Our first action of 2024 is the tradition WHO Mod season-opener - guaranteed to blow away any holiday hangovers.

WHO Mod is our fastest class, featuring mostly Viper chassis and lexan bodyshells. Hard-bodied cars run alongside, competing in the WHO Tuners sub-class.

The four rounds this year will feature some of Simon's best Mod tracks from the archives, starting with this one...

   

Doors open at 6.30pm for practice, with heats beginning at 7. We had some good New Year publicity in the 'All About...' magazines delivered to 33,000 local households, so fingers-crossed we are able to offer some rookie racers a very warm WHO welcome...

   

I have a friend that makes the most amazing cars and whenever he updates his collection and sells off a few I always buy them no matter what. These are the latest 2 I have bought!


               

This is a Betta and Classic Fibreglass body of the Surtees. 


           


This the Ligier from 76, and first I thought the colour was wrong, until I found the pic of the real car. Seems it changed colours during the season.

As Graham is not running his off road proxy anymore and I hardly ever get the chance to play with it these days I am looking to move on my SCX stuff.

For sale as one job lot:

80820 off road desert set. All complete, boxed. The Oasis section is fully liquid. The two set cars have had some use and the Mitsubishi is missing its mirrors. The Touareg is a non runner but that is just a loose guide wire and an easy fix.

88700 Extension pack. Boxed.

88720 Suspension bridge. Boxed.

The above make up an extensive layout. The pictures show it laid out in my garden for the 2022 proxy. The track rails are a little dull and could do with a bit of a polish but it is in overall excellent condition with no rust. The whole set up has only been used about 6 times in all the years I have had it.
               

Extras
Also included are the following:
SCX 62770 VW Touareg "Sousa" - mint and boxed.
Avant Slot 50703 Mitsubishi Lancer "Peterhansel". Test laps only, as new, boxed.
SCX 88020 Hump/dip bridge. As new, boxed.
Scalextric L6615 rough terrain (dog turd) classic track. As new.
Ninco 10251 off road obstacles. New in packet.
Two spare SCX controllers, 'snow effect.'
Spare (dried up) Oasis section.

There is way too much to post/courier even if I could find a box large enough to put it in. It is therefore available for collection from King's Lynn, Norfolk, I could possibly deliver within a reasonable distance for the cost of my petrol. Could also possibly take to MK swapmeet in February or UKSF at Gaydon in May.

These are rare and sought after items with the basic set alone fetching in excess of £250 on the open market. Whole lot available for bargain price of £450 or vno.
PM if you are interested.

Porsche 904 V4.2 Is ready and will test against V2.3 and maybe one or 2 more will be tested. The Imp V2.1, Ferrari 250 GTO and 904 V3.1 are ineligible as they are sidewinders.  The 904 received an 18k motor, guide, interior and 7.5mm rear tires today. It’s 14 grams lighter than V2.3 so we will see how the shootout goes At the end of the month.  

           

It's the time of year to reflect back...and look forward. 

Every new year has a special feeling, spring is on the way, the daylight is slowly stretching (northern hemisphere) and you sometimes make a vow to change one or two things in your life, new year resolutions. 

What changes are you making for 2024?

I made a resolution a few years ago to focus on the enjoyment of racing my Slot cars rather than trying to win. It made a big difference to my hobby and I actually started winning even more. 

This year I want to try and help others out more and see new winners for a change.

In 16 months time I'll officially be an old age pensioner (66). The state pension is all I'll have to look forward to so this time next year I'll be making that decision to retire or work part time whilst I'm fully capable of doing so.

I had been sitting on the fence with these, but just before Xmas they were going for a sensible amount on the amazon black friday sale.
When it arrived, I looked at it and saw some potential for a conversion to a Roscoe P Coltrane cop car so I ordered another.
I also needed a Chigago cop car to chase Jake and Elwood, unfortunately at the time there were none for much less than RRP, but I had some Nectar points and so I got a tenner of on ebay !

When I eventually got around to trying them out on my track, I was left disappointed.
They were hopping all over the place, and even glueing in the motor and bearings failed to sort it.
I know Brian said his ran OK so its my usual luck with Scalextric cars, I mostly get the Friday afternoon ones !

Oddly the motor is mounted on its side ... I say oddly as I know Scalextric did this on the Mustangs so they could have a full interior, but in this case the motor would sit normally and still fit under the stock interior so IDK what they were thinking.

So first things first, get rid of the huge tannoy that was only on for a short time in the film, fill in the holes and repaint the roof roughly to match the rest.
This one is destined to be Roscoe's Car, so will get a repaint later..




Then I set about designing a chassis and thinking how best to mount it and retain the stock lighting and as much of the interior as possible.
I 3D Printed some adaptor posts to mount from the existing points without needed to modify the body at all. Under the posts I have M2 screws so I can lock the post height, or back them off to have a bit of vertical give if I want.



