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.

Hello, 
We are new to this and would like to create a (semi) fix Carrera 1:32 track in a garage.  It would be mounted on two separate support boards to be able to make space when necessary.  How can this be achieved?  Antoine?  All help is very welcome.

Mull Rally 2019 started this evening.   https://www.facebook.com/MullRally 

There are live updates by Colin Clark and David Evans.

Results, etc here - http://www.flyingfinish.co.uk/2019/event...ceclas.php

Lots of Escorts ...

Leo

Johnno posted in another thread that he hadn't tried any Carrera cars because he is "just not sure about them". Well, here's a quick look at some that I have and that I race...

   

What you get from Carrera is a beautiful model in a pretty hefty display case. I guess a lot of people never take the cars out of the cases (which stack very nicely, by the way), but I think they are fun slot cars to run - not super-quick, but handle well and race well against each other and in some multi-manufacturer grids (think Scalextric, Fly, Revell etc). And they are ridiculously good value. There are distinct themes in the Carrera range -  F1, GT3, DTM, retro Group 5 /DRM, retro sports prototypes, road cars, police cars, Pixar Cars and some US specials - the classic Nascars are particularly awesome.

Carrera currently produce cars in 1/43, 1/32 and 1/24 scales and in both analogue (1/43 and 1/32 scales) and digital (1/43, 1/32 and 1/24 scales). The BASF BMW M1 and all the other cars here are 1/32 scale analogue models - what Carrera call their 'Evolution' range. The digital cars are designed to work only on the Carrera Digital 124/132 system, but I'll show how I have converted an Evolution car for racing on Scalextric Digital.

Here's what you get top and bottom - and spares...

         

The chassis layout on all their models is pretty similar - a fairly flat chassis, inline motor, one neodymium traction magnet just in front of the rear axle and a second (hidden) one in front of the motor. The guide is long and thick for the big 1/24 scale Carrera track system. Every car comes with a spare Carrera guide and a smaller red one for use with other makes of track (Scalextric, Ninco etc) - it's a pretty east swap. Of course, the red guide doesn't work with Scalextric ARC powerbases, so the options are to paint the red guide black, whittle down the Carrera guide to red guide proportions or buy the BRM S-126 'Carrera (shallow blade) guide'.

Behind the guide you can see a direction switch, which changes the direction of the car. Just to the side of the switch is a small panel where the digital LED would be on a Carrera digital car. Otherwise there are four body screws (two front and two back) and a big hole for the car to be screwed to the display plinth. In the spares bag are a pair of wing mirrors - a very welcome addition that comes with all Carrera cars.

   

Inside, the body holds a nice flat (and light) cockpit interior, giving plenty of space for digital chips and all the internals. In the chassis, you can see brass axle bearings on all four corners and plastic gear in a standard 9/27 ratio. The circuit board holds the direction switch in place and is linked to the pick-ups and the motor via JST connectors. To convert to Carrera digital, the connectors are simply unplugged, the board and LED cover removed and then the correct Carrera decoder screwed in place. It is a neat system that requires no soldering - truly plug-and-play. The motor is an E200 motor which performs about the same as a Scalextric Mabuchi - maybe slightly less powerful - and with the usual manufacturing variation.

Just in front of the motor you can see a screw holding a plastic plate - underneath this is the other strong neodymium bar magnet. The magnet behind the motor is also held by a plastic plate. Access to change the guide flag and the pick-up braids (what Carrera call 'grinders') is via the bottom of the car, but the top can be accessed by removing the two screws near the front axle bushings. Inside you'll find a spring that keeps the guide straight. When running without traction magnets, I like to remove that spring.

Here is another car - a BMW M6 GT3 - that has been prepared for running non-mag on Carrera track...

         

As you can see, the magnets and the plastic panels that hold them in the chassis have been removed. It's an easy process and straight-forward to re-fit them, if required. No weight has been added to the chassis and the rear wheels and tyres have been lightly trued. It gives a fun car to drive and power-slide round the corners. A little weight and some Paul Gage urethane tyres would improve things even more - as would removing the guide spring, which can cause the car to 'understeer' in the corners and de-slot.

The Carrera GT3 cars look superb, but are heavier and slower than their Scalextric contemporaries - that's why the Digital Slot Car Association (DiSCA) suggests in its GT4 rules that either Scalextric or Carrera is run as a class. I think that is sage advice and the basis for some great GT action.

Here is a third car - a Ferrari 365 P2 - that I have converted to non-mag running on Scalextric Sport Digital for our WHO/digital Goodwood Revival class...

         

Although smaller, it's still a very similar layout to the previous two cars. On the underside you can see I have replaced the Carrera guide with the red one; drilled a central 3mm hole for the Scalextric digital LED; I have also removed the direction switch, the Carrera LED cover and the rear traction magnet. There is also evidence of digital racing scars - one broken exhaust pipe and one missing (I have it somewhere...).

         

Inside the car, a Scalextric C7005 'Retro-fit' digital chip has been fitted (with blu-tack) vertically across the chassis just behind where the direction switch board originally was. I have soldered the track-side wires of the chip (yellow & green) to the wires coming from the guide assembly. The motor-side wires (black & red) are soldered via a ferrite man to the motor. The ferrite man acts as a filter to prevent interference affecting the digital chip. The LED is pushed through a piece of black plastic sheet which is glued to the chassis.

