24 replies to this topic

[SlotsNZ]

The purpose of this thread is three-fold.

Firstly, for entrants to say what they have enjoyed, and not enjoyed, about the NZPR2010 - that is, YOUR ideas and personal opinion without judgement by or of others about the current series.
eg, the rules, the class, the timing, etc

Secondly, the execution - How we might do the same things as we did this year this year, - but do them better.
eg, I know I would LIKE to publish the full schedule of dates in advance. I just couldn't achieve it this year, for a number of reasons, but I think it would be an improvement.

Thirdly, open thoughts and ideas about class, rules-basis, and so on for 2011.

Personally, I have a lot of thoughts, but I don't want to stifle the contribution of others, or their confidence to offer input by preempting anything with my own views.

I doubt anyone will start a mud fight, but if they do, remember
1) I have your car
2) "I know where you live"

[munter]

Isn't there roadworks out your way, SlotsNZ?


I know the actual admin side must be a pain and there are many unforeseens when working into the future.

I am open regarding class of car but I would like to hear opinions on the "control tire" and "control motor" idea from others.

One debate that appeared in the States was adjustable controllers.This is another "loaded dice" that can skew the results.

I will be interested to see what others have to say and would like to encourage them to do so,so please do.

regards

[Stubbo]

This is the first time I've been involved in a proxy race and I am enjoying every bit of it.

I would welcome any advice from anyone about my car. What mistakes I've made, what I can do to improve. SlotsNZ has given me some tips about how to make sure the chassis is nice and flat for next time. Whether that info is best conveyed over the forum or via PM I don't know.

It seems to me the series has been run in a really good spirited and friendly way and I hope that it continues in the vein.

I'll leave any suggestions about technical issues to those with greater knowledge but I'd be happy to stick with the CanAm class. (I've already got something a bit different in mind for next year).

[haystack]

By and large I have enjoyed this proxy, and appreciate the manner in which the small 'bumps' have been ironed out. However...

I'm not sure that the car/chassis Quota thing worked; as it seeemed a bit complex to start, was never fully accurate (there are still some anomalies and miss information on it), and in truth the fields were historically filled in later seasons with
renters. Not unusual to see a race with 6/7 McLarens, 4/5 Porsches, Lolas etc.. Perhaps for a more diverse field, limit series to an early season where there was more variety.

The table of rules and penalties could use some revision and clarification, but this seems a fine tuning process common to most proxies,

One thing I was keenly aware of from Day 1, was that the cars had to race all series, on all tracks, on all surfaces and all distances, with an immutable setup. On this point it became obvious to me that we seemed to race on the more technical
tracks when our cars were freshest, and geared fastest, and now towards the end of the series, the cars are coming onto the speed strips when the are becoming tired and worn down.

Now, I know it is the same for all of us, but perhaps it may be more logical from a constructors view, to schedule the races to reflect this? Having said that, the CanAm was a basically anything goes sort of series so I suppose it will balance
itself out over a few years as people analyse the results to see what works.

Keep at it though, Chris.

[kalbfellp]

Quote

"control tire"

What a can of worms MUNTER!

But I do agree that it is getting harder to police tyres, IMO tyres should be limited to Factors tyres with brand names on them, this will at least help the organiser and scrutineers.
Penalties: I do not like penalties in any race, cars should be check well in advance and any problems sorted before the first race. Possibly leave the tyre penalty during the event so people have to tyre size and hardness right.

[chenglaw]

Purely from a personal view point, I am not for any sort of “control” (tyres, motor, chassis, whatever). If we are running Can Am, I feel that we should adopt the same spirit as the full size version was run in – do your best or worst and be damned!

