Australian Slot Car Racers Association

Are we running on sat night ?

YUP

Here is HSC Calendar FYI

http://www.hornsbyslotcars.com.au/artic ... r_2009.pdf

Who won??

Gee,..let us actually Start racing first Steve !!

It's this coming Saturday,..lol

Got ahead of myself. huh?
It's been a slow week.

Is Cody going to be there??

Wayne told me that Cody has to have an operation to remove his gall bladder which is unusual for someone Cody's age. Apparently it has caused him a lot of trouble lately but it is a bit unfortunate as he has only recently started a new job as an apprentice.

I hope Cody can get back into racing quickly as he is not only a fast driver but a nice guy as well.

Regards,

hutch at movsd dot com

Cody,
Get well soon.

What apprenticeship are you doing?

Who won?

Cody !! and set some New Lap Totals in the Process !!

OK, I reckon he has to drive left handed, and with an eye patch over his right eye.

OR, just make him build his own car??

Then if that don't work, make him use a 100m extension lead between his controller and the track. Then you can decide where he has to drive from.

Cody has built a good car and he drove it well but I am not without a complaint over the condition of the track. After practicng during the week and build 4 cars so I had a choice of what to run, the track was again cleaned before the race which made the track too slippery for any of my cars, particularly the fastest one I had in practice so I had to pick one of the others that was easier to drive.

At my age I simply don't care who wins these retro races, my fun is in building my cars and driving them but turning up on Saturday night for another episode of skidpan racing and marshalling for the rest of the night is somewhat short of being fun.

It was my good fortune to have been in the first semi where all of the faster cars were running as I missed the final by not being fast enough which was a blessing in that I avoided the carnage from a race being run on a slippery track.

The marshalling was also less than fun, I had to dive under the track to get Fox's car after it flipped off the end of the straight and landed under the bridge on the floor. Endless prangs of cars being overdriven on a slippery track is a formula for what is happening with retro racing, the numbers are dwindling as more people are getting pissed off about how the races run.

The only real fun for the evening was I loaned a car to Ivan who drove very well and turned in a credible performance in the final, even though the car was not really fast enough.

I hate to be a critic as I have known Wayne since he was a kid and I think James has done miracles in getting HSC up and going again but from a users perspective, the motivation to keep building cars and racing them sags somewhat when the work you do is wasted with unpredictable changes in conditions.

I am pleased to see Cody doing well, he has built a good car and deserves to win with it as he is driving it well and very fast but unless conditions improve and start to become consistent, he may end up with no-one to race against.

Regards,

hutch at movsd dot com

Hutch, sounds like a real mixed bag for you there.

What tyres do you use?

What tyres does everyone else use??

Last few times I raced there I used Parma fishy donuts and found them pretty good on big aluminium hubs. I had to narrow them once on real sticky track, but mostly OK on full width for medium to slick conditions.

HELLO HUTCHO, NOW AS IT IS MY JOB TO SEE THAT THE TRACK IS IN GOOD RACING CONDITION FOR EVERYBODY AND NOT JUST ONE PERSON, I START BY CLEANING THE WHOLE TRACK TO GET THE DUST OFF IT, OTHERWISE THE GUTTER LANES ARE SOOOOOO SLIPPERY NOT EVEN CODY CAN DRIVE THEM. THEN I SPRAY IT. LAST SAT, NITE I DID THIS AND NO ONE COULD GET AROUND, WAY TOO HEAVY, SO WE CLEANED IT LIGHTLY AGAIN AND LIGHTLY SPRAYED.
EVERYBODY SEEMED HAPPY, AS STEVE KING SAID HE USES DIFFERENT COMPOUNDS EACH RACE, AS DID CODY TESTED BEFORE THE RACE TO SEE WHICH TYRE WORKED ON HIS CAR . THE CHOICE WAS ALPHA TREATED, UNTREATED OR JK.
NOW WHEN YOU COME TO THE SHOP AND PRACTICE , YOU ALWAYS ASK ME TO SPRAY THE TRACK HEAVY, BECAUSE YOUR CARS LIKE IT. MAYBE ASK ME TO SPRAY LIGHTLY TO TEST YOUR CARS.
THERE IS A LOT OF DRIVERS NOT RACING BECAUSE OF OTHER REASONS, NOT THE TRACK CONDITION.
SO WHEN YOU BUILD THE NEXT CHASSIS,DESIGN IT FOR LIGHT GOO.
I DIDNT RACE ON SAT BECAUCSE I GAVE MY CAR TO CODY TO SEE HOW WELL HE COULD PUT IT AROUND.
HENCE THE NEW TRACK RECORDS, I AM JUST TOOOOO OLD.
SO IF ANY OF YOU DRIVERS HAVE A BITCH ABOUT ANY THING OR ANYONE, PLEASE SPEAK TO ME OR JAMES AND NOT ON THIS BLOOOOOOOOODY FORUM