Also inside, you can see some lead either side of the motor. My trusty notebook says it is 2g each side, 4g in total. What you can't see in the chassis is a front traction magnet - because I removed it! All the pieces I removed - including the magnet clamps and guide spring - are in the second picture. The stock rear rubber tyres have been replaced with Paul Gage XPG urethanes and these have been trued on the axle. The front tyres have been coated with nail varnish.

On track, the Ferrari is not the quickest of the Goodwood cars - particularly on big tracks with long straights. But it is very nimble round the twisty stuff and is awesome on a home track. It did feature as one of six cars in our recent Goodwood Revival club car rotation race and everyone agreed it was one of the nicest to drive. Another of my Carrera cars on that grid - which split opinions rather more - was the fabulous Wendell Scott Ford Torino...


   

The Torino is a huge car, running non-mag with Paul Gage urethanes on the back and the BRM S126 guide on the front. It is enormous fun on my ARC Pro home track. It does compete well both on a home track and the big WHO/digital tracks against the Scalextric and Pioneer Trans-Am cars. It is a very different beast to drive, but there's a few of us that really enjoy that...

Anyway - I hope that quick guide to Carrera Evolution cars is useful.

Three new Carrera Evolution cars are due to arrive with the UK distributor sometime around the last week of October...

   


Carrera Evolution CA27609 McLaren 720S GT3 #3

   

A brand new car for 2019, this has to be one of the most exciting releases of the year. When McLaren unveiled the GT3 version of their 720S supercar, I thought Scalextric would announce a slot car version as there's already the supercar in their catalogue. However, Carrera have jumped in first. Ignore the unnecessary voice-over, this is a great video teaser from McLaren...



The 720S GT3 has raced in various GT series around the world in 2019 as a customer car for private teams - Balfe Motorpsort scoring a notable victory with their 720S at the British GT Championship season finale at Donington last month. The Carrera model is launched in the official McLaren test livery that introduced the car to the world last autumn. It is a smashing livery on what looks a fabulous rendition of the car. Fingers-crossed the car arrives this month, although with a brand new model who knows? RRP is £39.99.


Carrera Evolution CA27597 Chevrolet Corvette C7R RWT Racing #13


   

I do really like the Carrera C7R - it has a great look and stance on the track and like all the Carrera cars it is nicely detailed. The model is based on the Callaway Project C15 version of the Corvette, built under license in Germany - originally for the FIA GT3, ADAC GT Masters and Belcar series, but now sold to privateer teams worldwide (apart from North America).

The Austrian RWT Racing team raced their Corvette in the 2017 ADAC GT Masters. An all-amateur driver line-up of Sven Barth and Maximilian Hackländer saw them finish runners-up in the amateur Trophy Class and thirteenth in the overall team championship. The highlight of their season was a magnificent second place in Race One at the Red Bull Ring. Here are the highlights of that race...



All-in-all, another perfect Austrian-themed livery from Carrera! RRP is £39.99.


Carrera Evolution CA27611 BMW 3.5 CSL #5 - Six Hours of Watkins Glen 1979


   

What's not to like about another Carrera 3.5 CSL Group 5 monster? Fitting nicely into Carrera's retro DRM / Group 5 range, the 'Batmobile' first featured on track in 1976, winning three races in the World Championship for Makes at Silverstone, Nürburgring and the Österreichring. A bit long-in-the-tooth by 1979, the KWM Racing 3.5 CSL was entered into the Watkins Glen 6 Hours. Driven by Americans Kenper Miller and Dave Cowart, the #5 car qualified eighteenth and finished tenth - fifth in class - and scored BMW's sole point in the 1979 World Sportscar Championship. The Carrera car is a very nice, historically-accurate model. RRP £39.99.


All the Carrera Evolution cars are fitted with twin traction magnets, inline E200 motors and 9/27 gearing, giving them similar performance characteristics. Each car comes with a bag of spare detailing parts, spare guide flag, braids, plus a smaller red guide flag for use on other makes of track.

Many thanks to The Hobby Company Ltd for the pictures and release details. The 2019 Carrera catalogue can be found in the SlotRacer Online Library here. The two 2019 Special Edition cars (not in the catalogue) are here.

I see the police are arresting loads of people in London for super gluing themselves together. I do that all the time!

Spanish manufacturer SRC (Slot Racing Company) have a new livery due soon on their fabulous Peugeot 205 T16 Evo2.

         

This is the fourth T16 Evo2 livery to be produced by SRC and recreates the car driven to victory at the 1986 Swedish Rally by Juha Kankkunen. Kankkunen and co-driver Juha Piironen would win the 1986 FIA World Rally Championship for Peugeot, the final season for the mighty Group B cars.

   

The SRC model features their standard rally set-up under the hood, with inline 20k M3 motor, aluminium hubs, treaded tyres, plus dampers on the front and rear axles.

This model is limited to 515 units with a RRP of £92.95, although I notice MRE have it on pre-order for less.

Thanks to Staffs Slot Cars UK who now distribute SRC in the UK for sending us the pictures. There will be news in the not too distant future about SRC's highly anticipated Lancia Delta S4 Group B rally car.

Staffs Slot Cars are also hoping to send us  some pictures over the weekend of the Team Slot Renault Alpine A310 No.73 from Le Mans 1978.