Roedale Slots Blog

My Trusty MG ZT+

2008-05-05T23:02:00.002+01:00

Hi Chaps,

Just thought I'd let you know that the MG is up for sale, it's a great car, but I've got fed up of changing gear when I'm sitting on the M25, so I'm going automatic!

If anyone's interested, or knows of anyone who might be, please let me know.

Full Details Here

Cheers,
Phil.

Robin's True Love??

2008-05-05T17:22:00.002+01:00

Robin does ask for it! Here he is pretending that he isn't really wanting to have a go on the HO track.

Robin at the Nats.......

2008-05-05T09:10:00.002+01:00

Poor old Robin had a hard day racing at his first Nats - here's an action shot of him on the way home!

F1 Race Results

2008-05-04T22:20:00.001+01:00

Race results below for the last week

1st May 2008 - Formula 1 Championship Round 2

All the best,
Phil.

Nats 2008

2008-05-04T20:33:00.005+01:00

Its 5.30am and the alarm goes off,i drag myself from my nice warm bed to go and pick up robin then a short trip up the road to collect Chris c, the m23 and m25 are nice and clear so no hold ups while on the way to Vodaphones HQ at newbury. At just a little past 8am we arrive at Vodaphones HQ and not a minute too soon for Chris c!!!!.
Chris, robin and myself get settled in and find a clear pit table for the day, a short while later Malcolm turns in and the four of us are set for the day. Now my plan was to help robin and Malcolm with any dramas they may have with there cars during the days racing, so i settle myself in and find all the items that i might need for rapid car repairs. Following a call to make sure all the novice drivers are booked in i half jokingly ask Chris to go and book me in only to be told 10 minutes later to go and talk to Kev gray as he would like a word with me! £20 lighter and with not much time to spare i am frantically trying to sort out my 3 year old falcon 4 powered demon chassis, i get myself in a muddle with my tyres so end up putting the old ones back on again just minutes before my first practice session. After the first rather slippery! practice session i can see that i am not completely outclassed with my car, a few more practice sessions pass and i start to remember how to drive the Nat's track and feel the nerves starting to settle a little more.
The qualifying format is 4 segmented runs followed by by a receding then the next 4 segmented runs. after the first 4 runs i am in the top 10 overall but i have a real problem with the car as it is starting to slow very rapidly.Then in steps one of the many hero's of the day for me Ian b, he rather stupidly tells me that i should put a falcon 7 in for the next round of qualifying, so after all of 2 seconds though i ask him if he thinks he would have time to do it for me, thankfully he says yes and before you know it another of my days hero's, Chris c, is of and procuring me a falcon 7 from Chas. I am off marshaling the next set of heats while Ian wrestles,as its soldered in in about 5 places!!!, the falcon 4 from my demon chassis to replace it with my shiny new falcon 7. Ian has the new motor in place after what seems no time at all and following chas's advice the motor is oiled and run in for as long as possible before the the next round of qualifying.
New tyres are fitted, new braids courtesy of Malcolm are fitted and of i go again for my next 4 qualifying runs, this time i struggle to drive the car with its new found urgency from the falcon 7, on the last run disaster strikes, i get the same corner wrong for about the 20th time and fall into the next lane just as that driver enters the main straight! my car takes off flat out, it then clatters full chat of the barrier and ends up, still traveling at abated speed, the wrong way up the main straight, thankfully its not collected by anything other than a marshall. But its soon apparent that all is not well. I turns out that my 2 piece cranked axle set up has parted company with the solder that was holding it there, time for rapid rebuild number 2 of the day.
Robin runs off to buy me some mickey mouse front wheels, i think Chris 'borrows' a length of piano wire from somebody and Ian finds somebody to cut it down to size, during this the organisers are asking people to choose there starting lanes so i ask Chris to go and choose for me to give me time to finish the repairs/preparations to my car.
So after all that there i am in the Nat's novice final along with fellow roedale team mate Malcolm, unfortunately robins driving miss daisy impression was not good enough to get him into the final, not too sure what happened next as it all whizzed by in a bit of a blur. I do remember that Chris managed to put the wrong sticker on my car during one lane change and then on the next one managed to put it on the track facing the wrong way!! but both times the mistake was spotted and solved. I ran as high as second at one stage but as the final progressed i settled mid pack and ended up finishing 5 overall with Malcolm finishing in 8th.
It only took me twenty years of slot racing to get to the nationals but i am sure i will be there for saloon next year, and i would like to say a very big thanks to everybody that helped me out.
One last thing, ask Chris about the photo of robin!!!!

Results

2008-04-27T21:59:00.001+01:00

Race results below for the last week

24th April 2008 - Saloon Championship Round 2

All the best,
Phil 'The Tape Cleaner' Moss

Wot a Saturday afternoon.......

2008-04-20T22:31:00.011+01:00

Jared set me a challenge this weekend, as he had decided he wanted to make a remote control tank as part of a World War Two project for school. Not one to be beaten I set to dismantling the collection of broken radio control helicopters I collected at the Brighton Centre. I soon found that the motor and pinion meshed perfectly with a 46t 80 pitch gear, so with my trusty soldering iron, some 16g piano wire, Jared's tank was soon underway. Once constructed all we needed to do was create a 'tank' from an old box and the job was nearly complete ! ( you know bodywork has never been my strength ! )

You can see we even used pin tube to mount the shell to the chassis !

Under the covers you can see the size of the motor and the backend. For the technically minded this is a 7 to 46 gear ratio! Initially built with a set of 1/24th JKB rears (on large polymers of course !), however, these seemed to provide to much resistance and cut the motor out, a little experimentation found it ran best with a gear on each side.

As you can see in the attached video, it's got a good turn of speed ! Wonder if I could get a saloon body on it - great fun !!!

