[BAracer]

#73

"Please lie on the couch Mr F and tell me about your obsession with Sweden" 

First up was Dewann...
Brian got everyone excited with the new 3DP race car he had invented,and he talked through all the iterations that got him to the final version. It's based on a 50s GP car but with a modern take (restomod?). Just 50g and a lot of fun. 
...with his new scheme to buy up all the available Monogram track he can get his hands on to go with all the Revell track he has. Interestingly, they seem to be interchangeable both dimensionally and connection wise, but who came first?

Greg set us a conundrum; he has finished painting/assembling his MRSlotcar Porsche, but the body and chassis don't seem to fit together properly. He got lots of useful tips on how to work out what was causing it, but most importantly, one tip on what to wear whilst doing it. He then gave us the money shot of his blue/yellow slot car collection, and quite an impressive, and yet slightly disconcerting, picture they made. 

Jim then described his recent conversion to oiling tyres in order to achieve some sort of bulge along the centre rib. Now a lot of the slot car accessory business is focussed on helping us achieve completely flat tyres, so this all went slightly against this prevailing fashion, but he has had some good results in competitions on the track. So look away now if you like your rear tyres smooth and shiny. His, by his own admission, look rubbish, but they work. You saw it here first...

Neil had hoped to enjoy an evening of slot car racing in his basement when he recently received a tornado warning. Unfortunately, the winds were accompanied by ten inches of rain and his basement started to fill up with water. Luckily he was able to get most of his possessions off the floor and onto his track table, so he has some repair work to do to the scenery, but he was not complaining as it could have been a lot worse.

Club Corner raised a couple of issues from the underbelly of our sport. Big Dug will never be late for a race night again. Some of his 'friends' raced on his behalf when he was delayed getting to the venue, and when he did eventually arrive, he suspected they hadn't been putting their hearts and souls into getting him off the bottom the league table. Dewann raised a discussion point regarding race ethics around crashes in races. Greg had a very clear strategy to deal with the matter...video all the races and bring a lawyer with you to the race meeting to argue on your behalf on each and every incident. Mike on the other hand, runs his races at the opposite extreme. If there is a crash in one of his races, everyone stops and apologises profusely. Big Dug has outside observers to apportion blame at his meetings, but at Dennis's meetings there is independent race marshall who is responsible for restoring order to races after a crash in a 'no blame' manner. But the generally accepted rule for dealing with crashes in races was to have a rule to deal with restoring the race situation after a crash, in order to avoid the need for a discussion after each and every one on what should happen.

And to round off the Chat, a brief discussion on Revoslot cars, and the best performing ones for twisty tracks or for long sweeping tracks, or which one is the best allrounder.