Michigan 5th annual 24 hour race

[cgingras]

[QUOTE=Biggy;901500]Wow, in the middle of a war a race erupted.... Hey the guys at ACE last night said the car specs from the race were posted somewhere around here, could someone please point me to them?[/QUOTE]


See post #37 in this thread.

[cj74]

So many thoughts and words associated with this event... I'm not one to go on and on, so I'll try to keep it simple.

The Georgia Boys bring back memories of great times I spend living in Georgia. I only wish I had the opportunity to meet and race with this group while I was down there. Humble doesn't come close to describing this team and everyone on it. I look forward to the next time I get to hang out with them.

Thank you to Mike Stott and the Clover Leaf Racing team for hosting and organizing a fantastic event. I'm not able to be around these guys as often as I'd like, but they treat me like a close friend and are always willing to help me out. I always appreciate the time, advice and friendship that you have extended my way.

The SCC team and team members are very skilled at building and driving slot cars. More than that they are a collection of great guys with a great attitude and a focus on the right thing... the people that make up this event. This is very easy to see by the smiles and laughs in their photos. I always look forward to an opportunity to talk with them.

For a relatively quiet group, Cincinnati Slot racers get it done. The last two years have been great getting to know this group. If there was a trophy for focus, attention to detail and having the will to win I think it would go to this team. They take racing seriously, but are fun to be around while doing it.

Thank you Professor Motor for joining the race this year. I didn't feel like such the new guy anymore and I appreciate the effort you guys put in to this thing. Our team knows what it is like to struggle with car issues, and you just rolled with it and kept pushing. Competitive and grateful, you guys were an awesome addition to the mix.

Thanks again to the CanAm team for welcoming me. I appreciate the opportunity to take part in this event with you guys. We have a great time from Friday to Sunday and in the meantime make ourselves pretty competitive. Low stress and lots of fun is exactly what I needed, and that's exactly what I was able to do. Thanks again and I look forward to next year.

A special thank you to Rob for organizing the charity raffle. It is obvious that this is important to you and as a result it has become extremely important to all of us. You passion for this aspect of the event is contagious and I expect it to be even bigger next year.

Thanks to your efforts, Team CanAm has donated $240 to The United Mitochondrial Disease Foundation in honor of a very close friend of mine. I personally thank you for the donation.

Looking forward to doing it all again next year!

CJ

[Wet Coast Racer]

[quote]Our car had chunks of supertires in its stool. That's a civil statement.[/quote]Not only civil, it made me laugh! Sorry if that wasn't your intent. :noidea:

[quote]He was just telling the truth.

What a crock of ****.

You can go ahead and delete this account while you're at it.[/quote]Gimme a minute, Mark.
[quote]Where is a like button when you need one. You may as well as remove my account from this site it has lost its appeal to me as a hobbyist.[/quote]Mike, if you like me, you only have to say so. :p

[CENTER][B]OK LET'S QUIT JOKING, DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, PLEASE? [/B][/CENTER]

I will tell all you where I am at. Like it, or don't.

I'm a Moderator on SCI, not because it earns me lots of money - I don't get a nickel from it - but because I like this hobby, site owner Alan Smith (Scaleracing) has become a good friend of mine who I believe is genuinely dedicated to growing that hobby in north america (while also operating his own business) and spending my time here gives me the chance to help out. And I'm not the only person to do this, the one thing all of the mods and forum leaders etc have in common is support of the hobby; there ain't any of us getting a pay cheque out of it!

If there's one thing I've learned over the years here, it's that a Thread can go sideways awful fast when people start chucking stuff about. [IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v509/wetcoastracing/Animations%20and%20Emoticons/shitfan.gif[/IMG]

All it takes is a poke here, a nudge there, an accusatory comment with some trigger word or sentence "Well I guess this was a lie...." and a valuable Thread can suddenly turn into a cluster****.

Pardon me for being sardonic here, boys and girls, but believe it or not we have some members here who are actually only looking out for their own business interests! Yes, it's true, this Toy Car Hobby includes some with a hidden agenda. :shocked: :rolleyes:

I think this Michigan 24 Hour Thread - no, this Michigan 24 Hour Event - is tremendously important. A superb production, reminiscent of the Great Days of slot car racing in the US, that has drawn several of the finest racers - and their equipment - year after year now, and their efforts in terms of posts and pictures and data - have been huge. It would be sad to see something like this, that takes so much effort and energy, turn into yet another vitriolic mess. :)

Now listen up. I try very hard, as a Moderator, to remain neutral - it's the only way to behave, so far as I'm concerned, and yet remain credible. I don't expect everybody to like me, but I do expect them to trust me, which is far more important. I am, by nature, reticent. But I'm going to share a few thoughts, and this includes my own perspective about some members here and how I've responded, and so on.

