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Amazing Information About Slot Racing Cars

December 9, 2013 Important Information

Slot car racing is a leisure activity of racing electronically motorized model cars that are made to run on tracks with a groove or slot to steer a car. Users can operate the racecars by means of hand-held controllers or throttles that regulate small, electronic motors hidden inside the cars. Greater pressure on a throttle generates a greater pace. Each car runs on a separate path, within its own slot. The challenge in racing slot cars is in taking curves at the highest speed that will not cause a car to lose its grip on a track and turn to one side or deslot and go in the air.

Many slot car racers favor a racetrack unobstructed by scenery, but some fans, like rail transport modeling with highly structured tracks, carved to have the look of a real-life racecourse complete model buildings, trees, and people. Slot car racing has fewer followers than that of model railroading.

Most slot cars are models of real automobiles, but some racers choose to have custom body styles. Most patrons use commercially available slot cars, others choose motorized static models, and some create their own mechanisms and bodies from fundamental parts and equipment.

There are three regular slot car scales – 1/24 scale, 1/32 scale, and HO (Half ‘O’) size (1/87 to 1/64) scale. There are two large HO racing organizations in the U.S., namely HOPRA (H.O. Professional Racing Organization) and UFHORA (United Federation of H.O. Racers Association). Each hosts a national competition once in a year, usually in July. There are many state-wide associations running under these two organizations. H.O. racetracks can fit in common basements.

The Fray in Ferndale, California, has the largest turnout of any slot car race in the world, where the finest turn up to compete for top honors. The highly competitive race is held annually, in February, and more than 100 persons and 16 squads show up to race on eight tables. Most state organizations run some of their series on home tracks, and these are frequently used for nationwide contests.

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How To Get a Suitable

December 9, 2013 Suitable Car

All the car companies mentioned above, have cars that will work on Scalextric track and vice versa on Ninco and Carrera track. Scalextric cars come in a few variations. They supply a range of high detailed cars, but these cars are not suitable for use with younger children as they are too fragile. The F1 cars are the most fragile in this range. Their second style of car is their robust range and there are two types of these. They have plain coloured cars that are the cheapest, and then there is normally a more coloured racing livery with more detail. Robust cars do not have lights fitted because of their simplified design. Now digital racing has been around as a popular world sport for some time, most of Scalextric cars have DPR chassis to allow the simple fitting of a digital plug. This can be completed in around 60 seconds, you will only need a small philips screw driver to convert them. Overall Scalextric cars offer good value for money and there is a wide range of cars to choose from when you decide which car style you want to race with.

Slot.it provide a similar car to NSR, made for the more serious racers. Their range of cars mainly follow Le Mans cars over the years dating back to the late 1960′s. Slot it cars are finished to a higher standard compared to NSR and the price is more affordable for the home racer. Slot.it cars do have a Digital chip that can be used to convert your cars to the Scalextric digital system and this does convince many home users to purchase this make.

Ninco slot cars are made in two scales. They produce their normal scale of 1:32, with three versions of cars in this scale. Ninco 1 is their range of budget cars, lacking in detail and without lights, but is more affordable. The standard range on ninco cars are produced with outstanding attention to detail and finish.

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Guide For Beginners

December 9, 2013 Guide, Slot cars

If you have not had much experience with slot cars or it was more than a few years since you last raced them in your younger years, it can be confusing working out what to buy to get started. My aim is to provide an overview of these cars to help you in choosing the slot car set that is right for you.

There are two types of slot cars, there is the analog cars and the new digital ones. The traditional or analog slot cars are those that you might remember from your younger days. This is where it was one car per slot and the car had to stay in that slot for the whole race.

With digital sets another dimension has been added to the outdoor sport action. You can race more than one car per slot and change lanes, make passing moves or blocking moves, program in pits tops, ghost cars, yellow flags etc. This is much more like the real motor sport. There are sets where you can race 8 cars at the same time on a 2 lane slot car set. They are more expensive than the analog sets.

Digital cars can some times work on analog sets but analog cars will not work on digital sets with out a digital plug upgrade.

Slot cars also come in different sizes. The smallest size is HO or 1:64 scale. Originally they were made for inclusion with model railways but now these little cars are very fast and have some amazing track layouts. The next size up is 1:43 scale and is designed for the younger racer with many fun features and character cars. The 1:32 scale is a popular size car for racing at home and there is a wide selection of sets. The biggest size car is in the 1:24 and is commonly found racing at slot car raceway clubs.

Cars from different scale will not work well on tracks of a different scale as they are designed to work on the same scale track (except for Carrera has 1:32 scale cars that race on 1:24 scale track).

Slot cars of the same scale from different manufacturers can race on the same scale track. However, tracks of the same scale from different manufacturers will only go together by using a special adapter track piece, that can be bought separately.

There are a number of different manufactures. The most popular ones are Scalextric, Carrera, AFX, Life Like, Revell and SCX. Sets for these makes are available from hobby stores, large dept stores and from online shopping sites including Amazon and eBay. Scalextric, Carrera and SCX have the widest range of cars including analog and digital sets.

One of the areas of slot car racing that can be frustrating to someone new to the hobby is that the cars will come off the track if they are driven too fast around the curves or too slow through some of the obstacles. This is something most people get the hang of pretty quickly.

To help with keeping the cars in the manufacturers have added traction magnets to the car to exert downward force thereby allowing cars to stay on the track at faster speeds. This also allows the cars to make vertical climbs and do a loop the loop.

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