Not a good night for me, and I guess the only reason I made the final was based on the consi splits. If I had have been in the first consi I would have been marshling and Steve would have been driving.

What went wrong, had the old car. Was happy with that and it was easy to drive.

Built a new car that was very similar to the old one. But really had no testing and was only put on the track an hour before the race for the first time.

Found the track conditions changed dramatically during testing in the hour before.

When I first got on the track the new car had good bite and much fsater then the old car. then has some rubber got laid down, the new car got tippy and the old car became faster and much more drivable. So I elected to battle with the new car and let matt use the old car.

Some things I did different on the new car was, new tyres Alpha rubber that I had bonded to some very small koford rims - Too much bite - car tippy. Changed tyres with Matts car for the final - much better but the car still is not right.

Front wheels, on the old car I had dropped the fornt wheels much lower by elongating this hole in the JK kit. Without this mod the car seems tippy.

spacer under the guide, next time that comes out. The side pans on the old car had less side to side movment - this is another thing I will change. Weight of cars is the same.

Oh and sandpaper on the side of the body, for some reason marshalls like this.

Kingy,

I in fact turned up with 3 types of tires, Alpha large rim which I ended up using, 2 pairs of plastic rim JK tires and a pair of Alpha donuts glued to wheels that I manufacture. Cleaned and rolled in the gooed sections of the track corners I could straight line wheelspin all of them. My lightest car was 116 grams, the heaviest was 123 grams.

Lindsay,

put a wire U bracket behind your guide tongues to restrict the guide travel each side, both of your cars were hard to marshal, the guide locked to one side if the car spun as it came off. The non slip tape that many are now using makes it possible to pick the car up to marshal it. One day I will tell the joke of the priest dropping a child into the font (slippery little devil etc ...).

OZP....

Don't type in all upper case, it looks like you are shouting.

This is in fact a good place to make comments, after another round of skidpan racing and marshalling all night by the time I got home I felt like throwing the whole lot in the rubbish tin. I don't care who wins the races, I build cars for the fun of it and drive them for the same reason, I retired from professional racing in 1971 and would never go back, I just happen to enjoy racing with the rest of the old fellas who can still build cars.

Now the traction conditions are another matter, when I first started to build retro cars late last year I had to develop them around more traction than my cars at that time needed. Enough cars later and I have them working reasonable under medium traction conditions.

I ask for the track to be gooed when I turn up for practice as I need to emulate the conditions that were current when I started building these cars, a Wednesday after the track has been closed for days has the track dusty and slippery.

A couple of months ago when you were away and Cody ran the race, he thought the track was too heavily gooed and cleaned it and regooed it and it was a disaster. Last Saturday was not far off the same conditions with much the same results.

The choices are level the playing field so everyones cars go OK or end up with no entrants. With a choice of skidpan racing and marshalling all night after it, a night at the pub or perhaps a couple of good DVDs are a better option.

There are objective tests for the change in conditions, Foxo was qualifying late last year in the 4.78 range, now he is not beating 5 seconds even though his cars are faster. I have just retired a car I built for the championship race last year than I never changed and late last year it was a 5.1 second car, when I retired it it struggled to beat 5.4. I pinched the motor and gears out of it for the cars I wanted to run last weekend and it had not run out of legs.

Regards,

hutch at movsd dot com