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Racing Tips
Last Updated on
03/18/07
Reducing speed for children
[HORacePro@aol.com]
Get a model railroad power supply. Pass up the cheap ones and buy an MRC brand unit. It
will run you about US$50. It will have enough power to run standard HO cars, and give you
the ability to turn down the voltage for beginners.
[Larry Schenk lschenkjr@erols.com]
To help lower the speed of your child's car, take an old Aurora steering wheel
style controller, some wire and the Tyco controller. Cut the wires of the Tyco controller
half way between the controller and plug. Wire it through the Aurora steering wheel
controller using the additional wire to make it long enough to still be usable. Then
simply set the steering wheel controller for a reasonable max speed that allows the car to
stay on.
As the child gets more proficient, keep increasing the top speed.
["Malcolm Michael" mm@triad.com]
One easy way is to limit the travel of the controllers. Put some tape or rubber bands
between the handle and the trigger so the trigger can't go all the way in.
["Jeff Morrow" jammer1@spacestar.net]
Put a small self-tapping screw into the handle of the controller in a manner that the
trigger hits the screw, and still enables adjustments. I use this setup for my three year
old. I set the speed to max speed the car can maintain and not de-slot. She usually
prefers to pull the trigger all the way down most of the way.
Racing T-Jets
[HORacePro@aol.com]
If you can maintain a slide [through a corner] at full power with a T-jet, you aren't
giving anything away. What you have is a beautifully-handling car.
There is an ultimate speed you can maintain through any corner. In a T-jet or any other
slider car the tail is going to be hanging out before you reach the limit. Power wasted
because the car is going a bit sideways is of no consequence -- you have power to burn
when you are in a corner, so you may as well burn it.
Your driving technique is perfect. Brake, let the car enter the corner, then load on as
much power as you can. You want to be careful leaving the corner. Too much tail-wagging
coming out of the turn is where you can lose a lot of time.
Just how loose is good depends on driving style. Looseness makes a car more forgiving.
It can be driven close to the edge the entire race without deslotting.
Now I will admit that a car with 'push' (one that deslots before it slides) will be the
one that achieves the quickest single-lap lap times. (That assumes the car isn't
deslotting due to a poor front-end setup.) But unless you are some kind of mean green
slotting machine, you won't be able to win races with one. You will spend too much time in
the scenery.
[Jack Stinson stinsonx@earthlink.net]
I guess I somewhat disagree with what I have read so far in response to [sliding
T-Jets].
*ANY* sliding on a curve means lost time! If your car is in a drift, you are not
getting through the corner efficiently. Regardless of scale or car type, if you are
sliding sideways, you are not moving forward as fast as you could be. You have lost
traction. Not only will you be slower in the curve, but it will take time to regain
traction for acceleration down the straight following.
Now, the question becomes one of exact balance between inertia and traction. Anyone who
can hit that perfectly and get zero drift and maximum cornering speed without deslotting
is a much better driver than I'll ever be.....much better (that doesn't take much though).
The answers I read are truisms in that they state that striking a balance between perfect
speed/traction and deslotting is the most desirable safe thing to strive for. A looser car
is easier to keep in the slot for the most part....and you win by staying in the slot. So
part of the answer is setting up a car that's comfortable for your driving style.
However, In my own experience, I have found lower lap times when I get that balance
just right. A car may look like it's wailing with it's tail out, but the overall times
will suffer in comparison to a car driven more carefully and avoiding the slide (unless
you are referring to dirt ovals). I try not to slide, a more gentle application of power
will get you through the curve faster since you will maintain traction through and power
out. I cannot count the number of times I've entered a curve and saw the tail start
to slide too much and know that I just lost .01 seconds in that lap and the
lead.....not a pretty picture. :-(
Set up the car as best you can for traction and balance, then practice practice
practice cornering without sliding. Gradually increase the speed until you do slide, then
back off a notch and practice getting that one down. Use the slide as a safety mechanism,
but not as a driving technique. You'll pass people who are sliding, even though it doesn't
look as cool.
That said, it's a blast to slide...and nerf.
[Bill wvainds@erols.com]
What you're saying is true to a point and especially true in larger scale cars.
Thunderjets all have one thing in common with each other that they don't share with
other type or scale slot cars except Bachmans and Tyco "S" type cars. They have
an extremely high center of gravity.
Pitching out the back of your car lets you use the rear of the car to lessen the chance
of rollover since your car is now effectively wider. A T-Jet that is following the slot
exactly has little or no chance of cornering at speed because of the high center of
gravity.
Magnet cars have an artificially lowered center of gravity so rollover can happen, but
it's not likely. Larger scale cars could rollover, but they are so much wider that they
usually just spin out anyway.
A T-Jet, especially a stock bodied one, compared to a modern racing slot car has a
center of gravity that makes 1:1 Jeeps look like Indy cars. T-Jets are tall :-)
Yes, any wheel spin is wasted motion, but again, only to a point. Something else T-Jets
have that many slot cars don't is a gear train. These gears help to build torque at low
speeds but also take torque and TIME to spin up to speed. Larger scale cars usually have a
crown and pinion gear set with the pinion driven directly from the motor, same with modern
racing HO/OO/S scale cars. This requires very little torque to overcome the friction of
the gears, the torque is applied directly to overcoming the friction and mass of the car.
On a T-Jet, the power is lost to the gears as well as the rest of it. These gears take
time to spin back up again after decelerating and there is always a little bit of slop in
the gears, so the power isn't applied smoothly during initial re-acceleration.
This slop causes a "shock" to the tires upon going from decelerating to
accelerating which in turn breaks the tires loose from the track surface. Kind of a herky
jerky motion like that of a 1:1 car in first gear going from full throttle to no throttle
and back to full throttle (if that helps explain it to you). It is real easy to shock the
tires loose.
By keeping the gears under power, you lessen the shock to the tires which in turn
allows the car to begin re-accelerating sooner. This gives most people better control over
their car because now it feels smoother. Which it is.
So if you let the back end hang out a little you will go through the turn faster. Just
don't hang it out too far, there is a fine line that is all too easy to cross.
If T-Jets used suspensions, pneumatic tires, fewer gears, or had a lower center of
gravity, then hanging it out WOULD be a time waster. A big one too, but they don't so
you're making do with the best you have. Sometimes you have to do "odd' things to
compensate for a vehicles failings, and I think that some wheel spin in turns is one of
them.
Well, this is all just what _I_ think anyway. Just more theory :-) I like this stuff.
Cornering Tyco 440-X2s
[Bill wvainds@erols.com]
To get an X2 to corner a bit better, you can use a lower profile rear tire and a lower
profile front tire as well. Silicone tires help a lot while the silicone covered foam
tires do even better. Start with a 0.445" tire and go from there. Some cars use lower
while other cars use higher tires. Tyco chassis are too inconsistent to just say "Use
this height tire". Plus, rail height has a bit to do with it as well.
Next up for improved cornering is the use an independent front end set, if allowed by
the rules. Plus a pro guide pin and don't forget to flatten your pick ups if you lower the
rest of the car.
Try not to use polymer motor or traction magnets unless you upgrade the armature too.
Use a low roof line car with as little front and rear overhang as possible unless you
are using lexan, then it really doesn't matter too much.
Something else that can help cornering is to leave the throttle on a bit more in the
turns. Hard braking or acceleration can snap the car right off the track, you have to be
_s_m_o_o_t_h_.
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