Not that I'd consider spending unknown number of hours doing this...but you could make small body mods like this...

The Worthing Rally GB team car left the south coast early on Sunday morning to the sound of rolling thunder as it took Phil, Terry and myself up to St Albans for round three of the Slot Rally GB series. 

We arrived to the familiar sight of a school hall filled with a variety of strange tracks that would get to know very well by the end of the day. Registration was straight forward and there was plenty of space to set up pitboxes and get in a brew before we headed off into the hall to face our destiny. 

Terry's cars
   

Phil's cars
   

My weapons of choice for the day...
   

I have adopted a new strategy with my cars having chatted it through with Andy during the previous round. Gone was my SRC 914 that was a rocketship, but not a team player. In was my SRC 205 which I felt gave a better balance to my runs. So the TR7 is my pathfinder, first on the track to learn the way round and hopefully pick out the danger points. Next up are my SRC Delta and 205. A rock solid core to the squad that would tease out where each of the tracks could be attacked, and a springboard for my nippy Scaleauto 208 that would hopefully benefit from all the lessons learnt and bring home a result. 

The three of us were kept together in a group alongside Charlie and David from the Wood Green club. We picked the Ninco 'Thomson's Twists' track to start with, a good layout to get our trigger fingers warmed up on, and hopefully one that would not punish any mistakes too heavily!
   

As often happens, the first track threw up a few issues. Ninco set ups only seem to work with simple resistor controllers, so the Truespeeds had to be quickly unplugged and the more basic PS controllers were used by us all. Adding a bit of spice to the day, Terry and Phil were sharing the Avant Mitsubishi car. Who would finish ahead of who in the final results? Let's just say it was the subject of much ribbing and teasing between the two of them throughout the day!

Next up was Abbot's Wood, a sweeping Scalextric track (but with some deceptive bends!)
   

Terry just triple checking Phil's time with the shared car...
   

This track teased out some issues with the braids on my 205. I hadn't run it at this level before and it seems now that the original braids were a touch short and narrow to handle all the rails and tapes on all the tracks. So a stuttering run slightly unsettled my game plan. 

Onto 'Raid' next.
   

A bumpy Ninco track incorporating three humpback bridges. A sprung guide and a bit of track clearance under your car were essential, along with a bit of care not to get airborne over the hump and deslot. Again the 205 suffered with it's braids, but relief that none of my cars struggled on the bumps as this is the kind of track that can punish a car that doesn't, and set you back on the timesheet. 

One further track before lunch, and we plumped for 'Tarmac Terror', and the clue was sort of in the name...
   

The tarmac was fine, the piece of local knowledge that we did not have was "don't run wide and get your tyres on the grass!'. If you did, they would get a coating of grass cuttings and the rear of the car would lose all grip, directing the rear tyres even wider on each bend to pick up the cuttings you missed the last time round! My cars ran pretty tidily, so were not effected, but Phil and Terry learnt the hard way and had to drive as if they were running on the Worthing Ice Ring stage. My tyre cleaning tape provided the sorry evidence afterwards! Lunch would be a subdued affair for the gardeners in the group.

The afternoon session started in dramatic fashion with the smoke breathing 'Welsh Dragon' stage!
         

A variety of surfaces, and with tight corners and elevation changes, cars that handled well were rewarded with a good time, whilst those that didn't were heavily punished. Braid issues with the 205 on the copper tape meant a painful run spoilt what was otherwise a good stage for me. My TR7 flew round and was only a hairs breath behind the time of my 208. All in all, a stage full of character!
   

Onto the penultimate stage, literally, as the SCM Stage was on an elevated stage at the end of the hall.
   

A painted Scalextric Classic track, and a relatively straightforward stage if your guide was suitably shallow. Unfortunately they weren't for many of the cars in our group, which had to endure a rattly drive with bouncing front ends that would have loosened any fillings in the crew's teeth, and probably loosened their teeth as well for good measure! A timely reminder of one of the many characteristics of the ancient sport of slot rallying! Also, a stage needing to be treated with respect, as the various pinch points around the track claimed half a rear bumper off one car, a wheel insert off another, and rather spectacularly, the rear wheel off one of Terry's cars. This was noted by a couple of the organisers, but as he had started the stage with all four wheels attached, his time stood!

And finally, we rounded off the day on 'Old Quarry', one of those short, twisty circuits that can make you dizzy with all the rapid turning of your head you had to do to follow your cars! Here is it being tamed by some of the slot rallying elite!
   

