Thursday, November 15, 2007

A night on the Shoreline

If there's a more welcoming group of slotters I can't imagine it...I got to spend an evening racing with the Shoreline Model Raceways Club last night. The guys get together Wednesday evenings usually and wow do they have fun. There are rules, of course, but it's more about the act of racing than it is about the overly critical examination of cars. Then again maybe it's just that the rules haven't applied to me because they know that I'm such a poor driver that no amount of "cargofast" will help me...in any case the racing is top notch.

We ran two classes of races last night, a Sportscar class, which was made up of pretty much any era of GT cars. And an LMP class of cars. Now it's important to know that the Shoreliners like to race cars with the power set to about 10 volts. Many of the fastest cars have nothing more than the standard Mabuchi S-can. So if you're got a Fly/Scalextric powered car that's got an HRS chassis under it...you're ready to race.
Wayne gets a track-level view of the racing.
Here we see Bubba using a set of car grabbers to try and distract Smokeio during one of the heat races.
Inside a slot-box. I love seeing stickers from old races. It's really the same whether it's a plaque displayed on the dash of a vintage Ferrari showing the provenance of a real race car or whether it's a worn sticker from a slot race, it's all racing.
RichD's SCX Corvette with some nice yellow wheels. I believe those wheels are "Kai's Wheels". Kai briefly made wheels that are still considered high quality and are highly prized by the Shoreliners for their serious racers.


We all had a great time and it was super to finally get to race with these guys again. It's interesting to see what a tight-knit group of racers car do with cars. They're having fun and not as concerned with winning-at-all-cost, but make no mistake if you've managed to win a race (even just a heat race) against these guys you're accomplished something.

Dave Kennedy
BTW, I finished last in both races....

4 comments:

bluetoes591 said...

Is that a picture of Smokeio with a thumb controller? That might be one way to slow him down...

DaveKennedy said...

That's the "track call" kill switch Milo.

Dave said...

I find it much more important to have fun, then to win. Don't get me wrong I like to win as much as anyone. Sometimes people forget that we're playing with "toys", not curing cancer.

Oh and I always come in last too!

Dave

Unknown said...

Great pictures Dave!! And these guys are the best. I had the chance to race 3 or 4 times with them during special racing events in the last two years and it's always been a blast.