As for penalties, being one of those who copped a penalty before racing even started, I am not in favour of the imposition of penalties for changes to car setup to comply with the rules carried out either by a host or having the car sent back to the entrant. In 1:1 racing, if your car fails scrutineering, you are given the option to make the necessary changes to comply or you’re out of the race – period! In the case of our proxies, I feel that it is up to the affected entrant to strike a deal with the host on the necessary changes to be done at an agreed cost (if any) or the car can be sent back to the owner at his cost and risk – if he can’t get the car back to the start line in time, the racing continues without him - that’s his penalty!

As for tyres, I agree that we should exclude silicones and maybe, perhaps, adopt Phil’s suggestion to allow only commercial “branded” rubber/urethane tyres – could be an issue here as some brands, like MJK, do not put their “brand” on their tyres. So then it looks like the option would be to just allow tyres with identifiable brand names on them, like Slot.it. NSR. Ninco, Scalex, etc. The rule must be worded to the effect that the name of the tyre manufacturer must be moulded on the sidewall of the tyre and be visible and legible at the start of the series to be legal.

I am not quite sure the chassis quota is really necessary. If we have an open concept, I feel there will be enough of us who want to be different who will come up with the variation in types and configuration to make the series technically interesting.

Other than that, I’m quite happy with the way this series has evolved and look forward to NZPR 2011.

[munter]

chenglaw, on May 31 2010, 04:57 PM, said:

Purely from a personal view point, I am not for any sort of “control” (tyres, motor, chassis, whatever). If we are running Can Am, I feel that we should adopt the same spirit as the full size version was run in – do your best or worst and be damned!

As for penalties, being one of those who copped a penalty before racing even started, I am not in favour of the imposition of penalties for changes to car setup to comply with the rules carried out either by a host or having the car sent back to the entrant. In 1:1 racing, if your car fails scrutineering, you are given the option to make the necessary changes to comply or you’re out of the race – period! In the case of our proxies, I feel that it is up to the affected entrant to strike a deal with the host on the necessary changes to be done at an agreed cost (if any) or the car can be sent back to the owner at his cost and risk – if he can’t get the car back to the start line in time, the racing continues without him - that’s his penalty!

As for tyres, I agree that we should exclude silicones and maybe, perhaps, adopt Phil’s suggestion to allow only commercial “branded” rubber/urethane tyres – could be an issue here as some brands, like MJK, do not put their “brand” on their tyres. So then it looks like the option would be to just allow tyres with identifiable brand names on them, like Slot.it. NSR. Ninco, Scalex, etc. The rule must be worded to the effect that the name of the tyre manufacturer must be moulded on the sidewall of the tyre and be visible and legible at the start of the series to be legal.

I am not quite sure the chassis quota is really necessary. If we have an open concept, I feel there will be enough of us who want to be different who will come up with the variation in types and configuration to make the series technically interesting.

Other than that, I’m quite happy with the way this series has evolved and look forward to NZPR 2011.

lots to like here....especially chenglaws first point

[SlotsNZ]

More good bad and ugly required.

I am willing to run another series next year, but if I do, I'd like to have someone else on board with me as a transition process, and to help out with the actual work.

Some possible classes for next year

Muscle cars
Trucks
Group 5 saloon type cars [not sports prototypes] (Capris, BMW CSL, etc)
Pre '65 classics - NC1 type power
CanAm (again) since a few have suggested it, even assumed we'd do the same again

ps, you're safe now, I no longer have your car . . . . . except perhaps a box of tasmanian cars . . . [let them sweat a day or two]

[BEEJAY7]

CanAm or Trans Am.
Any chassis material
Any motor
No Silicone but anything else.
Handicap Phil!.....

Regards

Alan

[kalbfellp]

Before deciding on a class a list of available bodies should be looked at, I have seen some proxy class's decided on and then it is found that there are not many good bodies.

I like the pre '65 class BUT IMO it would not suit your track and we have the great IPS Proxy running with those cars.
Trucks don't seem to be that popular and are expensive to buy BEFORE modifying,starting to get harder to find.
Group 5 Not sure that there are enought bodies available.
Muscle cars would depend on the era, and how they are classified,plenty of resins available plus Scalex,Carrera.

