My humble apologies for the delay in posting this race report.

Half a dozen friends came together for pizza, and a race broke out. A few regulars could not make it.

Pre-war cars were up first.

   
   

Classic Stock Cars are always a blast. 100-gram minimum weight with slow motors. What could possibly go wrong?

   
   

Classic LeMans are also fun. Upgraded wheels/tires/gears with stock 18k motors.

   
   

The last class of the evening was RevoSlot GT cars. Box stock with urethane tires.

   
   

Thank you very kindly for looking.
Ken

Having screwed-up a repaint,     I want to replace my Lancer WRC and have another go.

Although the model is a 2004/5 Lancer WRC, SCX called it "Mitsubishi Lancer Evo viii" for some reason.  Some of the SCX ref.nos are 62070, 63600 and 63610.  There was also an Altaya version, no.10 Panizzi 2005 Rallye Monte Carlo - if someone has one of these to sell, I would abandon my repaint plan.

Thanks in advance.

hello,

when i was working on my ninco track and the ds 35ohm regulator this afternoon, it started to smell a bit burning, later i noticed that there were also some sparks visible on the gold strip of the ds regulator,

how does this happen, can it be harmful, and what can i do about it?

i would like to hear it :)

   

The start of the 2025 Slot Rally GB series took place in the quaint little edge-of-Cotswolds village of Ramsden, about 15 miles from the centre of Oxford...

   

After two hours of dual-carriageway and 15 minutes of country lanes, five intrepid WHO racers - Phil, Mike D, Jeremy, Terry and Andy - made it to the Ramsden Memorial Hall to be greeted by the Slot Rally GB crew of Phil, Seb and Alan, plus the smell of sizzling sausages and bacon...

   

Mike and Jeremy couldn't resist a visit to the phonebox...

   


Inside the main hall were six stages - three routed, two Ninco stages built for the day and the giant, modular Nobby's Nightmare...

   

Each entrant could run four cars across three class (a lot of SRC Porsche 914/6 GTs for Classic), plus there was the debut of the Avant Slot Challenge - Nissans outnumbering Mitsubishis and Mantas...

   

With cars checked over at Rally HQ, the Five were ready to get started...

   

Terry, Mike and Phil would race in a four, alongside a local Oxford club member. Jeremy joined a Nascot Wood / Abergavenny group of five. I was allocated to another five of me and four local hotshots - John, Wayne, Colin and Ian (aka Nobby - purveyor of the Nightmare stage and of the cooked breakfasts, lunch, teas and coffees, plus owner of Dave the dog).

Round 1 live starts at 6pm UK time

Twofer’ or Two for one in English, 3d printed motor magnet attraction and torque tester jigs.

Motor magnet attraction jig
   

Motor torque jig
   

For racing use to find which motors have greater magnet traction on plastic tracks I created a version of the motor magnet attraction tester, permutations of which have been around for some years. This technique although not delivering industry specification accuracy is sufficient to compare motors and motors mounted in cars.

My version uses a set of digital scales from Amazon (Criacr Digital Pocket Scales, 500g High-Precision Kitchen Scales) with a claimed accuracy of 0.01grms which in reality is probably more like 0.1grms but in practice looking for say 0.5grm differences then not a problem. The jig is sized to take this set of scales at 106 x 127 x 19mm.

The scales sit on the base plate over which is a bridge piece that takes a steel shim to act as the attractor plate and over that but resting its 4 feet on the scales are the motor pods or the car cradle. The pods, cradle, cars and motors are placed on the scales away from the bridge to zero or Tare, then the motor is placed in the cradle over the attractor plate such that the magnet attraction can be directly measured as the motor magnets pull the car/cradle downwards applying force to the scales.

Included is 2 off motor holders one for the boxer type (or S can) motor the other for the Flat 6 type so both are presented to the scales at the same height from the scales to underside of motor. There is also a tray to present a car as well for club racing checking use, and has the car sitting on its tyres so ground clearance and magnet traction can be checked against a set limit. Putting wheel cut outs in this would take out the track clearance aspect.

Built this up as shown and thought why not add a motor torque test function as well, and decided it was easier to design a new bridge piece than try and dual function the existing one, hence the 2nd set of files using the same base. The motor sits in the bridge and is clamped down, then the disc is fixed to the motor shaft and held with 1-2 grub screws. Depending on filament used this may or may not take a thread that lasts so have included a 2nd disc which can be glued to a cog that has grub screw fixing for more permanence. The disc takes the 3 pusher pieces at 120 degrees at 1cm from the motor axis so that the motor torque can be checked in 3 positions then averaged.

Methodology for testing is to clamp the motor, align one pusher to the scales, zero the scales then apply 4 volts momentarily to the motor. This is done 3 times at 120 degrees and then averaged and the result multiplied by 3 to equate to 12 volts operation. The disc can be rotated 60 degrees or the pushers repositioned around the disc, then the testing carried again to get 6 readings for greater accuracy, but found in practice taking the 3 readings was sufficient. This setup gives a good equation to manufacturers figures once calculated.

Note: this will need a minimum of a 5A power supply for testing hard bodied motors otherwise the PSU will not supply sufficient power to allow the motor to generate maximum torque.

STL files content

Printed in PLA+ at 0.16mm layer and 40% fill.

   

   


Cheers 
             John

I don't know who needs to hear this, but...

If you have a Scalextric ARC Air controller that you want to use as an ARC Pro or slot-it oXigen digital controller, but can't get the slot-it button for it since Shapeways got all shaken up, here's my version. It should print easily in any material on any 3d printer.

     

https://www.printables.com/model/1237039

Looking For any of the 3 liveries made by Black Arrow as seen below, and maybe any custom paint jobs too!
One sold last month for £59 but whatever you value yours at!

   

Our 2025 WHO Digital GT Championship sees six teams - led by our Gold-rated drivers - race over three two-hour races on Wednesday evenings, followed by a four-hour, double-points championship finale at our June GT Saturday.

The WHO GT cars run to our local interpretation of the DiSCA GT4 Scalextric Clubman rules, requiring mostly standard Scalextric parts to be used throughout. The older Sidewinder models are permitted to use a vac-formed interior as a Balance of Performance measure.

Teams are strictly Pro-Am - our driver ratings based on performances across all our WHO events and weighted towards individual races. There are six Gold and Six Silver 'Pro' drivers, with all other drivers rated as Bronze. Pro-Am means that at least one Bronze-rated driver must race on each team and must share the driving time equally. A two-minute driver change window straddles the end of stints at 20, 40, 60 and 80 minutes, giving six stints in a two-hour race. A three-driver team shares the six stints equally - two each. A four-driver team must share the six stints equally between Pro (Gold/Silver) and Am (Bronze) drivers, ie Bronze drivers must race at least three stints.

Twenty-four drivers turned up to race for Round One. Gold drivers Alex (WHAM/AST One) and Ryan (Smooth Operators) handed their teams over to deputies. After additional drivers were allocated, this was the line-up...

   


We started the season on Mike's tweaked Barns Hatch layout...

   

... which went together very nicely - without any of the issues we experienced the first time we built this track in August 2023. It is a fast track with some challenging corners and not the easiest for overtaking - a bit like the real-life circuit...

   

After a start of the season drivers' briefing, we were straight into Super-Pole qualifying - the six drivers would also start the race for their teams. Here's the fastest laps from the two-minute session...

   

Congratulation to Ollie - and the newly-branded Slimline team - on another pole position...

   

The Slimline Ford GTE may appear next time out, but Mike's trusty AMG GT3 did the business.