And You Thought F1 Cars Were Fast

[cosworth151]

When was the last time you went to a slot track? They've come a long way from the Ford GT and Lotus-Ford-Cosworth 49 that I had in junior high! 

[John S]

  Now that's just Bloody ridiculous.   In the humble opinion of an old fart, of course.   

[Scott]

    That's insane.  Gotta have guts of steel to reach in and grab one of the stopped cars.  I figured they just do full throttle until they showed the 'drivers' triggering their remotes.  Hope they have electronic scoring 

[Dare]

Personally it doesn't look like much fun to me.

[Ian]

Me neither Dare, tooo fast to see anything.

[David]

Makes an awful sound. 

[cosworth151]

I showed that video to some of the guys down in the Service Dept. One of them looked at the line of fellows running the cars and said, "I'll bet not a one of those guys has a girlfriend."

[lkjohnson1950]

I used to do this back in college. The track shown is 160 feet long. My best time was 3.8 something seconds. That made me 5TH fastest in the Grade B World Championship. Motor problems dropped me to 11TH at the end. I retired to take up R/C racing in 1982. Shortly after there was a revolution in car and motor design, increasing power and cutting weight by half. The world record for Grade A drivers on this track dropped from 3.4 seconds at the World's I ran at to 1.5 or 6 something in about a year. They are averaging about 60 MPH for a lap, which does require braking and accelerating. It can be fun, but the races used to be 5 minutes a lane on each of the 8 lanes, with 2 minutes to move to the next lane. In that 2 minutes, my buddy Dave and I can change a motor (they are soldered to the frame), change the pick up braid, and do body repairs. They use a brushed DC motor with Samarium Cobalt magnets, a spring steel frame and a Lexan body shell.

[Canada Darrell™]

I used to do this back in college. The track shown is 160 feet long. My best time was 3.8 something seconds. That made me 5TH fastest in the Grade B World Championship. Motor problems dropped me to 11TH at the end. I retired to take up R/C racing in 1982. Shortly after there was a revolution in car and motor design, increasing power and cutting weight by half. The world record for Grade A drivers on this track dropped from 3.4 seconds at the World's I ran at to 1.5 or 6 something in about a year. They are averaging about 60 MPH for a lap, which does require braking and accelerating. It can be fun, but the races used to be 5 minutes a lane on each of the 8 lanes, with 2 minutes to move to the next lane. In that 2 minutes, my buddy Dave and I can change a motor (they are soldered to the frame), change the pick up braid, and do body repairs. They use a brushed DC motor with Samarium Cobalt magnets, a spring steel frame and a Lexan body shell.

This just BEGS for a mockumentary of the hobby to make the geeks out to be motor racing gods!  I can just picture it......super-slo-mo shots of the cars, tense moments in the 2 minute window between races as the driver and race engineer decide which tiny motor to install and what method of bashing out the damaged body work needs...yup a giant suasage fest for sure!!!!

[lkjohnson1950]

I will NOT be mocked. It requires intense concentration and at the end of the 40 minute event you are exhausted. Find a raceway and try it sometime.