Came across this website which belongs to one of the most prolific posters on SlotForum (he goes by the handle "Mr. Flippant" there). Lots of good stuff on his site for us digital racers, however the one which stood out for me was this bit:
So, as the title of this post says, food for thought. What are your thoughts on trying a magnet-free class?Remove the magnets!
At first, it can be a lot of fun to see a car go flying around the track at high speed, sticking to the turns and only coming off in a spectacular crash worthy of the best YouTube videos and TV shows. We imagine them happening in slow motion as the car bounces off the walls and lands upside-down, spinning on its roof. It's a lot of fun. I know some people that have spent years making their cars go faster and sticking better so that they never have to let go of the throttle, using extra magnets, faster motors, and glue on the tires to help keep them on the track. Those people predictably get bored of the game and move onto other hobbies. As strange as it may seem, while the goal is to go fast without coming off the track, slot cars are not MEANT to be stuck to the track and stay in the slot no matter what. If there's no challenge, then there's no fun for very long.
The quickest way to add challenge and fun, not to mention reducing the damage caused when the car does come off the track, is to go "magless". That is to say, remove the magnetic component from the car's traction equation. Open it up, and pop out the magnet. In some cases you don't even have to open the car up, the magnet's just unscrew or slide out. With the magnet removed, properly trued and round wheels, properly trued tires, tire traction, and weight distribution become vital to the performance of the car. Without those things, a car will wobble and hop out of the slot, or slip and slide all over the place going nowhere. Once the car is tuned, though, the pleasure of driving it around the track is hard to beat. It's no longer about the fastest car with the strongest magnets. Now it's about the best tuning and the best driving skills. To be able to control a drifting car around a corner without coming off or crashing into another car is sublime. You'll find that every car drives a little differently, and so your skill will be tested every time you put a different car on the track. Some people go so far as to eliminate the plastic track with metal rails altogether, building custom wood track with routed slots and copper tape for power delivery. Even the strongest magnets are nothing more than added weight on a wood track. You can still have tons of fun racing magless cars on plastic track, though. Just follow all the other tuning tips to make sure it's a smooth runner. Magnets cover up flaws that suddenly seem huge without them.
Gordon
(PS - IMPORTANT: You guys may be out of the habit of reading the FRC forum, but now that we've started racing again, this will be the primary place for announcements and discussions. No one responded to my request for feedback at the bottom of the last race report as to when we should race next or about our second annual endurance event, so I don't know what to plan. Over to you then.)
