Category Archives: Misc

Fred Hood goes 1.8 at Buena Park

My good friend and Slotcar Racing Legend Fred Hood had never been under 2 seconds with a wing car, so after the 1 Motor Open race on May 17th at the 2007 Wing Car World Championships at Buena Park I decided to see if we could get him under the 2 second mark.

I took the car I had raced earlier in the day and put another motor in it, a 85 1/2 Koford arm in a Koford setup, which I was pretty sure would go under 2 seconds as it had done in practice early in the morning before the race. I ran a few laps with plenty of choke to make sure the car would get around the track, and to make sure everything was ok. Several of those laps were in the 2.0 range on 14 feet of choke so I knew Fred was about to smash the 2 second barrier.

I handed the controller to Fred, and told him to go for it. He pulled that trigger like the seasoned pro he is, and within a few laps he smashed through that elusive 2 second barrier, and into 1.9 territory. A short break to let the  motor cool down, and to re-glue the track and he was ready for another run. This time I turned the choke down to 4 feet and on his second lap, there it was, a 1.825.

We tried to go faster again, and thought a 1.7 might be on running straight up without any choke, but the motor was already past it’s best and Fred had to settle for the 1.825 and leave the 1.7 for another day.
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VISIT THE GALLERY

Some Stats about Fred’s 1.825 lap

Track: 155ft Gerding Blue King
Feet per second covered: 84
Lap average speed: 58mph
Chassis: Slick 7
Bulit By: Tim Tyler
Armature: Koford 85 1/2
Setup: Koford
Magnets: RL 8 pack
Gear Ratio: 8/39 (GT1 pinion Slick 7 gear)
Tires: Koford big hub WX

An addictive little online game to tune your reflexes

Not related directly to slotcars, but in some ways it could be. This little online game called Escapa requires you to have lightning reflexes, and great eye hand co-ordination to stay alive for as long as you can.

To play the game all you need to do is click and move the red box around without touching the walls of the box, or any of the blue blocks that float around. It is pretty challenging, and if you can make 18 seconds you are doing pretty well.

So far I have managed to stay alive for 18.244 seconds, leave a comment and let me know how long you can stay alive for.

Play the Escapa game here