Nurburgring in a VAN!!!!

Those wacky guys at Top Gear are having a bit too much fun here, but it's a good Sunday morning type of thing to watch. So sit back and let Sabine take you around Nurburgring in a 10 minute lap!

Slot Car News Classified section

In the market for a good low mileage slot car? Have a good low mileage to sell? Slot Car News has set up a classified section at this link.

Spirit 936 review on the way

I'm working on a review of the Spirit Porsche 936 that should be done in the next day or so... until then why not join the discussion about this car on Slot Car Illustrated.

DK

New features on SCNews

Hello Slotters! I've added a Google Newsbar under the Motorsports feed. Why another newsbar? Well the motorsports feed has been a popular feature here so I figured I'd add another newsbar... what the heck.

The Google search box near the top of the sidebar has been fine tuned for slot car searching.

I'm always looking for new features to add here at Slot Car News, if you have an idea for a new feature let me know. What would you like to see added?

DaveK
Publisher, Slot Car News

Carrera Mustang-Fire Chief "livery"

It's 3am at the Bay Street Chief is sitting in the parking lot at Red's Java House when the call comes in..."Station Five...125 Mission Street...structure fire" the Chief jumps into his car and tears out of the lot, lights and the 5 litre Ford motor screaming...
Coming or going you can see him coming from a mile away, the bright, fire red 'Stang is always the first on the scene....

Carrera is really getting the most from the 2005 Mustang's they've made. The Grand Am car and CHiP's car was only the beginning. The latest release, the Fire Chief's Mustang, is another car that at first glance might not be an immediate "must have" but, just like the California Highway Patrol car, is one that every kid will be begging for.
Around the Carrera track, the car did a respectable 2.8 seconds. The 94 gram car has a pair of red lights on top that flash very brightly as soon as the car begins to roll. The headlights and tail lights are very bright, as are the red lights on top.
The printing on the car is very good. The paint is solid and free of blemishes. The car lacks an interior and has solid black glass just as the CHP does. Both the Fire Chief car and the CHP car both feel more stable than the Grand Am car and have a less top heavy feel in the corners.
It will be interesting to see what Carrera decides to do next with this body. Another Cop car? Maybe a current Grand Am racer?

SCX's latest releases

Photos from SCX to show today.
A VW Toureg
The Audi R10 (I'm hoping this fits the Pro chassis!)
The new F1 digital set complete with these 3 cars.

New Exclusiv Corvette from Carrera

Chevrolet Corvette C6R PK Carsport, Belcar 2007 from Carrera.
Photos from Carrera:





And a new Carrera Club 2006 (????) Mercedes DTM.

Spirit 936-review

Harry Wise and Dan Dyke of Home Racing World have done a really good review of the new Spirit 936 which you can read at this link.

SLOT MINIAUTO #36-October issue

SLOT MINIAUTO Nº 36 OCTOBER 2007

The magazine Slot MiniAuto of the month of October, presents in its cover the new car of subscription, the Emilio de Villota McLaren M23. A number of Slot MiniAuto filled with tests, new features and primacies. The new Power Slot Hummer H1, and the Ninco’s Schlesser Ford among them. The tests of the Superslot’s Ferrari 375F1, Mini Cooper and Range Rover, next to the Porsche 911 (997) GT-N of Ninco and Ford Puma of MiniRéplicas complete scale 1:32 whereas the new Peugeot 307 WRC of Avant Slot and Talbot Lago of MMK share the 1:24 section.
The competition, in addition to the habitual section Sport Slot, includes a track test of the Audi R10 Racing-Avant Slot and an interesting article of how preparing the next Spanish Slot Championship in november.
New features, the news, - with images of the Sloter Opel Ascona 400 - and other habitual sections complete this edition of Slot MiniAuto.



