Tips

The 3 tracks being used for the UK rounds are some what different to the other tracks used in the American race and the Australian races in the fact that they are longer and faster .All 3 tracks have the same type of surface  ,grey gloss paint ,Pendle being copper taped the other 2 being recessed braid so it will be an added challenge to the competitors to get a set up which will suit all 3 tracks.The tracks all apear quite different Pendle having a mixture of  long straights  ,swooping curves and a very tight hairpin bend,Bolton having fast 180  degree curves and sharp 45 degree bends whilst Slot -tech has long staights and  2 fast slightly banked bends  dips and 90 degree bends.The surprising thing is that it is possible to turn in fast lap times with a variety of ratios and set ups  .

For Pendle a  fox will  run well between 10-36 and 10 -38 depending on chassis weight.

Bolton  10-35 /36 with the brakes backed off is ok

Slot- tech is a bit unknown yet as it is a new track but early tests show that 10 -34/35 may be close to the mark .

As ratios will not be changed between races it will be up to the competitor to choose carefully what gearing is used.

V12 type motors run well on Pendle and offer good allround performance and plenty of punch out of the corners.

Perhaps the biggest diference between the cars we run and the other competitors is the weight ,our car seem to be much lighter  than the American entrys and the Australian.

Any of the current fish /natural sponge type tyres work well on our tracks also all 3 favour a tripod setup  rather than  front wheels touching .I usualy set my fronts 10 thou clear.

Prior to the event we will do some more testing at Slot -tech and post some furthur tips

Tyre wear

         This has not been a problem at the other rounds but  both  Bolton and Slot-Tech have braid pick up, Slot-Tech in particular having steel braid may lead to higher than normal wear so competitors are advised to take this into account when setting up cars ,please mark clearly if you wish any tyre changes etc between the tracks and supply appropriate parts with your entry.

So you fancy your chances at an entry but you’ve never scratch built a car before and you cant solder

There are a few options open to you.

 Option 1

 Thumper /womp

These are 2 pressed chassis used for semi scale racing both can be easily adapted for hard bodied racing by cutting the side pans down to the width of the body and drilling 2 mounting holes in the underside gluing a couple of wood blocks inside the body and the jobs done. Both of these chassis were designed to take a 16d motor but a scalex type can be simply epoxied in place .A car like this is ideal for a first attempt as it is easy to construct cheap and strong.

 viper with vac body on womp chassis scalex motor home made silicones

Option2

 Kit form chassis

 There are several chassis kits on the market that can be made into competitive cars

Probably the best of the bunch is the Slot- it  HRS which can be configured as either an inline or a sidewinder, others worth looking at are the Parma Excalibur which takes a Ninco motor cradle and mounts onto existing body posts and the Protrack Spider   which is quite a simple inline but again comes with easy to follow instructions and a simple method of body mount

                                     Slot-it HRS in sidewinder guise with inline brkt shown

 Option 3

 Popsicle sticks

 This is a very simple way of making a competitive car, and can be carried out with a minimum of tools  Link to Slotcar Builder article 

http://www.freewebs.com/slotcarbuilder/popsiclestickchassis.htm

Although it looks a cheap and unsophisticated a well built Popsicle car will run with a good metal chassised slot car with out a problem.

                                             Popsicle cars

Option 4

International 32/tsrf kit

 The Parma international 32  chassis or the Demon chassis can be easily modified to take a hard shell the same way as the womp but these chassis will run with the best home built if set up well.

                               The parma chassis shown runs low 6 sec laps at Pendle

The TSRF is a good option for the first time entrant as it is very easy to adapt for almost any hard shell as it come complete with its own mounting system, the down side being the pin guide which is not as forgiving on the track as a blade but it is much faster to marshal when it deslots as you never have to centre the guide

                                                                TSRF FERRARI

The car shown is a standard  TSRF kit and has lapped pendle in the low 6 second bracket the kit come with a falcon motor which would need changing for a fox to be legal for this years  competition