Can Am again very popular, plenty of choice, this could be divided up into two different Class's. Allowing wide cars one year and limiting the car width on alternate years. The Little 906 proved that narrow car car work very well. The narrow Can Am could also allow some earlier SCCA cars to compete.
This just might close up the field with every one being limited in width. There are some very interesting narrow cars that ran over the years.

[SlotsNZ]

kalbfellp, on Jun 17 2010, 10:11 AM, said:

I like the pre '65 class BUT IMO it would not suit your track and we have the great IPS Proxy running with those cars.

Just in case others rule them out, we do run these as a class at club, so do the big CMRC club, they allow "original motor"which allows NC-5 in Healeys there; but we insist on NC-1, NC-8 or the slow BWA motor in s-can or ff050 - most of us just run NC-1

we have been running them as a silicon tyred class at club, but that was just me getting outvoted, we originally ran them on stock or urethane tyres which was my preference.

They do go flaming well on our tracks with either type of tyre, and a number of us like them a lot.

Ninco Jags., Corvettes, Cobra, plus the Revell King Cobra are all used around here.
- Just so everyone knows it would be a viable class to discuss and consider in the mix.

[charlesx]

From selfish angle would like to see Canam continue as I will always remember self and brother being presented with our club slot car trophies by the man himself (Bruce McLaren) back in the 60's. We both managed to win our respective club championship that year. Young brother Paul the Junior and me the Senior. Must add a photo of the presentation.

Not sure about pre 65 classics as we are a bit peeved with wheels breaking all the time. Appreciate these can be fixed but find it annoying they continue to produce such an article. Ali hubs and inserts sounds good.

In future however would be good to see more McLaren based cars if Canam is to continue.

Regards

Chas Le Breton

[chenglaw]

For me, it would be Can Am and SCCA cars up to 1974 - this would open up a lot of options for bodyshells and if we keep to reasonable scale limits, we'll be able to exclude those hugely over-scale cars from VMG (beautiful as they are) and other squashed handling shells. No restrictions on motors or chassis configuration to keep to the spirit of the "open concept" of the early Can Am era. Just exclude silicone and foam tyres and we should have an event of as much fun and interest as what we've had this year.

And, oh yeah, ditch those penalty rules for non-compliance and let the car owners decide if and how they want to comply.

[munter]

Quote

ditch those penalty rules for non-compliance and let the car owners decide if and how they want to comply

sounds like no rules Lim....more info please.
regards

[kalbfellp]

Munter: Just allow enought time before the first race to sort any car that does not comply. We used to have a dead line 2 weeks before the first race and I would check each car as it arrived and any that did not comply were fixed during that two weeks, in conjunction with the entrant.

Pre '65 would suit me as I have some built! But as some of us are involved with the IPS it would just be nice to have something different to build.

[first corner crash]

There are lots of proxies all over the world now and really the successful ones seems to be those that have a sense of continuity rather than those that chop and change a lot. Certainly a tweak or two is ok but CAN AM was such a rich and fantastic racing series why change it? If the event becomes really popular you can always make the narrower cars into a control motor class and leave the wide bodies as an open free for all. If the rules on chassis and motors/tyres etc are left open it encourages people to really think about the whole package they build. That type of an event teaches far more and therefore gives more to the entrant than control type series imo.

[chenglaw]

kalbfellp, on Jun 17 2010, 05:25 PM, said:

Munter: Just allow enough time before the first race to sort any car that does not comply. We used to have a dead line 2 weeks before the first race and I would check each car as it arrived and any that did not comply were fixed during that two weeks, in conjunction with the entrant.

