[BAracer]

#54

The Good Old Days of Heavy Metal


A simple, but open, question from Greg got everyone's memories going of the good old days of slot car racing...what would you do to refresh an old slot car you found at the bottom of a box of forgotten bits and pieces? Apart from a set of new tyres and braids, the chatters took the opportunity to use bring out some 'lessons learnt' tips of what they would do differently today compared to what they did at their entry into the hobby. And the subject of weight began to focus everyones thoughts.

So, is the current trend to make cars lighter and lighter the only tool on our workbench, and is the magical 40/60 weight distribution the holy grail of tip top car performance? The answer from one expert was...

"The car will tell you what it wants."

So trust your instincts when you run it. The track, motor, tyres, centre of gravity, etc will means every car handles differently and needs a different solution. Not for Dave however. When he was a lad, you took your brass chassis and you laid a slab of lead across the top of it, then you fixed an aerodynamic body on top to create downforce. And that was only his starting point for fine tuning it into one of his two racing categories...a radiator killer, or a ceiling denter. 

Dennis showed up his more recent chassis build history, and how he has developed his weights, magnets, flexing and rods over the years to refine his scratch builds. Chris showed us a 'work in progress' NSR F1 body of his. Most people would have been happy with how it looked, he still had plenty to do. Then he showed us the driver and cockpit...best seat belts ever!

And now that a week has passed since the last Chat, I can report that the non-disclosure agreement he forced me into has now lapsed. In last weeks Chat, Greg very kindly donated a slot car as a prize for anyone who has watched one of the Grammarly adverts that pop up in this videos all the way through. So in this weeks chat, he put together a random list of all the people who managed it last week. My name was at the top of the list, but no, it still had to be randomised again. Then Leo's name appeared at the top of the list, but no, a late objection from Graham and the list had to be randomised again. Oh, surprise surprise, the actual winning name then looked suspiciously like an anagram of Greg Gaub...

Following an admission from one of the Chatters that they had been rather tired and emotional during last weeks Chat, Chris had to repeat his spellbinding story on how to firstly, select a good motor (without having to buy it first!), and then why you might want to run it in quickly, and then how to run it in properly. Following the theme of the evening, the discussion then drifted into the art of tuning serious motors from the good old days. Not much of this knowledge can be applied to the mass produced units most of us run in our plastic slot cars, but it still is a fascinating listen and a wonderful glimpse back into the history of the hobby. 

Not so much a glimpse into the past, Dave's fully immersive, hands on demonstration of the history of controllers has to be seen to be believed. He must have heard all the  comments being shouted out by everyone lots of times before, as he managed to keep a smile off his face for most of the time. But he cracked a smile in the end as wave after wave of incoming banter finally broke his stiff upper lip. Again, slot car history nuggets.

And we finished off with a possible glimpse into the future...3D printed tyres. Perhaps an idea a little ahead of it's time, but if this Slot Car Lesson taught us anything, it's that nothing stays the same for long in this fast moving hobby.