52 replies to this topic

[Benno - SAC]

Hallo zusammen (Hi all)!

I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Benno, I race in Germany since 1990, when I was 15 years young.

In Germany most slot racing is club based, so I'm a member of the SAC since then. We race 16D, X12, and ScaleAuto classes.

When I first read some Slotblog posts some years ago, I was surpriced that in the USA most of slot racing seems to take place on commercial raceways.

Also, some general aspects of slot racing (i.e. plugs, Retro racing, etc.) seem to be totally different. But this all is very interesting for me.

So I'm looking forward to contributing some future posts and showing you a little bit of the European world of slot racing.

Schöne Grüße (greetings),

Benno

[Cheater]

Benno,

Won't speak for everyone here, but I am very exited to see what you will be posting. I know there is some great stuff happening in slot cars in your country.

One of the planks in Slotblog's platform is to respect and value every type of model car racing, regardless of where it is happening.

[garyvmachines]

Hi Benno,
 
Welcome to the blog... If you like racing, you will fit right in...

Here in St Louis (mid-west) we race on wood routed tracks in basements of members' homes. We have 12 tracks in rotation. Each week a different track... check out our web site gatewayslotracing.com. 

 

Mostly road courses, one 'bullring' oval, and 1/32 1/8th mile drag track... Lots of fun...

 

Remain active... and post often!!!

 

Gary Vogeler
GAV

[PCH Parts Express]

Hi Benno,   

 

Thank you for posting and saying hello. 

 

Scott

Ventura, CA

[Mike Patterson]

Hi Benno, and welcome to Slotblog. I, too, am interested in seeing what you guys are running, and where.

[Jay Guard]

Hi Benno:

 

We are all looking forward to your posts and I hope you can convince some of your other slot car racing friends to join Slotblog and make some interesting posts. Also please let us know where in Germany you are located.

 

BTW, your English is very, very good. I lived in Germany (Frankfurt A.M.) for several years and understand how difficult communications in a second language can be but you are doing great.

 

Thanks for joining up and keep those post coming!

[MarkH]

Welcome, Benno; ditto on the comments above.

This is a great place to explore what other people are doing and get different perspectives on questions or ideas.

[Steve Deiters]

Welcome, Benno. Always interested to see and hear what slot racers around the world are doing.

 

Cheater, maybe it is time for a "slot racing news from overseas" thread on Slotblog?

[Jairus]

Welcome, Benno!

Are you a member of FORUM-FOLM.COM?  

They are a touch crazy over there, but have a handful of scale builders that always blow my mind!

[Benno - SAC]

Wow, what a welcome! Thank you all very much for the kind words!

And so many questions, I'll try to answer them.

Where are we located?

At the west end of Germany, where the borders of Belgium, the Netherlands, and Germany form the "Dreiländereck" (a border trinangle).

What are we racing?

At our club we are mostly racing Flexis with 16D motors and ScaleAuto (the manufacturer) with GT3 hard plastic bodys. When we meet with our frinds from the nearby clubs Speedway Hochmoor and MRTU Uden, we also race Eurosports with X12 motors.

Yesterday we met to held our first 2017 season race at Hochmoor. We race two classes at one day, Eurosport and Flexi LMPs (similiar to ISRA production) with hand-out 16D motors (we use the english word "pool" and call them "Pool-Motoren" ).

Here are some pictures:



The track during qualification. It's a very fast and tricky track. Six lanes (like most German tracks) and 47 meters. You must not brake in the esses on the bridge and in the infield. You have to keep the motor on high revs, so the inertia keeps pressing the car down.
 

The Eurosport cars in the parc fermé.
 


A-Final of the Flexi LMPs.
 


My car after the race.

@Gery: I like this idea of rotating racing at home tracks. Unfortunatly, I don't know anybody here around who has a wooden home track.

In Germany the "Hardbody-on-Carrera-plastic-tracks" scene is very present. Therefore we also race the ScaleAuto GT3s, to get new members from that scene.

@Jay: Thank you. Unfortunately, my teachers at school had a total different opinion .
In Germany, every kid learns English in school. Nowadays from the age of seven on. I think this is very important today.

@Jairus: no, I didn't even knew of this forum. But I'll have a look at it.
 
OK, so far the "news from overseas" .

[Dallas Jackson]

It's great to have you on the blog.  