Again, the trick here was to keep off the grass...one mistake and it was "ice ice baby"! I kept it neat, and having got a feel of how I needed to configure the braids on the 205 to get continuous power from a twisty taped slot, each of my cars were faster than the previous one, leading to an attempt with the 208 to get under the fifty second barrier. Unfortunately I missed out by nine hundreths of a second, but a fun way to end the day!

Whilst I missed out on the podium in the Modern class with my Peugeot 208, coming 5th for the second event in a row, I think I got the most I could have from it on the day. So no regrets or 'what ifs' to niggle away at me on the way home.
   

The next round is 'at home' in Worthing, so something to look forward to.

   

Our first Digital Saturday of 2025 featured the final round of the WHO GT Championship in the afternoon. Despite being the hottest day of the year and plenty of massive traffic jams, we kept the Barn nice and cool.

Twenty-one racers took part in the morning pairs race, with Terry, James and rookie Simon leaving not staying for the Suzuka 1000. That gave us a line-up for the afternoon that looked like this...

   

Having built the big Suzuka track and given a 25 minute run-out to the GT Championship cars, we settled down to some GT pairs action - everyone able to run their own GT cars as pairs in a St Mary's style format: each driver running a ten-minute race and their scores aggregated...

   

There was some rapid machinery out there alongside some 'just-for-fun' entries. Simon M got his first taste of Scalextric digital racing with a GT4 Mustang - not the easiest of cars to drive!

   

At the end of four heats, the scores looked like this...

   

Victory went to Alex and Jean, thanks to Alex's 40 laps beating the 39 of Ryan.

Here are most of the cars from the morning session...

   

A 30-minute lunch break followed and then it was time for the 4-hour, 1000 lap team race.

Manx Slot Car Club - Le Manx - Group C & LMP - 12th June 2025

   

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** NO MAGNETS IN ANY OF OUR CARS! ** ...Track set at 12v
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We threw some ideas around for this event beforehand but that quickly evolved on race night into what you see here.
- Five club members each did 3 qually laps with an eligible car of their choice.
- The three quickest of those cars were chosen with the fastest staying on the slow (Red) lane all night, the slowest one staying on the fast (Blue) lane all night and the third car staying on the middle (Yellow) lane.
- The five of us then raced in 5 minute heats moving through each line 3 times for a total of 15 heats.
- The race was paused every 5 minutes to allow for a driver change.
- Each driver raced 9 times.
- Nobody cleaned the tyres in the early heats, it was decided whilst racing that the only time the cars could be handled was whilst the clock was running so waiting until the last 5 seconds of the heat worked out as the best time as once the car was in the drivers hand the tyres could be cleaned even after the race was paused at the end of the 5 minute stint.
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Two of us commented whilst racing that this was like a Proxy event as it was all about the cars not the drivers.
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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The three cars were:
- RED lane - SlotIt Matra 670B with a Falcon 25k motor - Modified Class - pre 1975 Prototype
- YELLOW lane - SCX Audi R18 LMP - Back2Basics Class - LMP
- BLUE lane - SlotIt Porsche 956 - Standard Class - Group C
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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At the end of each stint the drivers moved to the next lane, a new driver raced in Red lane whilst the driver in Blue lane was a marshal for two stints.
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Stint 1 was Andy, Kev, Brian
Stint 2 was Ed, Andy, Kev
Stint 3 was Chris, Ed, Andy
Stint 4 was Brian, Chris, Ed
Stint 5 was Kev, Brian, Chris
…etcetera…etcetera
.
   
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At the end of the race, there were actually three class winners...not only was it a superb nights racing, one that we can't wait to do again but everyone was a winner.
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This was the best thing we’ve done this year, next year we’ll have to have an Endurance Series with more than two slots in the racing calendar. 
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We could alternate this proposed Endurance Series with a Classics event for pre-1975 cars.
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Next week is the NSR Mosler ‘Club Challenge’ #5 followed by Grand Prix & Prewing F1
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Le Mans 2025...live on Quest HD (sky 144) at 10pm to 5am...then the last 2 hours tomorrow at 1pm

MR Slotcar Corvette C1 3dp mods

I thought I would start a separate thread under 3dp for the C1, as the car has stimulated a lot of discussion elsewhere on the pros and cons of this particular car and I wanted to highlight a 3dp modification i.e. a Flat 6 motor pod.

   

My 4ps worth on the original car itself is that it has several contradictions, i.e. an American V8 sports car with a FF050 motor, a wood guide and a magnet. The shell is crisply moulded and light at 19 grms, plus is painted/decaled to a reasonable standard. Not overly fussed on the accuracy of the shell and its compromises, and can live with the toy like driver figure, so overall, is fine for club racing. The wheels are all alloy with some nice period inserts and will take slightly bigger rubber. My local club’s Goodwood pre67 front engined sports car class allows rubber up to 10mm wide and motors either Flat6 or Boxers up to 22.5K rpm or S cans to 25K, so the supplied FF050 18K motor has to go. Interested in the chassis design/body mounting so my 1st thought was to shoehorn a Flat 6 (insufficient depth for a Boxer unless the interior comes out) into the existing chassis in a new 3dp pod and perhaps make a complete new chassis with interior replacement later on to compare the two.

