Round 5 at Grand Loop Raceway Park

[jhardy33]

The BWA wheel 32001 & 32002 will accept both Ninco classic tires which happen to come in 7mm & 9mm widths. Tru-grip also made a few of both sizes for me so he has them available.

I ran a test qualifying session with Dennis' NART Ferrari to try out the video. A very nice car to drive by the way. Full qualifying is scheduled for Sunday.



What's interesting to me when I watch it is that, the less I slide around, the slower it looks like I'm going, but actually turn out to be my faster laps.

Jay

[rixvette]

Wow that car was so fast, it made the others look like they were standing still!!

[gascarnut]

Cool video!

Do I get extra points for being the guinea pig?

I thought the same thing as I watched the laps - when you kept the tail in line the laps looked better - please remember that when you drive it again, and when you get to Smokeio and Mongo's cars, just let it all hang out.......

[jhardy33]

The Halloween candy is gone so I've been working on my video skills for this weekend's upcoming qualifying.



Jay

[SouthernSlotter]

Cool video Jay.
Can't wait to run em'

BTW, do you have the car owners addresses to send them back all the broken parts?

SS

[Slider2]

Really nice track! and very cool video. 99% of most slot car videos , belong in the back of the truck hauling refuse from the pig stockyards, but yours are really nice, Mucho congrats on the production!!

How long is the longest straight?

[Mark]

Haha! Good video Jay.

Thanks for giving us the honor in running you all's cars! They look great on track and were actually faster than I was expecting. What motors are in these cars?

[Robert Livingston]

The cars all have FF-050 slim cans, either BWA (~14.5k) or All-Electronics (15-16k). It was the builder's choice. We think the BWA develops more torque than the AE surplus take-outs (these motors are USED). The BWA cars, with a few exceptions, are slower. Next year we will limit the motor to the BWA only. It is a great motor for these cars.

I like the video, too. The cars are slow enough that you can actually see the wiggles through the corners. At least, Gascarnut's is slow enough (yuk yuk). With faster cars, much of the cornering behavior is lost in the jerkiness of the video.

[mmmoose1]

Jay. I would suspect your hired guns will be impressed with the performace of these little cars. I just hope the DFRC cars will be able find some grip come race day.

[jhardy33]

Qualifying is done and we have a few surprises. I'll post results and photos in the morning.

Jay

[jhardy33]

First of all let me say thanks for the honor of hosting a round of the VRAA. It's been a blast to spend time with these fantastic cars!

The Ninco track shook things up a bit at least for qualifying. It loved the Ortmanns and absolutley punished the Indy Grips.

6 cars on Ortmanns - every car improved from it's from it's current standing.

4 cars on Super Tires - 3 qualified lower and 1 higher than it's current standing.

7 cars on Indy Grips - every car qualified lower from it's current standing.


Qualifying Order

17 Greenman #7 Ferrari (IG) - Beautiful, underpowered, no grip.

16 Mike Ackers #12 Porsche (IG) - plenty of power, no grip.

15 Kris Wehnert #41 Cooper (IG) - easy car to drive, still no grip.

14 Ken mmmoose1 #17 BRM (IG) - very smooth car, lacks grip.

13 Ken mmmoose1 #8 Lotus (IG) - easy to drive, smmoth power range, lacks grip. It's easy to see why this car is leading the series.

12 Bopalou #10 Cooper (O) - I think this car may have a bent axle. The tire wobbles back and forth and the car hops around the track. The skinniest Ortmanns in the group but still decent grip.

11 Terry Noe #10 Cooper (ST) - a little low on power but easy to drive, lacks grip.

10 RL #14 Cooper (ST) - plenty of power, again lacks grip.

9 Dansula #20 Lotus (O) - very smooth and easy to drive, decent grip.

8 Ron Mullins #30 Lotus (IG) - another smooth and easy to drive car that just lacked the grip to get around fast.

7 Dennis Gascarnut #7 NART Ferrari (O) - Fantastic car all around, felt a little underpowered and the Ortmanns didn't offer quite as much grip as some of the others.

6 Jay Hardy #4 BRM (O) - I think I got all I could get out of this car in it's currrent state. Certainly underpowered and the grip could be better but my familiarity with the car is probably why it qualified this high.

5 Mike Ackers #9 Lotus (IG) - tons of power, a little twitchy for me at first, the best of the IG cars.

4 Smokieo #6 Lotus (ST) - very fast and smooth, decent grip that faded after about 4 laps, which was pretty much the case with all the silicone tires .

3 Old23 #4 BRM (O) - smooth and fast, good grip

2 Mongo #7 (ST) - loads of power, a little twitchy and grip that faded fast. I think the width of the super Tires helped.

1 Jim Hansen #30 Porsche (O) - smooth and nicely balaned, very good grip.

As far as track conditions, I keep the track clean with regular vacumming and all tires were cleaned with tape prior to each qualifying run. I think the width of the Super Tires is the reason they fared better than the Indy Grips. I'll try and get a measurement on all tires and include them in the qualifying spreadsheet later in the week as well as post a few photos.

The race will be either this Thursday or next Tuesday. I'll keep you posted.

Jay

[Old23]

Nice to see my car at the other (ie. front) end of the grid for a change.

Any other Ninco track owners out there want to host a race?


Old23

[dansula]

I am with old23. Who wants wood anyway, all that dust, paint, plaster of paris urghh. Nasty stuff. bring back plastic for slow er cars! Great run guys Ninth I can hardly believe my eyes!
thank you for a lovely monday morning pick me up.

[gascarnut]

Congrats to my buddy Jim on the TQ.

He builds really nice cars that look as good as they go.

Looking forward to the racing, where the longer heat times will probably mix up the order even further!

[Robert Livingston]

Very good! Finally the slow cars are the fast cars. I assume the few fast laps with the ST's will not count for much in the actual race, as the tires fade. Ninco track . . .