SLOT MINIAUTO Nº 36 OCTUBRE 2007

La revista Slot MiniAuto del mes de Octubre, presenta en su portada el nuevo coche de suscripción, el McLaren M23 de Emilio de Villota. Un número de Slot MiniAuto repleto de pruebas, de novedades y primicias. El Hummer H1 de Power Slot y el Schlesser Ford de Ninco entre ellos. Las pruebas del Ferrari 375F1, Mini Cooper y Range Rover de Superslot, junto a la del Porsche 911 (997) GT-N de Ninco y el Ford Puma de MiniRéplicas completan la escala 1/32 mientras que el nuevo Peugeot 307 WRC de Avant Slot y el Talbot Lago de MMK comparten la sección de 1/24.
La competición, además de la sección habitual Slot Sport, incluye una toma de contacto del Audi R10 Racing de Avant Slot y un interesante artículo de cómo preparar el Campeonato de España.
Se publica también la lista definitiva de pilotos candidatos a la elección de pilotos del año y la web donde ejercer el voto. Novedades, noticias, -con imágenes del nuevo Opel Ascona de Sloter- y demás secciones habituales completan esta edición de Slot MiniAuto.

New SCX Renault Alpine and Seat

A pair of photos to show from SCX Magazin of new SCX cars...

The Renault Alpine A 110 Rallye Monte Carlo 1971 (SCX 62590)
Seat Leon "Monteiro" (SCX 62470)

Corvette C6 1/24-diecast review

At this link check out the Franklin Mint Corvette C6 done by contributing reviewer Bob L.

Wings & Wheels online store...finally open.

Finally Barton Brown has opened his online store for Wings & Wheels Hobbies in Clinton Connecticut...check out his site. In addition to all the recent releases Bart has a lot of older Carrera and other brands of cars and a good selection of plastic models too.

The Ninco Porsche I reviewed recently was purchased at Bart's as well as the hop up Pro parts.

Scalextric 430 Ferrari-review

Scalextric has given slotters a worthy foe for the Porsche's currently circulating the world's tracks. A livery from the FIA GT Championship this time. The Ferrari 430 is the current GT car campaigned by Ferrari teams to counter the Porsche 911 (997) RSR. To see the real car click on this link to Racing Sports Cars archive.

As an aside:

The Ferrari's are getting the better of the Porsche's because of an under powered engine currently used by Porsche. The racing year started out with great promise with the Sebring American LeMans Series race coming down to the last few turns. The 430 of the driven by Jamie Melo and the RSR piloted by Jorg Bergmeister of the Flying Lizard Motorsports team were side-by-side until some aggresive driving by Melo gave the Ferrari the win.

The car's finish is excellent, my copy did come with a blemish on the hood. Next to the right side headlight (or on the left side as you look at it in the photo here) you can see a mark where something has hit the inside of the body and made a reverse dent in the hood. The blemish was caused by one long body screw that was threaded into the underside of the hood. The end of the screw is nearly flush with the surface of the hood...and odd bit of damage, which I would expect to be isolated.
Engine detail is well done, most of the parts appear to be painted on rather than separate parts.

The mirrors AND the wing are made of similar flexy black parts. I hadn't known that Scalextric was going to use this type of parts on their primary line of slot cars. A high impact line have these break-resistant parts, and it's probably a good idea that they be used on the "normal" slot cars that Scalextric makes. Especially since they don't really the mold quality you'd like to see in a hard plastic part. In this case the black parts are correct, I am concerned that flexy parts might not hold paint well and might flake easily.
Flip the car over and you can see the solid chassis and digital plug trap door. As well as the nice new guide design. I wasn't a huge fan of the old blue guides and this new screw in guide is a huge improvement in the design. I don't know if there's much of a change in performance because of this change. But the screw adds a bit of piece of mind to slotters I think because of the more secure connection of the guide to the chassis.
If you take off the body you can see the small photo etched grilles are attached to the chassis rather than the body. I think this is a super idea, since the older Scalex cars (like the GT40's) often shed these parts quickly when you started racing the cars. I think if these grilles are tucked inside they might have a chance to last a bit longer as an attached element of the car.
Inside the body you can see there is a rather large half-pan interior. I'm glad Scalextric has decided to use a half pan rather than a more bulky, and heavier full interior. I'm not a huge fan of a full interior and I think that a very well done half interior is quite enough detail (and weight) thanks.
On the track the 93 gram car feels quick and the initial lap times around 2.7 seconds back this up. It's fast but that's not the fastest lap time on my track, which is somewhere around 2.4 seconds. The wheels do wobble a bit and it appears the tires aren't flat on the wheels. After a bit of inspection, and some tugging to get the tires to seat a bit better, I see the tires are riding on the outside edges only.

