24th-Dec-20, 12:55 PM
Thank you to Jason for including a link to my Scalextric Tuning Tips in this week's SlotRacer Digest! They are posted on the new Jadlam blog and are an attempt to walk new racers through the basics of improving a Scalextric car by only using the parts that come in the box. It turns out the first five parts have been rather popular - five more parts will follow after Christmas.
I met Russ, the young director of Jadlam Toys & Models, at the London Toy Fair in January and we chatted about all sorts. We ending up with the idea of me adding to the slot car info on the Jadlam website, sometime during the quieter retail months of the year. Of course, there have been no quiet months in 2020 for an online toy and hobby retailer... but there is a desperate need for some basic info to help out the thousands of new and returning Scalextric home racers. Jadlam decided on a starting blog to make this content available quickly and easily - with posts about Scalextric and model kits.
Browsing the UK Scalextric Facebook groups, there are incredible numbers of new people out there - many asking similar, basic questions. On the whole, the world has moved on from forums - although our forum has been busier than usual with new and returning enthusiasts joining and contributing. For all its wonderful immediacy and convenience, Facebook isn't perfect - especially for answering questions at length or offering detailed information that is permanent and searchable. That's why I like how our SlotRacer Facebook page and group link so well with the website and this forum. It's the best of both worlds - and I've frequently shared links to the SlotRacer's Manual and my ARC Pro guide over the past nine months.
When I was asked to plan and contribute the Scalextric content to the Jadlam blog, I absolutely didn't want to replicate what we have here on SlotRacer Online. I took things right back to basics and - using experience from the Facebook groups and the Scalextric forum - wrote a number of 'Getting Started' blog posts...
One thing that the Jadlam team were keen to cover was some basic tweaking and tuning. Jadlams grew out of Russ' teenage Scalextric hobby - the eBay business started by selling his excess track and then buying and splitting new sets. Jadlams is now one of the biggest retailers of Scalextric products anywhere. Racing standard cars at home is what the vast majority of Jadlam customers and most slot car enthusiasts do, yet much of the advice and information is geared at high-end performance cars and club racing. Some of that can be quite intimidating and there's sometimes an elitist uncurrent that suggests "if you're not doing it like us, you're just playing with kid's toys". For me, there is only one way of playing with slot cars - and that's what you enjoy.
On the basis that most of us who play with slot cars are using standard Scalextric cars, I sketched out a series of tuning posts that would focus on one new Scalextric model - the new Ford Mustang GT4. It's not a great performer out of the box - very loose at the back and with a higher centre of gravity than most GT cars. That made it ideal for my purposes!
Starting with a look at the outside and inside of the car - naming and explaining each of the parts - I then went on to test the car on my version of the Jadlam SL6 layout. I chose a standard layout for my test track so readers could easily replicate it on their living room floor and match their cars and tuning progress against mine.
What I've tried to do is show how to create a tuning and testing programme, rather than just be prescriptive. I've shown tweaks that have and haven't worked on the Mustang - each step creating a better or worse-handling car with quicker, slower or equal lap times. Each tweak has been followed by another test run and more hard data.
These are the first five blog posts in the Scalextric Tuning series...
Scalextric Tuning 1: Parts of a Car - click here
Scalextric Tuning 2: Tweaking a New Car - click here
Scalextric Tuning 3: Maintenance & Repairs - click here
Scalextric Tuning 4: Magnatraction - click here
Scalextric Tuning 5: Fixing Oversteer - click here
There's not much there that I haven't learned from other racers, although the magnatraction stuff does have elements of originality! It's also important to me that the tweaks I write about are things I routinely do on my home cars and the Scalextric cars I tune for racing at our WHO/digital club. I'm also using the basic tools, simple magnet-measure and DIY tyre-truer that I use. It's a personal story that I'm sharing - me, my hobby and the Mustang GT4 - not my take on the Slot Car Ten Commandments.
Coming up next is a look at the front end of the Mustang and understeer - then a proper look at modifying the car for more effective body roll. In part eight, I'll look at removing the traction magnet and then - in the penultimate part - preparing the Mustang for racing at WHO/digital. The final part is a wrap-up - pulling together the principles of a tuning and testing programme, the tool kit we've built up during the series and some ideas where to go next.
The plan I sketched out at the start has certainly changed quite a bit - influenced by the data from the first few steps with the Mustang and by some of the positive and encouraging feedback I've received. It is proving a fun and most interesting journey!
