[Top Down]

The Ford Ranger's played a strong supporting role throughout - and continued to do so right to the end. Perhaps it needed more work than just detaching it from the display case.  The Touareg didn't do much better either, I suspect for a similar reason.

Well at least nothing fell off - I hope! 

[Graham]

And so the Winners of each class;

Ninco Class Winner
Phil Field's - Mitsubishi Montero

   

SCX Class Winner
Paul Cooper's - VW Touareg

   

Pro- Class Winner
Jim Scott's- Mitsubishi Lancer

   

Scratch build Class
Bernie Lawrance's  - Anglia Panda

   


And finally that all important "Best presented Vehicle" award
The votes were:
Jim's - RNLI Mitsubishi Lancer - 4 votes
Bernie's - Anglia Panda - 2 votes
Gerry's - Mitsubishi Lancer - 2 votes
Kevin's - Datsun Pickup - 1 vote
Graham's - Jaguar I-Pace- 1 vote


So Jim Scott also wins the Medal for best presented Extreme Slotting vehicle with his beautifully decorated Mitsubishi Lancer, and I have decided  to donate the little bit of surplus money from this event to the RNLI care of Jim.

   

[Graham]

So finally I would like to thank the host's who gave up their spare time to stage this series, and of course all the entrants who like me, mostly knew nothing about "Raid" slot car racing but I hope are a little enlightened as a result of participating.

My overall thought are :
It was by luck that after we started the series I was able to purchase a Ninco track which in addition to my SCX set up enabled me to compare both types of track set up's. I really like the NINCO Track as it seems better made and more robust with a nice surface. But I would have to say that the SCX is more testing of the cars ability to work with a bigger range of obstacles and really is more Raid orientated than the NINCO.
So that brings me to point that surely this type of activity is more about testing the cars ability to cope with hazards etc, then just being another fast car track.
And as a result of course the SCX cars with their long drop arms are by far better to cope with Extreme track surfaces then the Ninco's.
However the NINCO have a more extensive range of vehicles, and it was good to see most of them entered in this competition.

The Pro range Class was of course dominated by the Avant Mitsubishi's, initially I had placed my Mittoos chassis I-Pace in with the Scratch build but when I received the other scratch build cars it was clear that this would not be a comparatively fair contest    (Sorry scratch builders), so I opted to include it in with the Pro car class (Avants and Scaleauto's). As you saw this did not do me any favours, but it was at least more of a contest by doing so 

This brings me to the question of "Mitoos" based cars, they are really heavy and cumbersome, but on the other hand run over the obstacles with least effort, I can imagine that on some of the continental European club home made circuits they may be the "must have" types to run. But on the limited home tracks they do not seem to really fulfill their potential.

Then there was the scratch builds. Ummm!
In my mind the Datsun Truck of Kevin Veitch potentially would have won this class outright if it had not been thwarted by technical issues.  Right from the start of the series it lost its ability to control the droparm, and suffered as such all the way through. Ironically this morning it was superb for the first run, I don't know exactly why but it ran around the track really well for the whole 3 minutes. And then next run it was jack knifing again, along with the wires coming out of the guide shoe. By the third run attempt the guide shoe had actually broke    Overall I felt this car could notched up even more laps if it was more robust. Mike's Mitsubishi faired even worse, after a couple of attempts it was clear that the gears were running really roughly, and then the motor came loose in the chassis, so I decided enough was enough.
So that leaves Pip's Fiesta which managed a reasonable number of laps although there was quite a few de-slots. But even more so with Bernies' Panda, it was very fast around the smooth bits, but only once managed a full lap without coming off over the rocks. Every other lap on all 3 runs it deslotted on the obstacles.

[Top Down]

Any tips come out of all this for improving off road cars at all?

Box stock and unlubricated was not the way to go with the Ranger, which came home last - but it was different.  

However, the Touareg didn't fair much better even though it HAD seen some lube 

[Graham]

So what for about another contest, I think many of the current participants would be up for another go next year. And since I am the proud owner of both SCX and now (not so cheap) NINCO track, I would certainly be up for it. So hopefully if I can persuade the existing hosts or even more to help me organize another one next year then it should happen.

The timing would have to be different as this year with the Le Mans Proxy in October as well, it really was abit too much at the same time. So I would be thinking that it might be best to bring it forward to around July time next year, a couple of months after the next Road Race.