Then I cut off the front and rear of the chassis to hold the lights and bumpers in place and still have some fuel tank and exhaust detail, as well as hold my posts in place.
Then 3D Printed the chassis and a 1mm Offset sidewinder pod that takes snap in bearings and uses the plastic end bell to drive from so I can use the stock (or more likely in my case) Pioneer motors.






The car stock also sits with its Derrier higher in the air than I would like, so my chassis is designed to lower the whole car a little, and make it sit flat. I haven't got to build it up fully yet, but I believe this will achieved the stance I want.




Due to the extra height of using a Pod Chassis, I need to lose some of the interior, but retain the way it all fitted. As the floor is what holds it together I needed to first epoxy 2 square brass tube frames, before chopping off the bottom. Here is the before and after.



Jake and Elwood have been removed from one interior to make way for Roscoe and Flash. Flash has been printed. He is quite small so is more of a representation but I think he came out good enough. Roscoe will be a repainted driver from somewhere !
I also printed a police light bar, which I hope I can make work with LED's, but if not I am not fussed with having non working one.
Talking of which, the Chicago Cop Car has PCB mounted on the underside of the interior for its Blues, so I will need to relocate that.

Excuse the 3D parts ... they are fresh of the printer and need tidying, as do the interiors.
If anyone is still reading, I will post updates when I have got a bit further forward  

Christmas Turkey Targa (Florio) reports - 28th December - BallaYorkley & TT Grandstand & Little Druidale - 

   

An end of year special event, one that we’ve never tried before.
Everyone drives one car of their choice from the list of cars that raced the Targa Florio between 1952 and 1972 inclusive
Normal racing on BallaYorkley, 3 minutes on 3 lanes
3 minutes on both TT Grandstand and Little Druidale Rally stages
Combined scores to decide which car did best in each class
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SlotIt classics were popular, a trio of GT40’s and a Ferrari 312PB plus a Ninco Jaguar XK120.
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The classes are slightly different between the Rally and Race cars, i.e. Ed’s Jag would be a ‘Back to Basics’ (B2B) Small Sports/Saloon on BallaYorkley but a ProStock Small Classic on the Rally stages.  The results table shows both class types for each car, Race-Rally.
.
Some of the races on BallaYorkley were very close at times:
Heat #2 - Kev (Red lane) & Brian (Yellow lane) were never more than 1 second apart until lap 17 when Brian’s GT40 left the road, then again 5 laps later resulting in Kev’s Ferrari finishing a lap ahead.
Heat #7 - Nigel (Red lane) + Ed (Yellow lane) + Brian (Blue lane)...the race behind Brian’s GT40 was very close, Ed’s XK120 and Nigel’s GT40 crossing the line together



No split timing on the Rally stages, get as many laps as you can in 3 minutes.
Brian & Mike finished very close although the recorded laps show differently the two cars were only a few seconds apart on the road.
Kev’s Ferrari was only a few seconds ahead of the two quicker GT40’s on Little Druidale but showed a lot more pace on TT Grandstand.
Nigel’s GT40 had too much pace for Ed’s XK120 to keep up, hopefully Ed will gain some time back when his new controller returns from the menders.



So how did it go?...I think we enjoyed it actually, I think we’ll see some of these cars again in this event as the Targa Florio is on the 2024 racing calendar.
We didn’t know how the timed runs on the Rally stages would work out but added to the occasion.

   

Time to pack those Christmas jumpers away for another year and really look forward to the new events we have lined up.

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Next week is the start of the 2024 season and begins with Club Revoslots followed by Grand Prix & Prewing F1

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Yes finally I have a couple of wins under my belt at the local club!  It's been a long time coming and finally I have my revenge :)

For the end of the year the club was holding some races on 29th and as it was the first day of the end of year vacation for me I decided to prepare a bunch of cars that would be eligible for 2 of the races.  I entered in the open Scalextric class and then the night race - also limited to Scalextric.  

It is pretty relaxed club so replacement wheels and tires are permitted as long and the car clears the minimum height of 1mm on the track.  While this sounds pretty easy, I found a bunch of cars that don't meet this requirement even as stock - although in most cases the infringement appears to be either area on the chassis to accommodate the gear or in some cases what appears to be aggressive imprints for the car name and scaley logo.  So I prepped what I knew would be good and took a selection to try out.

In the pre-races testing at the track I found 2 that were not only quick, but relatively stable on the track too and could do consistent laps.  The Sierra RS500 and the VW Passat.  But during shakedown one of the rear wheels on the Sierra flew off which had to have a drop of super glue to fix back on.  So confidence was not high for that one and I decided to keep in reserve and use the Passat in the 2 races.  The Passat was not fully stock as some time ago on a particularly bad deslot/hit the floor, it had broken the rear wheels entirely.  So the rear had some aluminum wheels with Plafitt rubber shoes - we don't get Scalextric or really any other brand of spares in Japan, but we do have Plafitt and all the parts for 1/24 & 1/32 they sell.  Everything else was stock.