I didn't just give Oscar Racing a week off for chucking a comment about lying at Nick from SuperTires. I did it because, on the one hand, I figured that this could easily be the trigger to destroy this important Thread. But more importantly, to my mind, was that this member (who is probably a totally good dude to those who know him) had already established something of a history on SCI for Infomercials and Passive/Aggressive posts more suited to Twitter, or some place. Not a builder for the hobby, but more of a troll, to my mind. So a week off, I reckon, should provide reasonable time for him to think about what he says next.

I received a PM from somebody today, making the accusation that PPRslots had been multi-posting in various forums about the same thing, latest promotion, like that. The dude was absolutely correct, incidentally. What annoyed me is that he hadn't noticed that this behaviour had been discontinued some time back. What nobody noticed - apparently - was that [I]somebody[/I] (er, me), in a subtle fashion, had addressed the issue; not in a confrontational manner, but by quietly merging all of these new threads back into one (per the Rules on Cross-Posting), sometimes deleting the repeats, sometimes not. Thing is, the problem has not re-occurred, and I feel reasonably confident that it won't.

Speaking of the above member, he has been noticeably quiet, and absent from this thread; indeed, those repeatedly loud and obnoxious posts and inputs - so much to the detriment of the product line he supports, in my opinion - have not been apparent in recent days. This is a good thing.

And y'know, if you were Nick, and running his business, you might be a bit rocked - he may not have contained himself completely as promised, but he's tried to respond politely in his own way. Pretty much.

Speaking of keeping a Thread on track, some of you might be surprised to know that I exchanged PMs with Christian this week - I don't know the fella personally, but I've done business with him and always thought of him as a stand-up kind of guy. In case you haven't guessed, the topic I wanted to discuss was the race result from Michigan, and how much the final standings were attributable to tire choice, or other factors. I've been in some enduros myself, so I know how factors that aren't immediately apparent can influence results.

I'm quite convinced that the quality of the Quick Slicks, as well as their preparation by the teams that used them, were highly significant, and that this product is probably the first and perhaps only significant challenger to Super Tires since the dawn of time. Maybe earlier.

I'm also quite convinced that, remarkably - and in some ways, this is what racing is about - Super Tires have still managed to hang on to the record set for distance over 24 hours. Credit where it's due, eh? Sebastian Vettel couldn't repeat the way that those tires did.

So you know, if Mark or Mike or Luke or John or anybody want to pick up their toys and go home, well that's fine. No need to delete anybody's account, just quit posting and we will no longer be able to enjoy your contributions. I hope you don't, I've met at least a couple of you guys, and think you give a tremendous amount to this hobby.

But if anybody has the maturity to realize that actually, there is stuff that goes on in this hobby, and in these forums, that isn't actually obvious or public, though still effective and productive without being confrontational, then thank you for the recognition. :cool:

Honestly, people I hate using this thing ... [IMG]http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v509/wetcoastracing/Animations%20and%20Emoticons/mallet.gif[/IMG]

But it doesn't mean we're not making progress, mostly due to your efforts. But sometimes, due to other's.

[The Old Jaybird]

in my opinion.....

....the tires are a very minimal factor in a race like this. Assuming that they are essentially the same product, there isn't a nickel's worth of difference between brands. What counts in a 24 hour endurance race is car prep and setup, driving skills, and race management and organization. I think that if every team ran the same brand of tires the results would have been the same.....in any year. But that's just my opinion, and its worth exactly what you paid for it! :eek:


TOJ

[ElSecundo]

[quote=cgingras;901446]Hey Mike, I just wanted to tell everyone that CLR is always one of the contenders for this race. :nod: You're a few tweaks away from a win. Remember, at the mid-point of this race, the difference was only [B]ONE[/B] lap between CLR and SCC, while the Atlanta boys were chasing the record.[/quote]
This is very true, and there was a substantial period during the evening/night hours where Cloverleaf probably had the fastest car on track. The competition between the top 3 was intense this year, and with the bottom three making huge improvements (again), next year's race could be really interesting. :)


Dickie, we might joke about 4 and 1/3, but you've earned all 5. :nod:


Nick, when I mention the single lap time for the Quick Slicks tires, it's to demonstrate that they are every bit as fast as the Supertires. There was tremendous speed available this year during the practice session on Friday, but we did find that grip was compromised on Saturday for all teams, to the tune of 0.2-0.3 seconds per lap difference, sometimes more, depending on the driver. All teams adjusted as well as they could, but it does seem that humidity in the basement may have caused the issue. All cars were faster than last year's cars, but they didn't get a chance to show it. No matter, everyone made the adjustment, and we had a great race. I don't believe that the use of Supertires would have made any difference, the track had simply gone away by race start -- the things you could do with the cars on Friday were not quite there on Saturday. We even noted that the famous Smokeio Swivel was lessened slightly, and the conjecture was that it was very difficult to drive these cars as aggressively this year -- night and day difference from Friday to Saturday.


