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I made it over to Al's today to check out his new track. I must say I am impressed! Al did a masterful job building this track! It features beautiful stainless sheetmetal walls to keep the cars off the floor. Al used small colored paint dots to mark the lanes for a cool and unique look. The track features copper tape for electrical contact. The track surface is black laytex over a Rustoleum "Magnetic" Primer base, which provides down force more cars equipped with traction magnets. The power supply is variable and provides plenty of power for any 1/32 cars, as well as 1/24 cars! A Race Coordinator system provides lap counting and timing for the track through the use of a dead strip. This is going to be a FUN track to race on!

These ESSES should prove to be quite challenging!!!

I am not only tone deaf as we have discussed in the past, but also lack rhythm.........................

In the first race I entered with Hugh Ellsworth's modified American Line car, I completed 256 laps after two rounds of four minute heat races. I DNF'd in the last heat race with a broken lead wire. I was completing around 36 laps per heat, which if I had completed the last heat I would have completed roughly 292 laps for the race. My fastest lap time was a 5.061 second lap in the blue lane. I finished eighth out of eight, or more commonly known as DEAD LAST!

I entered the second race with nothing more than a new set of rear tires and repaired lead wires. I completed 343 laps with a fastest lap time of 4.890 seconds. An improvement for sure, but still only good for seventh place out of ten racers. But I finished and I wasn't dead last!

After the second race Howie invited me over for some testing and tuning. Help I very much appreciated! After three or four hours of adding, subtracting, and moving weight around, changing multiple sets of tires, and a motor swap to a Hawk 7 from the Falcon 7 I had been running, things were looking better! By the end of the test session I had my lap times down to 4.3 second range in the blue lane. Chassis changes included locking the front end down to eliminate any movement of the front axle, and side pan movement had be limited.

In the third race I realized two things right off the bat. My car was now competitive, but it was much faster than anything I was used to and I hard a very hard time keeping up with it. I could run with the quick guys, but only for a couple laps before I started losing control, usually resulting in crashes. But the car performed well! I completed 373 laps with a best lap time of 4.280 seconds. Good enough for sixth out of the eleven racers entered.

I have a couple chassis tuning mods to try for the next race, but mostly I need to improve my driving skills. I have made progress with each race and I hope to improve in the next race. To date Hugh's car has proven to me that even the "old school" cars can still be competitive, even after all these years of slot car development!

The chassis mystery is solved!  It is a Vendetta '465' chassis, manufactured in 1965 or 1966. It sold as a bare chassis kit for $3.00 and was also available as a RTR.

Ooh, good point!

I don't know why, but it's just so much more fun with the BRMs!!!!

As it turned out, last night was a record setting night!

In Can Am: Amy set a new Traction Magnet assisted record lap at 8.449 seconds.
                  Goose set a new lap record at 8.913 seconds and a race record of 58.1 laps completed.
                  Greg set a new USRRC lap record at 9.773 seconds and a race record of 53.7 laps completed.

In Over 50: Goose set a new race record of 54.7 laps completed.

You guys are very welcome! I love the Odd Thursday Nights, I really have a good time!!!

Chris, I am extremely sorry for the times I may have gotten into you a little and bumped you out.................................................
Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!! .............that even SOUNDS hillarious!!!!..........................
"gotten into you a little", "BUMPED you out", "SORRY"...........Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha!!!!  I crack myself up!!!!!

Thanks for the report Chris! Sounds like it was another great time!

Everybody is busy with the enduro in Tacoma this week/weekend.

I'm not sure what happened but it seems like a bunch of pictures I took didn't show up when I downloaded the camera. Terry's was not the only car that didn't show up on the download, there were others. I probably did something wrong, that's why YOU Dorothy are the Official NASTE Photographer!!!!

To date we have completed 2 Nak-Spec Trans Am races. The first one at Penguin Point and now the second here at TooBad Motorplex. I had purchased a new Scalextric Trans Am Camaro to race in this series because the existing cars I own have all been modified to some degree. I bought the Todco Camaro hoping it was going to have the newer guide set up, however it did not. In a discussion with Rico he mentioned he thought only the digital ready cars had the new guide blades.

After initially racing these cars at The Gorge Raceway I felt the hot set up was to have the traction magnet positioned in the rear most pocket. With my newly purchased car I moved the traction magnet to that rear most position, and I installed a pair of Paul Gage urethane rear tires, per the NASTE rules. When I raced this car at Penguin Point it was clear the rear most traction magnet position was not the optimal set up. I finished in the top 5 but the car was challenging to control in the tighter turns. In the second race with this car at TooBad Motorplex the car worked awesomely. It stuck like glue in the corners. I'm not sure why the car worked so much better here than at Penguin Point, but I am extremely happy with it. My plan is to leave it as is until I see how it works at The Gorge and Autumn Hills.