N-Scorer price increase announced

EFFECTIVE FEBRUARY 5TH...... THE INTRODUCTORY MSRP FOR NINCO 10409 N-SCORER LAP COUNTER WILL INCREASE FROM $79.98 TO $84.98.

Carrera's 2007 cars.

In case there's someone out there that hasn't seen these yet....photos from Carrera's French site.
















There are many more photos and information about a new digital system that Carrera is releasing as well.

DaveK

AutoArt's GT3RS and GT3R

Quite a nice pair of Porsche's have arrived from AutoArt and Global Gateway. I had two questions about these cars when I got them. The first question was how does this car stack up against the Scalextric 911 GT3 car in the looks and detail department? Let's get this out of the way first...the AutoArt blows the Scalex car out of the water. It's not even close. Everywhere you look on this car there are small details that grab your attention. Hood pins, photo etched grilles in the nose, a few nice little tampo printing's here and there.

But most importantly the lines of the model are much nicer. It's got more of that rounded look that Porsche-philes gravitate towards. The rear fenders are flared out nicely. I've always thought the Scalex car is a bit too "restrained" in its design. So a comparison is obviously in order. Now bear with me here... the only Scalextric GT3 Porsche I have is one pieced together from a kit and it was heavily raced in the Race Across America proxy race...with, shall we say, its share of battle scars.

A few side-by-side photos.




The second question I had was why isn't this a popular car, especially for kitbashers who want a plain white car to start with? The plain white body is the form that the real race teams get when they take delivery from Porsche. For reference I have some photos from the Flying Lizard Motorsports team taken for Slot Car News by Jennifer Hart, VP of team marketing when the Lizards got their brand new 911 (997) Porsches.



This car is sold in ready to race/decal/paint form directly from AutoArt.... and since the AutoArt car is around $5-10.00 cheaper than the Scalex car you've already got a bargain on your hands, especially since the Scalex plain white Scalex 911 is now just about impossible to find cheaply.

It's at more than 1/16th" wider than the Scalex Porsche, and comes in at 2-5/16" inches wide across the rear tires. And the white and red GT3RS is narrower at around 2-1/18" wide from sidewall to sidewall.


Both cars have different chassis. The GT3R (shown above) has the magnet mounted on the bottom of the chassis with a small screw. The design, however, doesn't seem to lend itself well to screwing out the screw to lower the magnet to get more downforce. Why? Well because the magnet is only held in the middle and if you unscrew it too much, the magnet may hang down too much on one side. The effect of the magnet mounted so low gives this car a great deal of magnetic downforce. The cars easily hang upside down on plastic track. The GT3RS (shown below) has two magnets, one behind the guide and one behind the rear axle.

The performance of these cars seems to be fairly different but this I think is due to the difference in width. The white and red car tended to lift out of the slot and rolled more easily than I expected. The GT3R (plain white car) handled corners well. Even though these cars are clearly made for plastic track I feel they'd adapt well to non-magnet application. The wider GT3R clearly has got tons of potential for racing on wood where Scalex car is basically a basketcase if you try to run it without magnets.

In the past some have mentioned the depth of the guide as a problem when trying to race this car without magnets or on wood. Well these cars are my first AutoArt cars to examine and here's a shocker... the guides are deeper than Fly guides (which are around 6mm deep) and standard Slot It guides (around 5.5mm deep)... the guide comes in at a robust depth of 7.5mm!

The white and red GT3RS is clearly not a race car (especially since there is a passenger in the front with brown skirt on and pink blouse). I can understand that many slotters aren't into street cars. While this is a street car it's a nicely done car and if you're into collecting every Porsche body, eventually you'll want to take a close look at picking this car up to add to the collection. There are nicely done silver and red wheels here and a well proportioned body. All in all a fine model...at a nice price.


I've focussed more on the aesthetic qualities of the cars because I see nothing to make me question the mechanical aspects of either car. If you're racing out of the box cars, you're racing with magnets. Both cars will work well in box stock form. If you're into wood tracks or non-magnet racing...well then you've got to be someone that likes to do some tuning to cars, I see plenty of potential here for that. Both cars have nice gear mesh and nicely done press on plastic gears. Both have sidewinder chassis. The tires on both cars I think are a bit narrow, but the stock rubber (even though not as wide as the Scalex car) sticks far better. In stock form these cars are fine slot cars and would be great additions to collections. The GT3R stands out to me as a car that's got to be at the top of a "must have" list if you're into modern Porsche racecars.

Now I've heard from more than a few retailers that they don't plan to stock either car. Hopefully this review will change a mind or two and some will go and ask for their sleeper race car. The price is right and the detail and performance are where they need to be.

And if all that blah, blah doesn't get you in the mood to go buy a Porsche...maybe this will help.


Dave Kennedy, Slot Car News

Photos of the Flying Lizard 997's are property of Flying Lizard Motorsports and are used here with permission, no reuse for any reason.

50k

Thanks to everyone that looks at this site from time to time... we've just hit the 50,000 page hits mark.