All that said, I don't expect to use Supertires again. I understand your pride in your product, but I'd rather support the folks who make this hobby fun for me, and that's SCC. Nothing personal, I do this with any business with an 'in your face' attitude, I just turn around and walk away. Not sure the thread where everybody is sharing their fun race experiences is the place to forcefully interject a product ad, but that's a big enough turn-off for me to wave good-bye to your product. The performance can be found elsewhere.

[Scaleracing]

What a tangled web we weave.

OK enough already.

Congratulations to all who entered the Cloverleaf 24 Hour race, I certainly hope it was more fun than reading this thread.

I have removed a lot of posts here but tried to keep the good.

I sincerely appreciate all who are posting here to further the Hobby, and admire the support of charities. Well done to all the racers and all the Manufacturers represented.

Having run many 24 Hour Events I know how hard it is to put this all together well done to those who have grown this race, please do not undo all your hard work by continuing the removed parts of this thread.

I hope this ends all this mess but if it does not I will remove this thread and start removing accounts.

Play nice, don't ruin all your good work.

Be honest in your posts, and please those of you with multiple id's here stop using them or I will delete your accounts.

To close again congratulations to all the Teams well done on finishing another 24 Hour race at Cloverleaf, and a huge thank you to Mike for putting on the race.

Looking forward to the 6th Annual hopefully with all of the good created this time and get rid of the bad, be bigger that the pettiness I have seen in the last week.

[nhdungeonracer]

Thank you Alan, for cleaning up the riff-raff. I'm glad someone had the wisdom to do so...

It's been just over a week now since the race, and already we are talking about what we want to do next year to make things better. Was the gear ratio we chose too high? Too low? Did the motor overpower the gear ratio causing the tires to spin or the car to be loose? Mark has already figured out he may have had the guide too low, and that's why we wore out the left braid (lot's of right hand turns). This alone may have been the cause of the car being loose (extra drag).

Some stats and specs...

The 1st couple years, Slot.it was the car to beat, with a McLaren winning the 1st year, and a Nissan the 2nd year. Since then, for 3 years in a row, it's been the NSR Mosler. It's simply an amazing car. It will be interesting to see if there's anything that can top this beast. Going from memory, I think the blue chassis was used the 3rd year, a yellow chassis the 4th year. This year, the winning Mosler used the stock black chassis.
For 1st 4 years, the Scaleauto 20k ball bearing was the motor that powered the winning car. This year, it was 3rd. The NSR 22k Shark came out on top this year, followed by a Proslot (USA) 25k ball bearing motor.
I'm pretty sure the winning cars from year's past all used Slot.it gears (Mike would have to confirm). This year, the winning car used MRSlotcar gears. Using a 16.5mm spur gear along with a 7.5mm pinion, we were able to use a 14/32 combo. This combo combined with the Shark 22k motor, allowed us to get out of the corners with great acceleration, and also gave us good speed.
Tires? Not going there. Been enough said about this already. But we (and pretty sure all teams) used CBDesign 5 Spoke Racing wheels on all 4 corners. We used 15x11's on the rear, and 15x8's on the front.
We used a Slot.It guide. I believe it was SICH85. It's the screw in type with the extended blade. Not sure if Mark used SCC or Slot.It braid. Some teams used the red Scaleauto with the extended blade. During the course of the weekend, 2 teams broke the blade on these. One team did during practice on Friday, and Team Can-Am broke theirs during the last few hours of the race. They were able to finish with it, but they had to be careful not to spin the car around in a corner like a HO car that has a pin for a guide.