Pre '65 would suit me as I have some built! But as some of us are involved with the IPS it would just be nice to have something different to build.

first corner crash, on Jun 17 2010, 07:24 PM, said:

There are lots of proxies all over the world now and really the successful ones seems to be those that have a sense of continuity rather than those that chop and change a lot. Certainly a tweak or two is ok but CAN AM was such a rich and fantastic racing series why change it? If the event becomes really popular you can always make the narrower cars into a control motor class and leave the wide bodies as an open free for all. If the rules on chassis and motors/tyres etc are left open it encourages people to really think about the whole package they build. That type of an event teaches far more and therefore gives more to the entrant than control type series imo.

A combination of these two is what I'm after. I said "ditch the penalty rules for non-compliance" and not "ditch the rules", John. Rules are needed to make sure everyone competes on a level playground (well, it may slant one way for some, but .......). But if you've built a car for a proxy and by some quirk of fate, you've overlooked checking something before sending it off to battle, and it turns out during scrutineering that what you've missed could disqualify your car, there must be a process in place to allow the car to be brought into compliance without the imposition of a penalty. If it is something minor and can be fixed by the host without too much trouble, then this can be done with the mutual agreement of both host and entrant. If it is major fault and requires parts replacement or extensive surgery to the car, then it's up to the host to decide if he wants to offer to carry out the mods and charge an agreed cost to the entrant accordingly or to return the car to the owner.

This process should, of course, exclude the replacement of stipulated parts that are worn or damaged during racing which will continue to incur penalties. So if someone's car is shod with super soft grippy tyres which are able to last just one or two rounds - tough, no "Get out of Jail" card for you.

And I'm more than happy to continue with Can Am as the cars come from an era which I can identify with - that was the time when I began to take a real interest in speed, racing cars and girls (ahem, not necessarily in that order).

[SlotsNZ]

About time I came in here, as the penalties issue is quite well discussed, and people have made their feelings clear.

We can try and compare our situation with "real" racing, but the practicalities are a little different, and I don't think we neccessarily HAVE TO emulate that either.

I am surprised there is even this debate going on.
The rules were pretty straight forward, and the non-compliances were not due to technical oversights of minor points, they were just failure to build right.

The problem for me is
1) trying to run to a schedule
2) being busy
3) expecting a bit of responsibility for build from the entrants

I tried to set this up so once the thing was organised, it was simple for entrants to choose and build a car, almost no grey areas, no questions required, and so that scrutineering at the start SHOULD be straight forward, few failures, AND, so that future scrutineering would be limited to checking for chassis/gear clearance each round, for track safety, and nothing else, so that subsequent round hosts didn't have any work other than check clearance, lube, run cars, report results into the supplied cells of a spreadsheet.
I also like to run the first round here, partly so that I take responsibility for receipt of cars and scrutineering, and partly so we can kick off with a "live" round, which seems to be a nice positive thing to get entrants involved and talking, seeing all the cars running.

This proxy, people had more than 3 months to build their cars, AFTER entries opened, rules were available a month before that, and a number of entrants knew they had a reserved spot, so they have an extra month - with a known deadline to be in NZ.
9 of 18 the cars ended up being up to 2 weeks late arriving, several were non-compliant, for reasons that were not oversights, they were simply not taking time to
A- read the rules
B- use half way decent build practices
- 2 sets of front tyres made like those metal chassis things, one edge kept on outside
- a number of tripods
- overweight (I accept some differences in scales, but a couple of cars had not been weighed, just guessed)
various others, plus
- tyres not glued on rims

So, any schedule we might have had, was out the door before we started. I was very relaxed about it at the time, even though it meant a lot of pressure on me, right before my daughter's wedding. I don't want to be under that again. Sending cars back, would mean
A- having at least 4 or 5 weeks between receipt date and first round; or
B- having cars excluded from the first round if they fail scrutineering

It is simply unfair to ask a series organiser and host to fix 1/3rd of a field of cars, especially when half the field arrives late.

Sending cars back, when the majority are overseas is a pain. Packing, filling out forms and driving to the post office.
Then they have to be scrutineered again as one-offs, payment needs to be made and checked for the extra posting costs, and so on.

