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Vince's thoughts on his hobby. |
2010![]() Wanna dress like me? Order cool T-shirts! |
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Closing out 2010 November 30 Time do a little reflection. It has been an interesting year with the club. Some new members, some new tracks, lost some members, and lots of interesting conversations about cars. With the 2011 season around the corner we decided to postpone the trophy party till Feb. I think it will become a Feb thing by default that way we can always get 3 seasons worth of awards out as well as any awards out for special races. We have had some good turn outs and some first wins too. Steve T and Blake S got their first 1st place finishes since they have joined the club. We are averaging 10 people a race now too. A few more and we might have to hold off on IROC to get done at night! Fingers crossed that the new year will bring us some new folks. My goals for the rest of the year are (a) complete the cars that have been voted in, (b) sell off my extra cars, Bill S and Scott V stuff, and (c) scratch build some chassis for the cool 1/24 models I bought. I'd like to finish fleshing out my track next year too with scenery. Mike P offered to lend a hand, once the year ends I suspect I will be taking him up on his offer. I'd like to get something other than bare MDF around the course. We are adding a new annual race in the 1st quarter. Called The Chili Bowl. Loosely based off of the real one run in Tulsa OK every year. We are running the sprint cars during the year and will also be running them for the race. I am going to try to get 1 or 2 ready. I like Mark P's suggestion: have one you run and one you tweak. When the one you tweak does better swap roles. That has worked for my Flexi NASCAR cars this season. I'd also like to make an app or database for record keeping. The results are kept in an Excel spreadsheet that can, I am sure, easily be converted to a database for easy input and update. Since Android development is open too, it would be nice to be able to update the results from the event as it is happening. Maybe in my spare time. |
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How many computers does it take? September 26 OK, so I go downstairs to get the track ready. Paul and Blake are going to show up early so I need to get things live a bit early. Trakmate is having issues. I spend hours trying to get it tow work, even sending e-mail to the author and other race directors but no luck. So I go down one last time and do a hard rest of the system (power off/on). Smoke comes from the back of the PC. Never a good sign. It is getting close to racing so I call Gordon to pick up the laptop we use on the oval. He does. It doesn't work. TM and/or the serial to USB driver keeps giving blue screen of death. Closer to race time now. I go upstairs and get my daughters PC. Same thing. Not looking good. Jake S handles the check-in while I try one last PC in my house. It works BUT no mouse. There is a LOT to do to get things set up for the first time and I mess with that as well as finish off tech. The night starts a bit late (30 min) but we are off and running. Oh, and I never got to get my cars out on the track for practice. Oh well. We had 10 racers show up, a record for plastic track. Blake S and Rich were the new additions. Steve T and son showed. Paul H too though Paul had to use a different LMP car cause I didn't have time to finish working on his. All of the racers stay for DP and LMP races. Only 5 stayed for IROC. We took the blue lane out of the mix and made it longer heats. We also used the 4WD cars vs the SCX cars. There was only 1.5 laps between 1st and 5th with 3 people tied in laps with feet deciding the finish. Close racing. Again, I would like to give kudos for all the racers who showed extreme patience during my stress of getting the track up and running. I think I will start Sunday morning next time to make sure all is happy. |
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Randomness in August August 16
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| Playing with
slot car ideas August 4
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| Trying to be
more active July 28 Busy has been the word The new racing season has begun as well. Not without problems for yours truly.
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| Finally on to a
new season July 13 We finished the last season on the oval at Gils. It was a good turn-out, though a few regulars were missing, and a quick evening. We were done by 8:30PM. An hour for all the racing. Nice. Nice to see that the hour+ before racing everyone got in the socializing instead of during the races. I, like many others, don't mind talk but best left to before, in-between classes, and after. Kudos for Gil for hosting a great, smooth evening to a seasons closing.
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| Where'd the
last 2 months go? July 2 Right now I am updating an older copy of this site. Why? Well, moved from a Unix based server to a MS Windows based one. Will hopefully make updating the site easier in the future. We are nearing the end of the Spring/Summer season. I am so disorganized this season that I am unsure I will make all the races. I have my Flexi NASCAR and Retro car ready. I need new tires for my WOMP. This will be an interesting season with really only 3 cars to work on. I hope we find a home for the oval, though. While I do like running at Ballwin Speedway there isn't any change in the track less you get someone new or inexperienced below you. I have also been working on the display cases at my house. I have the borders done and need to place an order for the glass. Hopefully it will be done by the next time we race. Then I will start to work on the scenery on my track. The new schedule has been posted. I had hoped to have 2 or 3 new road courses to add but since I haven't heard back from the owners they (and us) will have to wait to 2011 unless something opens up. I also need to schedule the trophy party. And order plaques... and get trophies for Thunder Road and ... |
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| I like working
from home May 12 I get the mail and can open it right away.