But the best part is the banter, joking around and comadarie that has become a big part of this race. We can never seem to get Rob or Jason to shut up, we can't get Mike to stop swiveling, there was a good laugh when Kurt couldn't go because someone had taken the chip out of his controller while cleaning it and forgot to put it back in, there was a new rule put into effect (no yelling at drivers :lol:). These were just a small sampling of what goes on. But that's the part that makes it all worth while. And if I can say that after being sick in a hotel for 24 hours and missing out on most of the race, I can only imagine how much more fun everyone else had. I only got a small sampling of it this year :( But that only makes me want to go back even more next year... :)

[ElSecundo]

[quote=nhdungeonracer;902000]But the best part is the banter, joking around and comadarie that has become a big part of this race. We can never seem to get Rob or Jason to shut up, we can't get Mike to stop swiveling, there was a good laugh when Kurt couldn't go because someone had taken the chip out of his controller while cleaning it and forgot to put it back in, there was a new rule put into effect (no yelling at drivers :lol:). These were just a small sampling of what goes on. But that's the part that makes it all worth while. And if I can say that after being sick in a hotel for 24 hours and missing out on most of the race, I can only imagine how much more fun everyone else had. I only got a small sampling of it this year :( But that only makes me want to go back even more next year... :)[/quote]
Dickie, you and Robin were sorely missed this year, it's not the same without you. Looking forward to next year, so we can make up for some lost time. :nod: You should probably know, there was some discussion about whether vomiting on the track would be a track call...


The chip thing was both panic-making and hilarious at the same time. The best part (besides the comedy of it) was that the Hazzard Boys scrambled to get a controller in my hands, at least until the chip had been replaced in my own controller. It showed once again that the guys at this race are here for all the right reasons, and if there's a way that they can lend a hand to a competing team in need, they will do it. Everyone wants to win or perform well, but it's more important to end the day with 30 friends, all looking forward to the next time we can storm Mike's house for a weekend.

[Smokeio]

[quote=nhdungeonracer;902000]

It's been just over a week now since the race, and already we are talking about what we want to do next year to make things better. Was the gear ratio we chose too high? Too low? Did the motor overpower the gear ratio causing the tires to spin or the car to be loose? Mark has already figured out he may have had the guide too low, and that's why we wore out the left braid (lot's of right hand turns). This alone may have been the cause of the car being loose (extra drag).

Some stats and specs...

The 1st couple years, Slot.it was the car to beat, with a McLaren winning the 1st year, and a Nissan the 2nd year. Since then, for 3 years in a row, it's been the NSR Mosler. It's simply an amazing car. It will be interesting to see if there's anything that can top this beast. Going from memory, I think the blue chassis was used the 3rd year, a yellow chassis the 4th year. This year, the winning Mosler used the stock black chassis.
For 1st 4 years, the Scaleauto 20k ball bearing was the motor that powered the winning car. This year, it was 3rd. The NSR 22k Shark came out on top this year, followed by a Proslot (USA) 25k ball bearing motor.
I'm pretty sure the winning cars from year's past all used Slot.it gears (Mike would have to confirm). This year, the winning car used MRSlotcar gears. Using a 16.5mm spur gear along with a 7.5mm pinion, we were able to use a 14/32 combo. This combo combined with the Shark 22k motor, allowed us to get out of the corners with great acceleration, and also gave us good speed.
Tires? Not going there. Been enough said about this already. But we (and pretty sure all teams) used CBDesign 5 Spoke Racing wheels on all 4 corners. We used 15x11's on the rear, and 15x8's on the front.
We used a Slot.It guide. I believe it was SICH85. It's the screw in type with the extended blade. Not sure if Mark used SCC or Slot.It braid. Some teams used the red Scaleauto with the extended blade. During the course of the weekend, 2 teams broke the blade on these. One team did during practice on Friday, and Team Can-Am broke theirs during the last few hours of the race. They were able to finish with it, but they had to be careful not to spin the car around in a corner like a HO car that has a pin for a guide.

But the best part is the banter, joking around and comadarie that has become a big part of this race. We can never seem to get Rob or Jason to shut up, we can't get Mike to stop swiveling, there was a good laugh when Kurt couldn't go because someone had taken the chip out of his controller while cleaning it and forgot to put it back in, there was a new rule put into effect (no yelling at drivers :lol:). These were just a small sampling of what goes on. But that's the part that makes it all worth while. And if I can say that after being sick in a hotel for 24 hours and missing out on most of the race, I can only imagine how much more fun everyone else had. I only got a small sampling of it this year :( But that only makes me want to go back even more next year... :)[/quote]

Here are a few thoughts....

Cars - We had a few fast Slot.it Nissans in the box. I always liked this car and had it running times very close to the NSR. I recorded faster times on the skid pad with the Slot.it than the NSR. We stuck with the NSR because we had run such fast times in practice and never had the time to really try the Slot.it against the NSR. Next year, I plan to put more time on the Slot.it for this event.