Dave Kennedy
Publisher, Slot Car News

Ninco's N-Scorer

According to Ninco Bob there will be a limited supply of these initially...ordering early is the best bet if you'd like one of these.

DaveK

The rumor mill: SCX & 1/43

Well it's all over the internet... on a thread on SCI... and evidently confirmed on the front page of Slot Forum....in emails to me from guys in Europe trying to figure out if there's any truth to this... everyone's talking about the rumor that SCX is going to make 1/43 slot cars. It's either the worst kept secret or a complete falsehood. It's not a terribly popular scale here in the US...but then this market is probably a terrible judge of what's worth selling for slot car companies.

DK

N-Digital troubleshooting fact sheets

IMSA blog-a must read

Slotters are always looking for good resources. We need to know what cars looked like so we can do accurate repaints or mods to bodies. This blog is just about the best reference I've seen in a long time. There are lots of photos and tons of detailed information about the cars/drivers/history of IMSA. It's quite simply a must read.

From Alexis Gousseau publisher of the IMSA History blog:
"I am very interested in Endurance racing and my great passion is for IMSA.
I have just created an IMSA blog one year ago, which is exclusively dedicated to the IMSA Camel GT series. I want to make it become some kind of reference for the fans, and I am working hard on it. I have got a lot of support from many people, including drivers, photographers and fans. Many posts are to come, and it will grow every week or so."

I've added the blog to the "Racing & Car bloggers" permanent links on the right sidebar.

DaveK

BMW Sauber F1.07 first lap

Nick Heidfeld on his Lap in the new BMW Sauber F1.07 (in English)

Nick Heidfeld on his Lap in the new BMW Sauber F1.07 (auf Deutsch)

BMW Sauber F1.07 released

Hot of the Slot Car News wires.....



Still images from BMW F1, video from BMW via The News Market. Copyright those entities, no reuse.

Slotmagazin #15

I forgot to mention this the other day...Slotmagazin.de has released their issue #15 for download. There are some great photos of the Fly Audi, and many other features worth your time to download.

DaveK

Slot cars controlled by cellphone?

From the Speed Dial website:
"Simply put, I wanted to use the phone as a gateway into something different, yet still very social, and enjoyable. Slot cars have existed in one form or another for many years now, and whilst simple, they invoke a great sense of play.

I want to see how the incorporation of the telephone as a controller alters this play. Will people try to collaborate or compete to crash the cars? (most likely) Will people try to chant to keep a steady pace? Will adults enjoy it as much or more than children?

Ultimately I hope people leave the project thinking differently about play and the telephone, as well as having a great smile on their face.
How it's Done

The project takes advantage of Asterisk, the open source PBX, to take in the phone data and spit that out to a Java based soft phone. This soft phone takes in a SIP stream which I then take amplitude data from. I use that data, scale it a bit an send it serially to an Arduino board.

The circuit itself is quite simple. It uses a transistor to send voltage to the track (12v DC), and I use the incoming serial data to PWM..this allowing for a difference in speed. "

Want to learn more? Contact Christopher Paretti - chris@cell-ular.com

GPR GT standings

What follows is Terry Noe's results, written by Terry, for his stop in Newton, Iowa USA, of the Global Proxy Race. Results for the second and third heets are followed by the overall standings after the second round. I've posted a photo of Terry's track again just for reference.

GT Race Results-Green Lane.
Abie321, #423 Jaguar XK-E Coupe (photo below). 15 laps 31', 2 deslots. Fast lap#18, 13.896 sec.
Abie's Jaguar loses a front wheel.
Kazooracer, #68 Jagermeister Porsche 911. 19 laps 40', 2 deslots. Fast lap#15, 12.286 sec.

Austin, #49 Cobra Roadster. 19 laps 54', 1 deslot. Fast lap#18, 12.595 sec.

SpiritRacer, #11 Greenwood Corvette. 19 laps 66', 3 deslots. Fast lap#14, 11.972 sec.

TR3, #53 Lancia Beta Montecarlo. 19 laps 80', 1 deslot. Fastlap#17, 12.294 sec.

PeteN95, #95 Capri RS Turbo. 19 laps 81', zero deslots. Fast lap#9, 11.904 sec.

Atticracer, #59 Martini Porsche 911. 20 laps 8', 1 deslot. Fast lap#13, 12.119 sec.

Gascarnut, #24 Cobra Roadster. 20 laps 8', 3 deslots. Fast lap#12, 12.001 sec.

WPSOKO1, #26 Lancia Beta Montecarlo. 20 laps 36', 1 deslot. Fast lap#20, 12.011 sec.

Davols, #7 Capri RS Turbo. 20 laps 40', zero deslots. Fast lap#19, 12.185 sec.

Dr.Vanski, #1 Porsche 911. 20 laps 42', 1 deslot. Fast lap#15, 11.874 sec.

Terry Noe, #76 Greenwood Corvette (photo below). 20 laps 75', 1 deslot. Fast lap#18, 11.072 sec.
This home town favorite ruined his chances of challenging the leaders on lap 18. The green lane has a right hand curve that you can take at speed. I applied too much brake before the hairpin and lost it.