The idea of penalties is to discourage sending of cars which are not compliant, AND to emulate in the simplest way we can, what DOES happen in the real world.

A "penalty" of missing a round is a far worse penalty than losing a few lap points.
Having your car disqualified from the series because it failed scrutineering is a much worse penalty again.
So I don't understand why anyone would suggest either of these options as good alternatives to being pinged say 10 points for non-compliance.

The bottom line is - I am simply not prepared to fix a bunch of cars "for free" - no penalty, the workload on me, and the personal responsibility to make sure THEIR build ends up legal, and not reduced in competitiveness due to anything I mess up; purely because the entrants didn't take time build correctly using some basic tools like a feeler gauge, scales, setup/block - even one made from a slot cut in a piece of MDF would do.

Note, we didn't need to apply a single penalty DURING the series, the clearance system I put in place worked, I think it was probably the single best thing I learned. Even on the "extremes" Chenglaw and I sneaked through - and everyone learned something about that!, Terry started off 0.8mm (0.2mm non compliant), but still sneaked through.

nb, while all THIS was going on in Feb/March, I managed to build my Slot.it Shootout entry, and got it to the USA with a month to spare.

Guys you ARE better than that..... just build them to comply, and if not, accept that it cost you 10 points because you messed up.

Next year, if I am running the NZPR, there WILL be penalties, and there will be an additional one for late arrivals, unless it can be attributed to an unusually long transit time outside the control of the entrant.

So let's move on to other aspects, there seems to be quite a lot of sentiment towards retaining the class, but most likely with some rule revisions to perhaps have two, maybe even 3 "classes" within it.

I'm open to that if it becomes "the theme" for the NZPR, or to another type of car entirely.

A couple of others to consider
FLY classics, open/closed, simply the brand, with a few well known chassis, irrespective of livery,
Opening up CanAm to allow Interserie liveries

I am not familiar with the SCCA rules, what other cars it permits in addition to CanAm - would that be the smaller block cars that did endurance sports racing? Can Phil or someone else knowledgeable fill us in.

Of course, others may want to step in and take the series off my hands entirely. - If anyone fancies a "Coup de'tart" you are welcome to put up an alternate proposal for NZPR 2011 here as well, I am not going to cry foul or anything - so do feel free.

[kalbfellp]

Quote

will be an additional one for late arrivals

This I do agree with, both Stig and I rushed to post our entries, his with no testing,because of me! He then got a penalty for non compliance that MAY have been picked up with more time. Yet several other cars arrived weeks after.

The SCCA cars were the for runner of the Cam Am cars, such as Chappy 2, Lotus 30/40 Cooper Monaco.
IF next year event was run for narrow Cam Am Cars these COULD be included to add a little more variety.

[charlesx]

Hi fellow slotties.

As an outsider/very interested spectator for first round but potential entrant for second I will disappointed if CANAM basis does not continue.

For rules it would appear very little needs to change and some form of penalty seems justified on performance alone at first event even if there had been none originally.

Would suggest if rules can be confirmed by say end of July 2010 and entries open say at start of September that would give people more than enough time as that appears to have been an issue this time around. I suspect however that the longer you give people the longer they will take.

Another alternative might be to close local NZ entries a bit earlier (say 2-3 weeks) and give overseas ones that little bit longer.

One thing I noted however was quite a bit of reference to out of scale dimensions. I appreciate we are talking about slot cars rather than the real deal but I see no reason why any model should not be within a reasonable tolerance. There may need to be some debate on this and we certainly do not want to even further limit prototypes available but we are talking of scale replicas. Appreciate this can be partly policed by limiting track as occurred this time but lets keep this as authentic as possible.

Mark I am not in Napier so cannot help directly with preparations but would be more than happy to help with research into database of prototypes and acceptable models if that is of any help.

Regards

Chas Le Breton