Chassis - It makes no sense to me but our best cars had both the white(hard) chassis and the yellow(soft) chassis. We opted for the white chassis. I have never gotten a blue chassis to work well on a Mosler as the white or yellow.

Motor - We really liked the Proslot motor when we tested at Area 51. Such a smooth power band and it looked so robust. It dropped off in power somewhere around the 4th rotation. In practice, the 20K Scaleauto motor was only a few hundredths slower so we could have gone either way. I had built a car with the 22K NSR but it had little brakes so I took the motor out. Mike's track needs little brake so the 22K would have worked fine. I don't know what to do for next year but we'll continue to push the envelope to find speed.

Guide and braid - Braid life is dependent upon making sure it is perfectly flat and well lubricated. I had our car setup for a 5 point stance with the car firmly riding on the guide with no braid issues. The only time you are going to have a braid issue is when it gets messed up because of an off or crash. We used a Scaleauto red guide and had one break in practice.

Wheels and tires - We've run CBD wheels every year and taken our share of lumps and crashes in the race and practice. We have never had a bent wheel or problem.

Gears - We've run many different combinations of gear here and used an NSR pinion with the MrSlotcar spur this year and it worked fine The only time we ever had a gear issue was the first year we ran a Slot.it 6.5 MM pinion and 19 MM spur and the pinion was worn.

Controller Chips - Really? I had a heart attack seeing that car stop and start and nudge it's way around the track. Now who would steal a controller chip? As Dickie said, it was nice to see EVERYONE jump to help Kurt.

Controllers - What's nice about this event was you get a chance to see the new controllers that people are using and what's fast. I still like my Difalco 30 band but there were a few nice controllers that people have that have every sort of adjustment you can want.

[Slot_it_Bob]

This was my first year at the race and I simply had a blast! I would never have believed you can run as fast on silicone tires as these cars do if I had not experienced it for myself. I was simply amazed.
I learned a lot about slot racing that will be carried forward to next year.
The best part for me is meeting the people and making new friends! I made quite a few of them.

Hopefully we'll get some of the Michigan racer down to Cincinnati for an endurance sometime this fall.

See you next March!

[cgingras]

Driving in an endurance race like this one (or any race of 12 or more hours) is the best way to improve your driving skills. Being able to run 400 laps consecutively is the best to learn everything about braking and acceleration points, how to adjust your controllers, learn about consistency, etc. See you next year Bob!

Christian, Team Slot Car Corner

[low tech]

Dickie's car was run with SCC braid. The front axle height was probably too high, letting the car weight run on the guide and braids. However, this may also have improved the handleing, but who knows...

Last year we ran the NSR 25k shark motor, and after the race we felt this was too much motor and we were spinning the tires.

This year we ran the NSR 22,400 shark motor. I would have like a little more, maybe 23,500 if they made one.

It is always hard to balance motor torque, motor speed and gearing.

I really like the Z machine light kits that one of the teams practiced with, they were very cool.



just some random thoughts
jon

[RacerX132]

[quote=low tech;902163]Dickie's car was run with SCC braid. The front axle height was probably too high, letting the car weight run on the guide and braids. However, this may also have improved the handleing, but who knows...

Last year we ran the NSR 25k shark motor, and after the race we felt this was too much motor and we were spinning the tires.

This year we ran the NSR 22,400 shark motor. I would have like a little more, maybe 23,500 if they made one.

It is always hard to balance motor torque, motor speed and gearing.

I really like the Z machine light kits that one of the teams practiced with, they were very cool.



just some random thoughts
jon[/quote]
Just to add to Jons thoughts, I've got our car in my possession and I'm impressed with the wear items on the car. They all held up quite well so we are happy with that. Wear and adjustments are always our biggest concern on a 24 hour car. I do wonder if there were any issues with the front end adjustment that may have contributed to our braid wear and eventual failure. We had a couple of rider events where the car went into a wall at close to full throttle which is quite a violent hit on this high speed track. This years NSR shark 22 was a hot one (Stanley Motorsports Power) and I agree with jon, there were times I wanted a little more but I believe the 25k is still too much motor for that track/voltage and grip level.

Also, I have no interest in being involved with a tire war, but just to share the facts, we have no allegiance to a tire manufacturer and we tested our car on super tires and quick slicks. The car ran well on both but was a touch quicker on the QS and they seemed to wear slightly slower so we guessed we may need fewer tire changes which ended up being true. Now we wonder if we should have done two tire changes instead of just one, but we'll have to figure that out for next year....

Jason