Phil Kalbfell, #83 BMW M1. 20 laps 76', zero deslots. Fast lap#20, 11.901 sec.

Robert Livingston, #1 Toyota LB Turbo. 20 laps 80', zero deslots. Fast lap#10, 11.924 sec.

BeeJay, #64 Ferarri 512. 21laps 17', 1 deslot. Fast lap#13, 11.566 sec.

SpiritRacer Club, #34 Ferrari 365 GTB/4. 21 laps 24', zero deslots. Fast lap#10, 11.672 sec.

Smokeio, #16 Capri Rs Turbo. 21 laps 47', zero deslots. Fast lap#13, 11.520 sec.

RecklessRacer, #48 Gulf Capri RS Turbo. 21 laps 63', zero deslots. Fast lap#11, 11.447 sec.

3rd=Dave Kennedy, #59 Canon Porsche 911. 21 laps 75', zero deslots. Fast lap#9, 11.359 sec.

2nd=Tony Kuljis, #7a Capri RS Turbo (photo below). 21 laps 87', 1 deslot. Fast lap#15, 11.163 sec.
Tony's car gets out of shape on lap 20 and deslots. Shown in the red shirt is DaveK giving the car a little push. Tony stands holding an oil can thinking to himself.....

1st=JT Previa, #57 Corvette L-88. 22 laps 5', zero deslots. Fast lap#11, 11.207 sec.

GT Race Results-Red Lane.
Abie321, #423 Jaguar XK-E Coupe. 13 laps 31', 3 deslots. Fast lap#9, 14.687 sec.

Austin, #49 Cobra Roadster. 18 laps 64', 2 deslots. Fast lap#15, 12.852 sec.

TR3, #53 Lancia Beta Montecarlo. 18 laps 68', 3 deslots. Fast lap#14, 12.613 sec.

PeteN95, #95 Capri RS Turbo. 19 laps 12', 2 deslots. Fast lap#11, 12.012 sec.

Atticracer, #59 Brumos Porsche 911. 19 laps 23', zero deslots. Fast lap#7, 12.494 sec.

SpiritRacer, #11 Greenwood Corvette. 19 laps 23', 3 deslots. Fast lap#8, 12.049 sec.

Phil Kalbfell, #83 BMW M1. 19 laps 24', 1 deslot. Fast lap#8, 12.516 sec.

Robert Livingston, #1 Toyota LB Turbo. 19 laps 30', zero deslots. Fast lap#9, 12.622 sec.

Kazooracer, #68 Jagermeister Porsche 911. 19 laps 37', 2 deslots. fast lap#7, 12.554 sec.

BeeJay, #64 Ferarri 512. 19 laps 64', 1 deslot. Fast lap#18, 12.437 sec.

Gascarnut, #24 Cobra Roadster. 19 laps 68', 2 deslots. Fast lap#9, 12.276 sec.

WPSOKO1, #26 Lancia Beta Montecarlo. 19 laps 84', 3 deslots. fast lap#12, 11.958 sec. Slippery/tail happy

Smokeio, #16 Capri Rs Turbo. 19 laps 91', 4 deslots. Fast lap#15, 11.912 sec. Very slippery/hard to drive

SpiritRacer Club, #34 Ferrari 365 GTB/4. 19 laps 92', zero deslots. Fast lap#17, 12.344 sec.

Dr.Vanski, #1 Porsche 911. 20 laps 13', 1 deslot. Fast lap#8, 11.965 sec.Hoppy car

Terry Noe, #76 Greenwood Corvette. 20 laps 20', 2 deslots. Fast lap#19, 12.077 sec.

Davols, #7 Capri RS Turbo. 20 laps 24', zero deslots. Fast lap#3, 11.575 sec.

RecklessRacer, #48 Gulf Capri RS Turbo. 20 laps 30', zero deslots. Fast lap#6, 12.072 sec.

3rd=JT Previa, #57 Corvette L-88. 21 laps 16', zero deslots. Fast lap#13, 11.684 sec.

2nd=Dave Kennedy, #59 Canon Porsche 911. 21 laps 16', zero deslots. Fast lap#16, 11.672 sec.

1st=Tony Kuljis, #7a Capri RS Turbo. 21 laps 33', zero deslots. Fast lap#11, 11.624 sec.
---------------
Overall GT positions after 2 rounds:
Name/total distance/position
Wayne 17162.5 1st place (photo below)

JTPrevia 16953.1 2nd place (photo below)

R. Livingston 16814.1 3rd place (photo below)

Reckless Racer 16557.1 4
Dr Vanski 16077.1 5
Dave K 16073.9 6
Spirit R Club 16049.5 7
Tony Kuljis 15953.4 8
Smokeio 15930.5 9
Phil Kalbfell 15752.8 10
Gascarnut 15679.4 11
BeeJay 15470.5 12
Terry Noe 15419.8 13
Pete N95 15306.2 14
Austin 14983.5 15
Attic Racer 14357.6 16
Spirit Racer 13977.3 17
Da Vols 13151.4 18
TR 3 12951.2 19
Kazooracer 12287 20
abie 321 11532.8 21