See the tank in action

Results

2008-04-20T12:04:00.002+01:00

Race results below for the last two weeks

10th April 2008 - 1/24th Championship Round 2

17th April 2008 - Reg Church Memorial Round 2

Don't forget all results can be accessed through the calendar on the main website as well - useful for checking history !!

All the best,
Phil

Results

2008-04-06T22:25:00.002+01:00

Race results below for the last three weeks

20th March 2008 - Team Race

27th March 2008 - Super Production Championship Round 1

3rd April 2008 - Sports Championship Round 2

All the best,
Phil

My big idea......

2008-04-03T23:31:00.003+01:00

One Sunday afternoon do you think we could lay out four 00 guage tracks and run a four man team race ?

Contraversial (Fun) Subject?

2008-03-29T17:28:00.003Z

Hello Gentlemen!

Chris Church did say he thought the blog was going abit quiet and was in need of a possible contraversial subject. I don't like to disappoint so here it is:

Whats the general opinion of POSSIBLY inviting the EAHORC to the club for one Sunday later in the year? Or maybe later next year?

If you look on the BSCRA website site you can see they've been to FLBT in Swindon and brought their own track and placed it over the top of the exisiting 1/32 track. I believe that we (well i will atleast) should remain open to other scale racing and use this an a FUN insight into HO racing (Even if you do see them as toys)

Well Roedale Racers do be kind with your responses. I bruise like a peach!

Silly but cool

2008-03-28T17:15:00.002Z

Hi guys Ben just told me about these adverts running in the states at the moment.

2008-03-16T22:30:00.002Z

Race results below for the last couple if weeks

6th March 2008 - Saloon Championship Round 1

13th March 2008 - Formula 1 Championship Round 1

All the best,
Phil

Slot cars in the caribbean!

2008-03-09T00:32:00.003Z

Hi everyone,

I was on the Caribbean island of St Maartin yesterday, walking along the boardwalk by the beach and a sign outside a yellow shack catches my eye: Slot Car Raceway. Intrigued I walked up the steps and into the door and what the hell, a pukka slot car track! A Paul Ogilvie at that too. It is a copy of the "Indy" track at Millstream.

Got talking to the owner, a Reggie Coran, who has been racing slot cars internationally for years and counts Kimo Ratner and Ernie Mossetti as close friends(!). Any one of you heard of a Reggie Coran? He showed me his trophies for all the things that he has won.

I did take a couple of pictures, soon as I can I'll get them posted up and a link put in for them, but those who have been to Millstream know what the track looks like. It was just so odd to find it in the Caribbean!

He has a shop full of stuff too, and as the Dollar is so weak against the Pound I might just buy some bits! Our itenery takes us back there in 3 weeks, I'm going to see him again and have a go on the track. If I'd known he was there I would have got my cars sent over!

Anyhow, I'll be back in England on 24th April, which is a Thursday, but I probably wont be at club until the week after.

See you all then!

1/32nd Production Championship Results

2008-03-02T22:35:00.003Z

Race results below for last weeks racing

28th February 2008 - 1/32nd Production Championship Round 1

All the best,
Phil

More Race Results

2008-02-28T20:56:00.002Z

Evening all,

Race results below for the last couple of race evenings

7th February 2008 - 1/24th Championship Round 1

21st February 2008 - Saloon Class

That me all up to date now - at least until you finish racing this evening !!

All the best,
Phil

Model World is over for another year!

2008-02-18T16:26:00.002Z

Well done and thanks to all Members who came along to contribute in some way to our stand.
Very pleasing that 18 of our active Members etc showed up over the long weekend - plus Vince from Coulsdon.

Disappointing though was the low numbers that actually had a go on the track. The lowest number since 1995!
90% of them were only knee high and there was virtually no serious interest out there at all.

Oh well...............................!

Scale racing those where the days.

2008-02-13T18:08:00.004Z

I know it’s corny, but it's fun. And we do forget that’s why we do this. Not sure about the bumpy track though!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPa9WfB55us

North London Southern 32

2008-02-05T21:34:00.000Z

Just seen the S32 report, well done to Ian B on the team race & very impressed to see Robin pairing up with Dave Harvey & taking second - impressive stuff !

Sports Championship - 31st January 2008

2008-02-03T21:43:00.000Z

Results from last Thursday.

Sports Championship Round 1

Regards,
Phil.

2008 Results

2008-01-31T22:06:00.000Z

Links below to this years results so far.

The links on the calendar on the main website seem to have stopped working, I'll investigate shortly......

3rd Jan - 1/24th Production

10th Jan - Saloon

17th Jan - Formula 1

24th Jan - Super Production

Regards,
Phil.

Do we have a secret BSCRA Member?

2008-01-30T21:52:00.000Z

The BSCRA Membership Secretary is looking for someone who sent in a BLANK Membership Form - but did at least remember to sign the cheque!
Surely no-one from this Club......................................!

Saloon Championship Round 6 - 29th November 2007

2008-01-23T21:20:00.000Z

All,

I overlooked to publish the results from the last Saloon championship.

Now rectified !

Saloon Results

This is the last set of result I have received, I'll publish more when they come through.

Phil.

2008 Race Calendar

2008-01-20T12:14:00.000Z

All,

The 2008 race calendar has been published on the web site

Click Here

Yet Another impressive track

2008-01-19T13:07:00.000Z

Hello Gentlemen

Like Phil i have too much time on my hands and found these tracks on the internet.Before you all chases me with pitch forks and torches, because there racing HO scale, you got to admit they are impressive. The steel track is very Grand Designs i thought. Anyone got any idea's how it was made or works ?

Roll on Thursday.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RdBpW0FULY

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ul7LUMR1HEE