   

Several design and print iterations later I have a Flat 6 motor pod that fits into the chassis as shown. I put outriggers more towards the rear so as to enable M2 6mm grub screws to act as movement limits instead of using the set height plastic inserts under the arms on the original pod. Added a spring to the rear pod fixing and retained the O ring to the front to cope with the club Ninco track. The motor is retained by 2 screws to the rear and a retaining hoop forward. The rear axle now runs in Slot It spherical bearings as this gives a stronger support to the axle for a printed pod.

   

Printing wise I used custom supports to cope with the need to support the pod overhanging the chassis on the sides and each end.

Other modifications are replacing the front wheels/tyres & rear wheels/tyres with PCS wheels and 10mm tyres, 9:25 gearing again using a 1mm offset cog. The wood guide is replaced with a Scaleauto plastic track one, which is a drop in fit and the front axle raised and ground down tyres to get the guide to sit correctly. The body sits on the original steel plates with the O rings now above the steel plates not under to drop the shell down.

Didn’t bother much with testing the original chassis setup, but went straight to the modifications so I can club race. The car handles well (on home Carrera track) with the low slung heavy chassis plate and the Flat 6 R 22K rpm motor now giving it respectable performance. Handling compared to my other Goodwood cars like the Cheetah is good as it runs smoothly and predictably into the bend with some body movement evident and digs in when accelerating out

Will see how competitive this is at the next Goodwood meeting and whether a complete 3dp chassis is warranted.

Cheers
John

If you don't have a way to 3D print your bodies or other parts, I can do it for you and ship it out. I'm in the USA, and just retired. I'm reasonably priced versus the print farms and will quote before printing. My wife is in remission from cancer and I'm home caring for her. The work will keep me busy and help earn a little to pay medical bills.
Thanks, Mike

   

Twenty-two racers joined us for the second round of our 2025 AFX Formula One Championship. We welcomed a new WHO racer - Simon came all the way from Eastbourne for his first taste of racing at the Barn.

   

Our Donington-ish track made a second appearance - basically Donington with extended esses. And we had a few extra straights added, giving us a track that almost filled the entire space...

   

A notable debut was of the new AFX McLaren F1 cars. Both James and Oliver had sought them out overseas - James racing his Lando Norris version through the heats...

   

The heats began with Deborah setting a benchmark of 24 laps in blue. Another eight heats (and an interval to swap out an expired monitor) went by before anyone got close - Kev banging in an immense 23.95 in red. Both Kev and Deborah were running Mega-G+ cars...

   

Terry immediately pushed his Super-G to 24.35 laps in red and Pete grabbed a 24.0 in the same lane to give us this leaderboard after everyone had completed two heats...

   

Dylan was top junior at the halfway point, with Stephen top rookie in eleventh and Simon an excellent sixteenth on debut. With two more heats and each drivers best three scores counting, it promised to be a drama-filled second round of qualifying...

   

Would the Mega-G+ cars of Deborah and Keith close out the top two spots - or would Pete, Terry or Ryan put a Super-G on pole? Deborah managed a 23.35 in Heat 12, Terry a 24.1 in Heat 16. While we were seeing plenty of 20+ scores, the frontrunners needed 24 each time. So when Deborah, Keith and Pete all fell short in a scrappy Heat 19, the tension went through the roof.

The pressure got to Terry, as he could only muster 20.75 in blue in the penultimate heat. It all came down to what Pete and Keith could do in the final heat of the evening. Deborah had provisional pole with 70.7 laps, ahead of Terry on 70.5. Oliver was third on 69.3, just a tenth ahead of Ryan. Pete sat fifth on 67.23 and Keith seventh with 66.25. They would both need huge scores to trouble Deborah and Terry.

Both rose to the occasion and delivered the best two heats of the night - an astonishing 24.7 on yellow for Keith and a sensational 25.3 laps on blue for Pete to claim a last-gasp pole position...

   

Could the finals match up to that excitement?

   

Hello, I am looking for silicon tyres to fit an old Scalextric Mini 1275GT.  I know that they are the same fitment on other Scalextric cars of the same era. 
Looking for recommendations from people who have purchased such and people who may be able to supply from their own production. 

Cheers,  Leo