   
Qualifying for the open class I have the best time in qualifying and choice of starting lane.  A good start.  At the end of the first heat I was a lap up on the other drivers, although the distance to second place was just over 1m.  Fortunately the start finish line was within that 1m which made my one lap advantage greater that it actually was.  Still it gave me a boost going into the second heat which is when disaster hit.  The race started and my car sat on the start line unmoving.  Got a track call and checked the car, but it was having nothing to do with it and I had to substitute the car with the suspect RS500, this also cost me a penalty.

Fortunately over the next 4 heats the car was reliable and quick, and very stable on the track.  Going into the final heat I was sure I was on course for either the win or the second place.  The racing was very tight, but the stability on the RS500 gave me the edge.  But at this point I noticed something odd on the car.  The rear axle has having alot of movement.  With no time to check further except to confirm the drive was still there, and could not risk another penalty, especially with none of the other cars I had available being anything like as good as this, I had to roll the dice and stick with the car for the final heat.

It stayed together and made it home.  Once I had the lead I just aimed to keep it consistent and not take any chances.  Finally winning the race for my first win by 4 laps overall.  During the interval I took the car apart to check what was happening.  Turns out half the plastic retainer on one side of the chassis for the rear wheel brass bearing had broken off.  The left side was freely moving around and was only held in check but the opposite side being in tact and the top part of the body of the car.  I could only directly glue the brass bearing to the plastic chassis and keep it together in case needed.

With this making the car risky to use for the night race I had to focus on the Passat and what went wrong in the first race.  It turns out the contacts for the pickups were moving around and making an unstable connection.  Again the glue came out and I put a dab between the plastic of the guide and pick up to try and keep them in place.  Then thinking I had no reliable spare car as a secondary attempt to keep it reliable, I swapped in a set of new original Scalaextric braids on the pickup.  Figuring this would help keep the contacts in place by the physical pressure as the ones I swapped out were a thinner Slot.It braid.  A couple of quick practice laps and all seemed good.

A couple more entries in the night racing so it took a little longer and the racing a little slower as uncertainty on the braking points.  The racing was very intense and in a couple of heats it went lap after lap racing side by side.  This was a first for me to be in such a competitive position, which seemed to just add to the pressure.  Fully aware that at anytime a deslot could lose the heat and the race.  Not only that, but being taken out by someone else desloting next to you was also a risk and a couple of drivers had that misfortune.

The Passat ran good consistent laps and was so very stable.  In the end the win was mine.....just.  Myself and another driver both finished with 151 laps, but he had the misfortune of picking up a single penalty for a deslot while the Passat cleared with no penalities.

Was a good afternoon of racing and very happy to finally get my win.  They now say I have to get my 1/24 car more competitive so I can enter the Plafitt hardbody class next time.  I think it will be aa while before I get there, currently a good one second a lap off their pace.  

As a final treat to myself for a good day racing and to support the club, I purchased from them a Ford GT GTE as a prospect for future races.

But first my 2 winning cars will receive so TLC to race another day.

   

No-one likes spam, right?  It usually goes straight to a dedicated folder in my e-mail browser.  However.........

I have an account with Premier Inn, because of the amount of times I/we use their facilities.  I always book online, and have never had a problem with any of my bookings (well, there was once but that was my fault......).  But recently, PI have started bombarding me with reminder e-mails at regular intervals during the week leading-up to the day of the booking.  If I mark them as spam, everything I get from PI will go straight into the spam folder.  

So, short of remembering to un-spam them before I book, and then remembering to revert them once I get the confirmation and invoice, I suppose I'll have to put-up with their ******* spam.  

DS-3503D Hand Controllers (Pair) 1 Red & 1 Yellow

I bought these new for use on a ‘planned’ wooden track, but due to recent health issues I am no longer well enough to build one.

The controllers are still in new condition and have been kept in their original packaging in dry indoor storage.

They currently retail for £32.50 each, I am selling the pair for £60 including Royal Mail 48hr tracked shipping (UK ONLY).

Specifications: -
Built-in braking circuit, 35-ohm versions, which are recommended for home racing.
18 throttle steps.
12 to 19vDC rated.
Built-in short circuit protection.
90cm cable.
I added 3 pin plugs to these, which I will include, but you can 'easily replace' with the correct plugs to suit your plastic track set-up.

Please note: -

[b]These controllers are in new condition and the images are of the actual items you will be buying.[/b]
THESE ARE ADVERTISED ELSEWHERE!