driver, Stroppe saw the problem close up and would spend much of his time yelling at Jones to slow down and look after the car. In the end, Stroppe built a special two-wheel-drive version of the Bronco for Jones, strengthening the space frame chassis and narrowing the track for the unforgiving Mexican roads.

The resulting car was decorated in gold and white and christened 'Big Oly' - a nod to the sponsor Olympia Beer. Parnelli Jones and Stroppe drove Big Oly to a first win at the Mexican 1000 in 1971 and again in 1972. During the 1972 race, Jones and Stroppe ran out of fuel just fifteen miles from La Paz. They stopped some local Bajans who had a full tank of gas and a tequila bottle... Jones still has the famous bottle that refuelled the car and won the race.

With those two wins at the Mexican 1000 and wins in 1973 at the Mint 400 and the Baja 500, Parnelli Jones, Big Oly and Ford became the pin-ups of off-road racing. And then the fuel crisis happened. Following a brief hiatus, desert racing continued, but it would never be quite the same again.

The two Broncos look just right on my old Tyco Turbo Hopper off-road track. Unfortunately, they don't get over the undulations so have to run on just the flat stuff...



Auto World have produced a couple of off-road sets in the past couple of years - but are only available in North America...

   

   

The Baja Bugs are nice, but - in my opinion - are not on a par with those Broncos.

I love it when the media feature Scalextric and obviously haven't a clue about the thing. Today's Telegraph property section includes a pretentious load of old nadgers entitled "Turn your kids' playroom into a laboratory of learning" which has this as its main picture:
   

I think the kiddies may be a bit disappointed with their new set! Both cars on the same lane and heading in opposite directions towards a guaranteed collision with the overpass. As neither hand controller is actually connected to the track it may not end in disaster though. Pity the laboratory of learning didn't include a lesson on how to assemble a slot track.

In amongst all the exciting new cars in the 2020 Scalextric catalogue, there's one re-livery that might have slipped under the radar - but it looks fantastic and is steeped in history...

       

The blue Ford Escort RS1600 that raced at Daytona in 1972 was pivotal to the future of John Fitzpatrick's racing career. Fitz had already made his name in Europe as a talented and successful saloon car driver, mostly in partnership with Ralph Broad at Broadspeed. Fitz won the British Saloon Car Championship in 1966 in a Broadspeed Anglia, the team switching to Escorts in 1968 and campaigning in both the British and European championship for the first time. Broad developed the RS1600 for the 1971 British Saloon Car Championship, a car that has already been released by Scalextric...

   

In Europe, the Escorts were used by Ford as 'spoilers' to take points from the Alfa Romeos that ran in the same 2-litre class and so help the bigger Capris win the overall championship. Fitz and Broadspeed won countless class victories and took overall victory (with Jochen Mass) at the season finale at Jarama. As 1971 came to a close, Fitz and Broadspeed were invited to run an RS1600 in the 1972 Daytona and Sebring races, a trip over the Atlantic that would take Fitz's career in a new direction...

       

The 1972 Daytona race was cut from the usual 24 hours down to six because of the fuel crisis. The American Libra Racing team would run the Broadspeed-prepared RS1600 for Fitzpatrick and team-owner John Buffum. It was American Buffum's first serious taste of circuit racing - an interlude in a highly-successful rallying career. The car failed to finish at Daytona (although Fitz and Buffum would win the T2.5 class at Sebring six weeks later), but the Libra Racing pit was right next door to the Porsche Kremer team - Erwin Kremer spent the weekend persuading Fitz to drive his Porsche 911 in the European GT championship, which Fitz won. Fitzpatrick would go on to be one of the most successful GT drivers of his generation, with three class wins at Le Mans and outright wins at Daytona and Sebring. Fitz talks about his career in this short video...



Apart from its history - especially of putting Fitz in the right place at the right time - the Scalextric model does look rather nice. Pictures of the car at Daytona show it both with and without the front splitter. I suspect the US-style splitter was used in the race, but I can't find any video footage showing the #24 Escort. It wouldn't be too hard to add if you wanted to. Inside, the Scalextric Escorts have the FF-050 18k rpm 'slim-can' motor - fine for magnet racing, but often replaced for a lower-revving version by those who run non-mag. A FF-050SH-10200 (14.7k rpm @12volts) from China and some Paul Gage rear tyres work for me. The Escort is Digital Plug Ready.

The car is listed as due Winter 2019-2020, which suggests it is in a warehouse and has escaped the Chinese slowdown following the Coronavirus outbreak. Like most manufacturers, Hornby are remaining tight-lipped about the impact of the situation in China. However, a number of Scalextric moulds are now in Vietnam, so there's a good chance we'll see some of the Spring, Summer and Autumn releases arrive on time.

C4085 Ford Escort Mk1 - Daytona 1972. RRP £40.99. Due Winter 2019-2020 and is available as a Pre-Order at all the usual UK retailers, including Scalextric, Pendles, MRE and Jadlams.

   

The Mint 400 - which is happening near Las Vegas this week - is probably the most famous desert race on US soil, given that the arguably more famous Baja 1000 takes place over the border in Mexico. Desert racing in the US and Mexico began as soon as there were cars and trucks to race - commercial drivers would time their runs from one town to another over long stretches of desert road. Racers then modified their cars, trucks and bikes to go faster in the dusty, bumpy and extremely hot conditions. By the sixties, specialist desert racing vehicles - dune buggies - were developed using big wheels with lightweight chassis and glass fibre bodies.