I am quite happy to leave the class classification's as they are, and quite liked using the number of laps completed as the measurement in this series, as mostly the vehicles are leaving the track on numerous occasion's 

Scratch Builds.
Well for me this would mean revising the rules;
A) The vehicle should be "off road type" nothing against Bernie's worthy winning Panda, but I think so as to not have to make too so may trips to put the car back on the track, I would want to specify that any vehicle entered would need to have a minimum track clearance on around 4.5mm based on at least the NINCO cars standard. Police cars are welcome but they should be a Range Rover off road type. We should not be having to remove obstacles in order to allow some scratch built cars to run, as it potentially penalizes the other scratch built cars which are more so made for the purpose the class was intended for. 
B) I would prefer all scratch built cars t have the long drop arms (8cm), so we can raise the scope of obstacles to be encountered like with the Pro -cars etc. 
C) All 4 tyres of a car reaching the track surface, this makes even more sense for these cars to give stability at the front. Several of the cars in this event could just not cope with the obstacles because the front wheels were no where near to the track surface.
D) Guides should not protrude outside of the body, hence you should not be able to see the guide if viewed from above.

So that's all for now,
hope you all enjoyed either participating in or following and I look forward to running "Extreme Slotting 2022" next year 

[CMOTD]

Any tips come out of all this for improving off road cars at all?

Box stock and unlubricated was not the way to go with the Ranger, which came home last - but it was different.  

However, the Touareg didn't fair much better even though it HAD seen some lube 

I think you may have been unlucky with the motor in the Touareg Doug. It coped with the obstacles and twisty bits just fine on my track but was noticeably slower with less acceleration than the others in a straight line. SCX motors are highly variable at the best of times and you seem to have got one near the bottom end of their performance range.

The Ranger was probably a bit handicapped by its longer wheelbase and extra weight compared to the others.

[Graham]

The Ford Ranger's played a strong supporting role throughout - and continued to do so right to the end. Perhaps it needed more work than just detaching it from the display case.  The Touareg didn't do much better either, I suspect for a similar reason.

Well at least nothing fell off - I hope! 

I would say that ballast in the right places was a key advantage, and perhaps smaller front tyres, although they should still be in contact with the track surface to give good stability around the obstacles. Tyre compound did not appear to give much advantage in this plastic track based competition, both the winning SCX Mitsubishi Touareg had standard SCX or NINCO rear tyres.

[OXO cube]

thoroughly enjoyed this event and the series coverage by each host 
the different tracks / obstacles / driving styles / elevations / break downs , certainly made the eventual outcome unpredictable and entertaining 
the Datsun pickup will definitely be making a re-appearance ( with a drop arm modification or 2 hehehe )
the VW Tuareg was disappointingly well off the pace , but was most likely due to it being box stock and zero ballast  

so in summary 
well done to all the winners 
well done and thankyou to all the hosts 
look forward to this event again next year 

kev

[Top Down]

Any tips come out of all this for improving off road cars at all?

Box stock and unlubricated was not the way to go with the Ranger, which came home last - but it was different.  

However, the Touareg didn't fair much better even though it HAD seen some lube 

I think you may have been unlucky with the motor in the Touareg Doug. It coped with the obstacles and twisty bits just fine on my track but was noticeably slower with less acceleration than the others in a straight line. SCX motors are highly variable at the best of times and you seem to have got one near the bottom end of their performance range.

The Ranger was probably a bit handicapped by its longer wheelbase and extra weight compared to the others.

Mm. Thanks for that. A good excuse to fall back on for the Touareg and as for the Ranger - 'accepted'. I wanted to run something different and paid the price - but my choice and good to see it there anyway. 

[Mike174]

Many thanks to the hosts and to Graham for organising another proxy competition. It was good to see something different aside from the ‘normal’ gt’s and the like.
I knew nothing about raid track (some would say I still don’t!), never even seen any, but I really enjoyed it all. The scratch built car probably should have been built more than a week before the event but hey ho it’s all a learning curve to me. I was really surprised with the Bowler! I took it out of the box threw some blue-tac in and put it around the club track a handful of times! 

I really like the idea of a scratch built Class, it allows for a lot more variety, especially where no one really has the ‘formula’ for the perfect car (unlike in ‘normal’ racing where most people have an idea how to set up a car) so the possibilities are endless for entering.

Thank you again and i’m Already thinking of what to enter next year!