I did a fair amount of trueing on the tires to get them flat. After the trueing the times drop now to around 2.5 seconds. The car feels a bit faster and certainly much smoother even with the strong magnet holding it in place on the Carrera test track.

Another side note, the yellow front lights (which are quite bright) throw so much light that the light leaks into the interior and casts an odd greenish glow inside the car which you can see when the car is driving around. The effect sure is sort of odd but doesn't really take away from the enjoyment of driving the car. The photo above was taken of the car with the lights dimmed and the car at full throttle. You can see the odd greenish-blue glow inside and you can also see the light leak extends to the track below and to the sides of the car. Many lighted cars have light leaks like this, but this one with its blue cast on the track and glow inside maybe seems more pronounced because of the light inside the cabin of the car.
The issues with the lights aside this car is a blast to drive and is a solidly fast car. You really can't go wrong with Scalextric cars, especially for a newbie racer. They perform wonderfully right out of the box and with only a drop of oil here and there you can go racing quickly. I place a high value on a slot car that needs nearly no tuning to enjoy, this car is certainly near the top of that list. A recommended buy.

Thanks to Fantasy World Hobbies for the car to review.

Dave Kennedy
Publisher, Slot Car News

Wheels & Wings car show-meeting a bit of history

It all started out pretty much as I expected... my wife, son and I drove up to the Wheels & Wings car/airplane show at Candlelight Farms Airport in the rolling hills of Litchfield County Connecticut. There was the usual collection of rich-guy show cars you'd expect to see in the far-northern suburbs on New York City.

The Renault here was certainly something that you don't see often though, bright red with huge tires on the back and plenty of charisma. At least it's not the typical brightly colored 'Merican Muscle cars and trailered Euro coupes from the 70's, there's nothing wrong with those cars, I like 'em but sometimes it's cool to be surprised by a car show.
My son Tyler admires the little Renault.
Well I kept walking and slowly a car appeared, it was bright orange and a little rough around the edges...ok maybe not just the edges.

Russ Truelove of Waterbury Connecticut, had his "Marvelous Mercury" 1956 Mercury Monterey there on display. A bit of history first, which is taken from the display information on the front of the car.
"One of the early show room stock cars of Nascar was this 1956 Mercury. Roll bars and other items of safety, as necessary, were added to meet the requirements of Nascar in early 1956. This car ran the Daytona Beach Beach Race in February and now appears much the same as when it ran then."

"It was close to show room stock when Russ drove it to Daytona Beach to compete in the grass roots of Nascar. With the help from Bill Stroppe, head of Mercury racing factory team, a 260 HP kit was installed in the engine, at the Daytona Beach Truck Garage that had been leased by Mercury."

"Russ qualified 5th fastest (first Mercury) and had some confidence when the green flag fell. During the race while going into the north turn Russ' #226 flipped violently several times and came to rest on all four wheels. Life Magazine first published pictures of this event along with others that involved Junior Johnson and Ralph Moody."

"The entire body had to be replaced. John Holman, parts man with the Mercury Factory Team, arranged to get a new 64C body. The frame was straightened slightly and fitted with new parts. The car was raced again in a few more Nascar races in 1956 up north."

But a car by itself is only so interesting... Russ was there too.
In the nearly 13 years of being a photographer I've met lots of celebrities, most of the time the experience is less than memorable. You often get the feeling the notable person is being put on display against their will. Yogi Berra stands out as as a particularly unpleasant person. Years ago during the big weekend at the Baseball Hall of Fame, Yogi was listlessly signed endless autographs for fans. You feel like they don't want to be there and don't really care that much what the fans think, as long as they get paid their appearance fees (cough...Pete Rose...cough).

Meeting Mr. Truelove was like getting to meet Richard Petty as I did years ago...both Petty and Truelove have an easy smile and a personality that just draws you to them. Ask Russ about his car or his time racing in the early days of Grand National Racing and he's all-too-happy to answer anything. He told me about his time behind the wheel during the Daytona races and about the wreck he had at Lime Rock Park where he sustained amazingly heavy injuries while racing...and he was in his 70's at that time! On that grassy airstrip in the hills of Connecticut Russ was really the star of the show.

What a guy.
Dave Kennedy
Publisher, Slot Car News


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