Category: Information

MegaG/Jag Brush Barrel Continuity Issues

Those of us who have raced the MG/MG+ cars know of this problem all too well. Now that we’re racing Jag Hobbies platforms, this issue has come to the fore once again.

Some of you may have experienced a Mega-G or Jag Hobbies car suddenly stop, stutter, or otherwise display intermittent rail contact issues.

This is a well-known problem and actually has several solutions. The easiest of which is to simply change the bend profile of the shoe. Another is to install shunt wires or Tyco dual-lever shoe springs.

This bulletin provides some detail on addressing this problem by changing the shoe bend profile, which is probably the simplest and certainly the cheapest and quickest method to resolve.

The following link provides detail on how to modify the shoes to overcome this issue and maintain pick-up shoe continuity.

Courtesy of WHOSCAR ICT Facebook pages and author, Mike Linkous, who has done a great job of both illustrating and describing how to solve this issue.

WHOSCAR is a very active HO-scale slot car racing organization in Wichita, Kansas dedicated to the hobby of building and racing h.o. scale slot cars.

Thanks, Mike!

 

Introducing the “Super Stock” Class

While I’m not sure of the interest level in this class, several drivers have expressed interest in a slightly more advanced set of rules to enable more tuning and flexibility in building cars.

Our Super Stock class is based on the 2022 HOPRA SUPER STOCK rules but has two key differences:

    1. HOPRA restricts motor and traction magnets to stock Ceramic-only material and does not allow Compression-molded Polymer (Level 4) magnets in this class. We allow standard V-SPEC Level-4 magnets.
    2. HOPRA does not, however, have any restrictions on armature bushings, gearing, axles, or wheels and tires. This means HOPRA rules allow dual-compound tires, we don’t. Only silicon slip-on tires are permitted.

Kevin Webster has a bunch of HOPRA-legal Super Stock cars, which he and I tested extensively. The general consensus was that the HOPRA car was not significantly different than our current Viper V-SPEC (SPEC-RACER) class and forcing interested drivers to purchase expensive ceramic-grade magnets for these platforms would be a burden to many of our drivers.

Due to the cost of dual-compound tires and the lack of interest in purchasing them, we decided against allowing dual-compound tires—for now. In our testing, dual-compound tires produced about a half-second faster lap times.

So, why setup and race a Super Stock car? Well, one reason is that there are a few more tuning options available in this class:

      • Open gearing choices, unrestricted.
      • Adjustable brush tension (on brush-barrel type chassis’)
      • Any material for armature bushings, except ball-bearings.
      • Many competitive chassis options: BSRT G3/G3R/G3RS/G3RSB, Mattel/Tyco 440-X2, Micro Speedworks T+, Slottech T1/T2/T3
        and T1X, Wizzard-Patriot P2/P3/Scorpion/Storm/Storm CH22/Fusion, Viper V1 (V-SPEC).

Bottom line, this class provides a bit more speed and tuning flexibility to those drivers interested in moving up a notch or two in tuning ability and options.

We’ll see where this class goes. Right now, only a couple of active drivers have these cars ready to race. That said, you can actually just run a good stock Viper V-SPEC and do fine on most tracks. The gearing options are pretty simple, all you need are a couple of spare rear axle assemblies with lower or higher gearing and swap them out to see what works best on the particular course you’re running on.

The other tuning options are a bit more nuanced but also very useful.

Feel free to comment on this new class here or on my Slot Car MeWe page here.

Okay, shut up and drive!

Combined Lap Records for SR2 and SR3 Posted

Always good to know the time to beat when you’re testing and tuning slot cars.

It’s clunky, I know. But you can sort by any field in the table and search for anything. Pay attention to the track layout and dates. I’ll try to keep it up-to-date but haven’t automated the process yet.

Lap Records

Stay tuned for more slot car racing stats from Stewart Raceway…

2022 HOPRA Nats In The Books

HOPRA held their National Championships back in June. They had 0ver 100 drivers totaling over 500 entries in their various classes.

We run HOPRA rules at Stewart Raceway. We currently only run two platforms today that are almost always raced at the Nationals: the Viper V-SPEC Lexan car, aka: SPEC RACER; and the Viper-Jet Lexan car, aka: SPEC JET classes.

I suspect next year HOPRA will roll out OS3 TFX rules. No idea what those rules will look like. Hopefully, our TFX Modified class is in the ballpark.

HOPRA also runs a support race using the Mega G+ platforms at the NATS, employing BOX STOCK rules. We don’t run this car other than IROC but it’s a simple and good driving platform and one that all of us have a few of. Maybe we should consider adding it to our active platforms?

Full results and pics here.

Stewart Raceway Current Driver Classification

Unleash the Driver WithinThe following table shows the current driver classifications at Stewart Raceway. The Average Placings figure represents historical data where 2020 to 2022 data is not available. If a driver has an Expert classification but does not have a commensurate Average Placing, it is because they have established themselves as recognized Experts in the sport/hobby at other venues and historically.

Driver Average Placing Classification
Kevin Webster 5.6 Sportsman
George Peters 4.5 Sportsman
Greg Kondrek 3.1 Expert
Ted Essy 2.9 Expert
Jordan Walker 6.2 Sportsman
Brad Sandahl 3.1 Expert
Ian Douglass 2.1 Expert
Russ Toy 4.7 Sportsman
Ken Stephens 3.3 Expert
Rick Voegelin 4.7 Expert
Randy Tragni 4.6 Sportsman
Dan Jiminez 3.1 Expert
Paul Leuty 5.1 Sportsman
Bruce Douglas 5.3 Sportsman
Mark Owyang 5.2 Expert
Don Riemersma 3.8 Expert
Steve Testerman 8 Expert
Randy Cook 2 Expert
Dave Mcconaughey 4.7 Sportsman
Jerry Pearson 4.2 Sportsman
Mike Andrews 4 Expert
Jeff Hurley 5.6 Expert
Mitch Valder 5.8 Expert
Jared Johnson 5 Sportsman
Ron Coaxum 3.2 Expert

Keep in mind, you can request to upgrade to Expert at any time, no restrictions. You can also request a downgrade (reclassification) to Sportsman if your current Average Placing is higher than 4.0. You cannot reclassify during a race day event or during an in-progress racing series.

The only anomaly I see is George Peters being ranked a Sportsman. He’s definitely an Expert when you consider his experience. However, in the last two seasons at Stewart Raceway, he’s reporting a 4.5 placings average. And, since we don’t have any Experts running in the current series, which George is leading, I’m okay with him remaining a Sportsman driver. If he wins it, he’ll definitely be reclassified as an Expert.

Okay, shut up and drive!