Retiring Slot Cars

[Peter Gunn]

Bov in the Group 5 proxy section made me ponder this, what do we all do with cars that we retire.

Well i have a few which have had their moment of glory , or been a massive dissapointment, usually the latter get stripped of any worthwile parts , but the more succesful one's are in a case on my wall here.

In the proxy section i still have my first WRP car the SCX Mitsi evo 8 , because it was the first, also the SCX Citroen C4, which finished 2nd to Snurfen a couple of seasons ago, and my MSC Ford RS 200 which ran so well in the OZ series , and in the IPS section just one car sits there my Pink Kar Ferrari 250 GTO which managed a 3rd place overall in that proxy.

As for slot cars in general i don't usually keep cars that are not good enough unless they are something i really like in competition, i have quite a good selection of favourite cars which all get a good run over a period of time on my own track just to keep them up to scratch, as i think slot cars need running.

Some have been sold of , and some i,ve used for bits , trouble is i have quite a few box's of bits that are not really much good now as they are outclassed in a lot of cases, what do you guys do

[Big Mick2]

Peter much the same I dont do shelf queens. I have slot cars to tune and race. If I can no longer improve the cars performance it is in my box to race or sell. There have been a few cars I just could not get going competitively in there class but not many these are stripped for parts and in the slot grave yard LOL. Getting a "not popular" model and making it race competitive is my biggest buzz. Winning is not as important as just improving that cars performance if a win comes from that then so be it.

 

I am entering the world of proxy racing this year in the Tasman cup and looking forward to it. Following my car around the country and getting the feedback from the people who drive them may be more fun that the sometimes stressful and emotional time you can have at some race meets. Most meets here in Adelaide are fun but not always. I dont need to win at all costs.

 

Mick

[dangermouse]

I occasionally look through the collection and have a purge. Ask my self questions like - why did I buy that? or Will I ever make that a raceable car? or Why did I buy a fourth livery in that car? So sell a few to buy some others

[Caddo]

Retiring cars is not so much of a problem in my experience, have only been involved in slots for a handful of years. The current crop of 1/32 cars we tend to race are generally all so competitive with each other now, and development is in small increments, not massive leaps.

 

Whilst the quality of cars is so good now [this comment is not directed at Scaley, Ninco, SCX, Cartrix, AutoArt & others], I find I do receive a good challenge from time to time.

The slot car that "never was' is the biggest disappointment in my experience. It looks the goods, light body, low profile, good footprint, excellent reviews, you put your money down. The car finally arrives - oh no - the chassis is badly twisted, and so is the body!! Still have high hopes, spend hours straightening, tuning, bracing, find it is still 3/10s off the pace and turning left better than right. Spend more hours cutting away interior, more straightening, adding weight, still 3/10s off the pace, turning left is still great, right not so good. Running out of ideas now, try extremes of weight placement, extremely loose body and pod, tighten one, loosen the other - bugger it, still 2/10s off the pace, and a little unpredictable.

Repeat 3 times over 12 months. Then sell it. Happy to be rid of it, hopefully a better engineer can make it go good.