 

I like the layout of your club track. Down here in Alabama we have two home tracks that have run: Heart of Dixie (Talladega) is the slot car/drag cars.

 

Hope see more posts.

 

 Dallas 

[don.siegel]

Welcome Benno, from a fellow European - jealous too, because no more of this kind of 1/24 racing in France... Looks like a great track and lots of fun. 

 

That part of Europe seems to be a small hotbed of slots, because the Belgians and Dutch also race these kinds of cars: hardbody 1/24 and vac-shell 1/24. We used to go up to the Nieuport club in Belgium for a vintage race, now suspended unfortunately. 

 

Jairus, the FOLM forum is strictly French, and yes, some of the guys are a bit crazy - and proud of it! 

 

Don 

[Benno - SAC]

Yeah, it's a great track, but it is not ours . It's the track from our friends in Hochmoor.

 

This one is our track:

 

 

We believe it's one of the fastest flat tracks! An Eurosport with X12 motor goes about 2.7 seconds for a lap of 30 meters.

 

We have many wooden tracks in Northrhein-Westfalia. But only on about four of them the people run vac shells. On most tracks they race hardbody.

 

It's hard today, to find people who are interested in the faster classes like Flexi and Eurosport.

[garyvmachines]

Hi Benno,

 

Your club track would fit right in to our rotation... ;-) I wish it was closer... ;-) fast and smooth...

 

Very nice. Please keep us informed the latest from Germany!!!

 

GAV 

[Cheater]

Cheater, maybe it is time for a "slot racing news from overseas" thread on Slotblog?

Steve, I'd dearly love to have more European info and news at Slotblog! As I keep saying, Slotblog aspires to respect every genre, subset, and scale of the extremely diverse model car racing hobby/sport.

But an 'overseas' category would not mesh well with the 'structure' that exists here IMO. I mean, what is 'overseas" slot racing? It doesn't really have a definition...

That being said, I hope non-US slot racers will post about the racing they're enjoying more in the future. There's some terrifically interesting stuff happening there and I'd love to see more of it celebrated and shared here at Slotblog.

[Mike Patterson]

Nice tracks! But I'm wondering what is being used for a track surface? Is that paint? It looks like Formica® to me.

[Benno - SAC]

The track surface at Hochmoor is some kind of adhesive film, but I don't know what type.

 

The track surface at my home track is a two-component lacquer used for boat buliding. We have put on three layers with the airbrush and sanding after the first two layers.

 

Both tracks have a very smooth surface, which gives very good grip by minimum wear of tires.

[Jairus]

Benno,

 

What is the tire material? Silicone I assume?

[Benno - SAC]

No, foam rubber of course. Alpha Pirhana and JK Natural Rubber go best. The tracks are spray glued.

We start with ground clearence (at the rear) of 0.8 mm and after 30 minutes of racing we still have 0.5 mm.

[Jairus]

Interesting. Most tracks that have a surface that smooth tend to run silicone or silicone-coated foam. 

Just wondering and thank you for the quick response.

[Benno - SAC]

New news from overseas:

 

Here is a small video from the race at our club, we held last week end. It is a series where the members of three clubs are participating. We race two classes at one saturday.

 

 

We had 13 entries in Eurosport G12 and 18 entries in Flexi LMP with our 16D pool motors.

 

You can see me on the video too, the guy who is looking at his smartphone during the first few seconds (it was during practice!).

 

[garyvmachines]

Look's like any slot race in America........ A car comes off and the driver's all call #$@%%*&#@ ( TRACK ) .... ;-) just like the U.S. !!

 

Cool Video Benno......

 

GAV 

[slotbaker]

Look's like any slot race in America........ A car comes off and the driver's all call #$@%%*&#@ ( TRACK ) .... ;-) just like the U.S. !!

 

Cool Video Benno......

 

GAV 

And in Australia.

and/or something like "NOT THAT BLUE..... THE OTHER $#@%$# BLUE!!!"

 

Nice track, and good video.

Thanks for sharing.

[Tom Eatherly]

Man, that is some awesome racing you guys got going there. Nice looking tracks, I might add. In post #10, is that a bar back there? Gads, if we had a bar at our tracks, turn marshaling would certainly be interesting.  Not to mention the drivers. What a hoot!?

[don.siegel]

Yep... we've got a bar at the Bordo club, and turn marshaling does get rather interesting, sometimes earlier than later! 
 
Nice track! 
 
Don