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Time for another track update.  We've finally started back n the stream area on the digital track.  We added a bunch of trees thanks to a gift of a box of Woodland Scenics build it yourself trees from Carl.  Then we begin laying in the stream.  For the Hills we used the bottled "water" that you just pour out and then wait for two days for it to cure.  It worked ok but suffered from silly underlying paint that make it look more like a swimming pool than a lake.  So, change in strategy!

I started with a cheap flat back base, no swimming pool for this track!

And this time we used the Woodland Scenics pellets.  Drop them in a pan, heat them up on the stove and pour.  Sounds easy. 

Here were the first results...

Not exactly the dark, glossy look I was after.  But not to despair, this just means that it didn't go on warm enough.  Pulled out the heat gun bought for my floor adventures last summer and went to work.  The stream heated up and re-flowed bit by bit resulting in this:

Now that's what I'm talking about!  Work continues.

Correct.

That sounds like a fantastic adventure!

Thank you Bill for getting this new portion of our site rolling. This should be an amazing reference for years to come.

Cash prizes.  So we're racing with professionals!

Dorothy did not finish second in a race with the experts but her total from the "amateur" race was so high that it placed her second overall.  As I understand it. 

One of the problems with points series is events where there are few entrants.  I won my first rally trophy on a day when we ran an extremely difficult event not knowing any better.  There were three of us in the Novice class.  They gave us all trophies and instantly promoted us to the advanced class based on the rule of once you trophy.  Felt like we got short-changed.  But at least we got the first place trophy.

In my opinion you should not advance during the season but after/prior to the next.

However, I also did once win two classes in the same season.

The 19 is a result of the points garnered in the NASTE Challenge race, not the expert event.  As it turned out she had the second highest total regardless of division.

Thanks Dorothy for the kind comments.   According to my wife it was the worst slot car decision I have ever made so it's unlikely we'll be doing that again any time soon.

My apologies to everyone, especially Bill who we totally failed when we didn't get his car moved to the correct lane.

I'll work on doing better.

Speaking of formats...

I spent the past Wednesday in Tacoma visiting with Tony at Fantasy World with an intended stay-over to go to their weekly race night.  As for the racing, it was quite fun and a fun and interesting format.

By the end of the evening we would race two classes of cars - a set with IROC Fly Porsches and then a set with Slot.It Classics - I'd brought my Alfa 33//3 which was unused except for a few practice laps to make sure it ran.

Once out of FW we stopped by Tony's and he set to work adjusting my car so that it would be competitive with the locals.  Added a spacer to the gear side, changed the tires and a few minute touches here and there and it was deemed ready.  One of those touches - some motor time on his DS break-in box that automatically ramps the voltage to predetermined intervals.

After meeting up with a few of the other racers for dinner it was off to Victor's for an evening of racing.

Victor's track is a larger Scaley Sport 4-lane setup - rather familiar in layout and not too tough to get the measure of.  Good thing since I got zero practice laps.  Those that know me know that I'm ok with that.  Rally men want to experience the track in real time at full tilt.  Or something like it...

So here's their race format:

A two-minute "Crash'n'Learn" heat.  One off and you are out.  They stop the time after one minute and re-slot any cars that have come off.  Then restart the heat and race another minute.  Once again, one off and your heat is over.  As for scoring, just like our Sunday program - laps plus points.  And they assign those after each minute.  Nerfing, you bet.  Taking cars out, yup.  No one complains.  All good fun.

Though this sounds like a tough format for a beginner I managed the first complete set without a single off finishing 5th out of 13 with the IROC Fly Porsches.  Felt pretty good.

The second set was the Slot.It Classics.  It was apparent right from the get-go that I had one quick car!  Won a heat or two, didn't lose too many laps to the leaders.  About halfway through I had my only off of the evening and spent a good part of a minute watching cars go by.  At the one-minute reset when my car returned to the track I vowed that wouldn't happen again and it didn't.  So I used the off-road mantra - "fast as possible, slow as necessary".  It worked out well as once again I was 5th of 13.  Not a bad night for the Oregonian!

I enjoyed the format so much that we're going to give it a try at the next NASTE race here.

Thanks Rico, we all had a great time too!

That's the spirit trooper!  Victoria commented that everyone seemed to be getting the groove.  (She didn't realize the cars had magnets ;-)