I met Russ, the young director of Jadlam Toys & Models, at the London Toy Fair in January and we chatted about all sorts. We ending up with the idea of me adding to the slot car info on the Jadlam website, sometime during the quieter retail months of the year. Of course, there have been no quiet months in 2020 for an online toy and hobby retailer... but there is a desperate need for some basic info to help out the thousands of new and returning Scalextric home racers. Jadlam decided on a starting blog to make this content available quickly and easily - with posts about Scalextric and model kits.
Browsing the UK Scalextric Facebook groups, there are incredible numbers of new people out there - many asking similar, basic questions. On the whole, the world has moved on from forums - although our forum has been busier than usual with new and returning enthusiasts joining and contributing. For all its wonderful immediacy and convenience, Facebook isn't perfect - especially for answering questions at length or offering detailed information that is permanent and searchable. That's why I like how our SlotRacer Facebook page and group link so well with the website and this forum. It's the best of both worlds - and I've frequently shared links to the SlotRacer's Manual and my ARC Pro guide over the past nine months.
When I was asked to plan and contribute the Scalextric content to the Jadlam blog, I absolutely didn't want to replicate what we have here on SlotRacer Online. I took things right back to basics and - using experience from the Facebook groups and the Scalextric forum - wrote a number of 'Getting Started' blog posts...
- Getting Started with a Scalextric Set - click here
- Getting Started with Micro & My First Scalextric - click here
- Getting Started with Carrera Go! - click here
- Getting Started with Scalextric ARC Pro - click here
- Getting Started with Slot Car Racing - click here
One thing that the Jadlam team were keen to cover was some basic tweaking and tuning. Jadlams grew out of Russ' teenage Scalextric hobby - the eBay business started by selling his excess track and then buying and splitting new sets. Jadlams is now one of the biggest retailers of Scalextric products anywhere. Racing standard cars at home is what the vast majority of Jadlam customers and most slot car enthusiasts do, yet much of the advice and information is geared at high-end performance cars and club racing. Some of that can be quite intimidating and there's sometimes an elitist uncurrent that suggests "if you're not doing it like us, you're just playing with kid's toys". For me, there is only one way of playing with slot cars - and that's what you enjoy.
On the basis that most of us who play with slot cars are using standard Scalextric cars, I sketched out a series of tuning posts that would focus on one new Scalextric model - the new Ford Mustang GT4. It's not a great performer out of the box - very loose at the back and with a higher centre of gravity than most GT cars. That made it ideal for my purposes!
Starting with a look at the outside and inside of the car - naming and explaining each of the parts - I then went on to test the car on my version of the Jadlam SL6 layout. I chose a standard layout for my test track so readers could easily replicate it on their living room floor and match their cars and tuning progress against mine.
What I've tried to do is show how to create a tuning and testing programme, rather than just be prescriptive. I've shown tweaks that have and haven't worked on the Mustang - each step creating a better or worse-handling car with quicker, slower or equal lap times. Each tweak has been followed by another test run and more hard data.
These are the first five blog posts in the Scalextric Tuning series...
Scalextric Tuning 1: Parts of a Car - click here
Scalextric Tuning 2: Tweaking a New Car - click here
Scalextric Tuning 3: Maintenance & Repairs - click here
Scalextric Tuning 4: Magnatraction - click here
Scalextric Tuning 5: Fixing Oversteer - click here
There's not much there that I haven't learned from other racers, although the magnatraction stuff does have elements of originality! It's also important to me that the tweaks I write about are things I routinely do on my home cars and the Scalextric cars I tune for racing at our WHO/digital club. I'm also using the basic tools, simple magnet-measure and DIY tyre-truer that I use. It's a personal story that I'm sharing - me, my hobby and the Mustang GT4 - not my take on the Slot Car Ten Commandments.
Coming up next is a look at the front end of the Mustang and understeer - then a proper look at modifying the car for more effective body roll. In part eight, I'll look at removing the traction magnet and then - in the penultimate part - preparing the Mustang for racing at WHO/digital. The final part is a wrap-up - pulling together the principles of a tuning and testing programme, the tool kit we've built up during the series and some ideas where to go next.
The plan I sketched out at the start has certainly changed quite a bit - influenced by the data from the first few steps with the Mustang and by some of the positive and encouraging feedback I've received. It is proving a fun and most interesting journey!
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