From the ever so fast hotslots I got borders for my track. I thought I ordered 4 sets of 1 but instead got 4 sets of 4. 3 are going back for store credit which I am sure I will burn though quickly. I also got 2 SCX 42H motors. These are much faster than the stock 42B. I will be putting them in the LMP cars that we use on the plastic track for IROC. Ought to make a bit more of a difference from the GT class cars. I took the straight borders and put them on the track. I like what it did. I am pondering whether to add the other ones on now. Hopefully this will cure the bouncing off the rails.
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| What happens
when a PC crashes? May 11 I finally got my editor reinstalled and can get going on the web site again. There has been a lot of activity in the club over the past month that I haven't mentioned here but has been going on in the discussion group. We voted in the next group of classes, ran the CanAm2010 races, a tossed a track in to storage. I have been busy NOT working on cars or my track which tends to happen around the end of the school year for our kids. Today I met Dave Kennedy of Carrera USA for lunch. Dave is now in charge of doing what he did for SCX and the hobby for Carrera. It was a good time talking about cars, racing, the industry and more. I wish Dave the best in his endeavor and have to hide my jealousy to be able to have a job that is also a passion/hobby! The web site will most likely be taking some hits and have some downtime over the next few weeks as I try to move software and other things around. As always the latest and greatest news goes on in the group discussion board. |
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Scoring and Controllers March 10 |
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Trying to get the controller to work March 5 I have been working with the guys at 3rd eye to get my new (used)
controller working. I already sent it in once to get a trigger
upgrade. Now it seems to have another issue OR it is supposed to work
the way it is working. I do appreciate all the work the 3rd eye folks
are putting in for their product. I want it to work - it is a GREAT
controller when it does! |
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A quick update Feb 5
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Too busy to blog! Feb 4 I need to find an easier way to do this writing. I have been busy with my track and my cars and would love to be able to post the issues in a timely manner. Someday. Maybe I'll move to wordpress or something that I can update easier. That being said, on with the show. Gil came over last night to work on his plastic cars. He hadn't had a chance and I had an open night. First thing we did was fire up the magnet marhsal. Between what Gil brought as spare magnets and what I had on hand we improved the down force on all the cars he brought. Like me he snapped the magnet holder on his DP car and will have to kludge a fix. Once everything was weighed and measured it was time to hit the track. We ran a few laps, cleaned tires, ran more, cleaned tires, and so on. Once the track was clean Gil started running some impressive times. Where I was about 7sec Gil put a 5.91! My Avant Slot had 2 major issues during the practice too: snapped a guide and flew off the table. Separate incidents. I pulled a guide from another AS car and reglued the snapped motor support. I still could not put down what Gil had. I will have to work on it before the 28th! I also think I will hold off on scenery till after the first race. I will have plenty of tape available to constantly clean tires too. |
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Fun with magnets Jan 22 Scott VA said it best to explain how we will use the magnet marshal for the upcoming magnet season. This blog entry will have to work as an instruction manual until I write something better. Basically it is 3 steps:
In this example we have a total downforce of 235g and a weight of 83g. That gives us a magnetic downforce of 152g. We will take 3 readings and average them out. What happens if you have too much magnetic force? Easiest solution is to shim the magnet up a hair and get another reading. Another method that takes a bit longer but can cause up to a 20% loss of magnet strength (your mileage may vary) is to heat the magnet. Here is a test I did the other day.
I zeroed out the MM with a sheet of paper and some tape. I marked where I was going to place the magnet. I put the magnet on and took a reading (66g). Then I took it off, heated it for an unscientific amount of time (10-30sec) then remeasured it. Each time it dropped a but more. It was a painfully long process and I had to take a reading, move the magnet to a place I could heat it up, let it cool to the touch, put it back on and take another reading. I think shimming is the way to go. This was a pain. Needless to say it will be VERY interesting doing tech Sunday night. Update #1: Magnet surprise!
Update #2: Tape on a magnet
Update #3: Spacers |
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Hope everyone had a wonderful holiday season! Jan 10
There is an ongoing discussion I hope to get resolved tonight too. 200g vs 300g of magnetic down force on the plastic track cars. There really has been no discussion or feelings put forth either way except by the 2 track owners (and Scott VA who wants to have 0g magnetic down force - something I am leaning toward now). Watch the rules section for the DRAFTS to become OFFICIAL this week. |
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