The Mint 400 ran for the first time in 1968 and the 1971 race was the backdrop for Hunter S. Thompson's 'Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas' - he was paid big bucks by Sports Illustrated to cover the race. AutoWorld recently released a Baja Bronco that paid homage to the Bill Stroppe-prepared car driven at that 1971 Mint 400 by Parnelli Jones. That's the red, white and blue car...

   

The gold and white car - Big Oly - won the 1973 Mint 400 in the hands of Parnelli Jones. Both these might get a run out on my HO track this weekend. And I really should post up something about those AutoWorld off-road cars in the HO section.

Live coverage of the 2020 Mint 400 is online: themint400.com

Over the past week and through to Sunday there have been loads of different classes running through the desert circuits. The big race - The Mint 400 for Unlimited and Baja Trucks - is on Saturday. It'll be fun!

GT fans have been waiting for the Sideways BMW M6 GT3 for a couple of years, but the release of the white kit is not far away now. Despite current delays in China, all the parts for the kit are now in France - ready for assembly and shipping to retailers in March/April 2020. Sideways published these pictures on their Facebook page this week...

       

       

       

The fantasy Jägermeister livery looks like it might be one of the first fully-decorated M6 releases, but there are loads of potential real-life liveries for Sideways to choose from. In terms of the white kit, I counted twenty-nine sets of BMW M6 GT3 decals ready to order at Pattos Place. Since 2016, the M6 GT3 has been raced in GT series in all corners of the world, including in the IMSA GTD class. The only GTD M6 in 2020 is the Liqui Moly-sponsored Turner Motorsport car...

       

The M6 GT3 has also participated in the FIA GT World Cup in Macau - the #42 car pictured above at the 2018 race was driven to victory by Augusto Farfus.

The Sideways car is not the first 1/32 scale BMW M6 slot car. Carrera's M6 has features some nice liveries, including the 2016 Spa 24-hour winner...

       

Apart from the white kit (SWCAR03K), a competition rubber rear wing (SWM6/C1) and Lexan cockpit (SWM6/E) will be available. Details of prices have not been announced as yet. Sideways have gone public to say that the coronavirus outbreak will further delay their long-awaited Nissan Skyline and Toyota Celica models. Keep an eye out on the Sideways Facebook page for more news.

   

The March 2020 edition of Slot Car Magazine is at the printers and due to arrive at Pendle Slot Racing very soon. If reading magazines on a tablet is your thing, the pdf eBook will be available at Lulu. They'll be more details and links on the website: www.slotcarmagazine.co.uk

Here's what's in it this month...

• 02 GREED FOR SPEED - Mag car mods are the order of the day as Tony Di Pastena extracts the max from his Civic pride and joy.
  
• 07 ALL ABOUT ELECTRA - Crazy and orange, but it didn’t become President! Adrian Norman on Scalextric’s fantasy sports car.
  
• 09 WIN!!!! Scalextric – The Ultimate Guide... One of our semi-legendary competitions in which you can win not just any, but THE Scalextric book.
  
• 10 SPARK PLUG REVIEW - Andy Player drives a car with a mobile ’phone! Is the new Scalextric system the stuff of Champions?
  
• 13 WHO ARE YOU? Andy Player on Worthing’s big birthday bash. Here’s to the next ten!
  
• 14 WIN!!!! Hexagonal Racing Tower Kit from PSR. We’re at it again! Another fabulous prize! Have we taken leave of our senses?
  
• 15 MAKING A SCENE - Tony Di Pastena with some impressive erections ‘Down Under’, courtesy of ProScale Racing.
  
• 18 SILENT RUNNING - Marc Abbott tries replacing a pretty good chassis with another pretty goodchassis. No, we’re not sure why either.
  
• 20 McLAREN ELVA - We know it will be an ‘elva’ good car, but will it be the King of R-T-R? Ric Woods drives the new Thunderslot offering.
  
• 24 NSR F1 - One of the more pleasant surprises of 2019, Marc Abbott finally gets his hands on the F1 rookie. The car was the pleasant surprise, not Marc.
  
• 26 FLY RALLY PORSCHE - Part 2 of Hub Habets’ look at the Porsche 911 rally cars made by Fly. As ever, prepare to be amazed at Hub’s knowledge and collection.
  
• 30 IT’S THE WHEEL THING - Very important things, wheels and Ric Woods scans the latest alloy art from Staffs Slot Cars UK. Blue bling or bespoke spokes, they’re all here.
  
• 32 NUREMBERG 2020 - Gary Cannell, our man by your stand, hits the Toy Fair in search of the latest, the brightest, the forthcoming and…Carrera.
  
• 37 WIN!!!! Limited UK Edition SRC Porsche 914GT – Is this a dream? Are we really giving away something else? Get those entries in before we wake up!
  
• 38 CHUNKY BUT FUNKY - Tony Di Pastena meets some fellow legends in the shape of the Pioneer ‘Coops’. There’s a man who knows how to enjoy himself!
  
• 41 ALFA ROMEO 179C V12 - More work from the skilled hands of Kostas Dzingovic has Marc Abbott having a look at his savings. Go on, you know you want one!
  
• 44 THE WORLD OF DILWORTH - You know those race nights when someone even stranger than the rest of you turns up?