What is your experience with digital

[Dangermouse]

All this talk about growing the hobby and slot car racing and mention of digital being the future and the like I am curious about other folk's experience with digital racing has been
I have owned a 4 car Scalextric digital setup - which I got in a lot sale but sold it after running it for a month. I have raced regularly on a friends Carrera digital track and recently we had a race night at another chap who has Scalextric digital.
These are my thoughts:
- firstly digital is fun I don't mind racing on it at all but I don't plan on getting a digital setup anytime soon
- I like having 4-6 cars on a 2 lane track is cool - lots of action,
- pit lane and fuel stops are ok but I can live without them
-in analog racing coming to grips with the nuances of the 4 lanes is one of the challenges - in digital I find I tend to race on only one lane and rarely changed lanes I pass someone I jump straight back to my preferred lane - do you race like that or chop and change?
- at first people run into each other a lot , I hope that changes once they are more experienced.
- marshals don't put you in the wrong lane :lol:
- I don't get why we have 4 heats (I know you start each race from a different spot but still it isn't like you have 4 lanes to race on) does everyone race digital like that?
-it annoys me that I need different chips to race on the 2 digital tracks chaps at the club own. I understand that that will unlikely change but it seems a shame to me - I can't easily take cars from one of the tracks to another - and don't plan on buying lots of digital chips to chip cars - plug and play for Scalextric is good for those cars that support it
- the basic controllers for both systems are pretty basic - if I did go for digital I would need to fork out the $$ to buy better controllers.
- Digital may be the future but I shall remain a dinosaur :) Perhaps one day it shall be refined enough to make it compelling for me to look at again.....

cheers
David

[HomeRacingWorld]

Just another personal taste aspect of the hobby. Some like it, so do not.

Have raced it and it was fun. Have several Carrera models with chips inside that are ready to visit the track when the time comes. In the meantime, they work just fine in analog.

I do not think any approach is "better" than the other. Fun is FUN.

Just like mag or no mag, HO or 1/24. No matter how much you tout or try to convince others that one certain way is "the best", people will simply choose what they prefer in the end.

Just prefer analog as I prefer my wood tracks and the pure simplicity.

I too am just a Slotasaurus. :)

[dw5555]

[Half Fast Slotter]

Nice track Dave. Wish I had that much room. I love the digital Carrera setup.
With three racers we race three heats to get a total sum time. That means we switch cars after each heat to make it fair. I still lose, but now I have no real excuse. After all I am only Half Fast.
I don't try to stick to one lane - I try to stick to one specific path through the lane switches that I feel is the fastest and most efficient for that layout.
The ghost cars can become blockers, but that's half the fun to be able to get your buddy's car stuck behind one. The ghost cars also make it so that when you're by yourself you can still 'race' somebody.
Chipping cars is pretty easy, but you pretty much have to stick with rear engine cars and sometimes the factory interiors get left in the tool box to make room for the chip.

[Czar]

"deleted by OP.

[CrockettNZ]

I have no experience with it myself
one of the club members was building a routed wood digital track quite some time back but as there was no interest from anyone else he put it under his main track as a unfinished project

the newest member in the club has now brought it off of him and is now finishing the wiring for it
he purchased it for a test track as he only had a plastic track set up for testing cars
and as we know what goes good on plastic usually doesn't go that well on wood

he is planning on setting some cars up for digital racing for us to give it ago
so will be interesting to say the least
I do like the concept of it but does throw in a lot more to think about which would take some getting used to

http://www.slotraceshop.co.nz/index.php ... page&id=35

here is a link to how he built it and where he got up to with it

[borninthe50s]

I converted to Scalextric Digital after I moved and had to tear down my existing wood, four lane, analog track. These days, I am primarily a solo-basement, non-magnet racer, and use digital as a game to amuse myself and relax. I've built myself a pretty simple hybrid, two-lane, 65-foot, wood track with lane changers and a six car power base imbedded into the wood.

I like digital especially because in association with a race management program like RCS64 I can program variable throttle pace cars that are as fast or faster than a majority of my current cars. This in association with the ability to run in the same lane and pass has made for some very fun and challenging 10-lap races. Also, I have had a few, non slot-fanatic friends over, who had a really great time, even before I had tweaked things to make them more user friendly (ironing out tough spots in the track, improving the digital performance of cars, and adding more digital cars).

I'm still pretty new to digital and this was not easy or inexpensive to achieve. On the other hand, the journey was as much fun as the result and I'm still learning to improve the performance of the setup. Happy racing!

bit50s -- Glen

[proxieken]

I much prefer digital racing as it has more things to keep in mind while you race. There is one HUGE drawback, and that is the different chip types.

When I was first looking in to getting involved in the hobby I read everything I could and pondered the different brands. A friend was a big Scaley advocate, but what it came down to for me was that at the time I much preferred the cars offered by Carrera. My brother and I just purchased every one of the street muscle cars we could get our hands on. Chevelle, Cuda, GTO, Mustang, Camaro, Charger and Road Runner were all available. Some of these we had to install chips in to run.

Now it is several years later and the selection of street cars is gone. However, it seems I am trapped by the brand choice I made 5 years ago. I have too much invested to switch to Scaley but they make such nice Trans Am cars it is tempting. I know I can buy them to chip, but in reality I am not willing to spend that much to make a single car work with few exceptions. I am buying used D124 cars when I can find them and swapping bodies to make my race cars now. And for the price it is cheaper to build a D123 or D124 Carrera than any other collection.

But if I had gone with Scaley I could have a bigger layout in the same space. Pros and cons to each I guess.

The problem is once you make a choice you are sort of forced to stick with that brand, unless you are willing to pay a substantial "penalty" for crossing over to another company in the form of cost of chips and time to install. Analog racers do not have this issue.

I think the actual racing can be very exciting. One lane on my track is 2 feet shorter and a fraction of a second faster. If the leader can get there and stay there you have to really work to get past. I think it is like in a real race where the leader can run the line. I am going to work on modifying my track with a call button like the Scaley has so we can run ghosts during the race. This will provide another factor to deal with.

[docdoom]

I run both I have a scaly digital track and run rsc64 with it. race nights format is to run a 20 min practice and show any new driver the ends and outs of using the controls and the fuctions in the race control screens. such as fuel burn. tire changes ect. then a 10 run to see how the grid will be set buy fast lap then either a time race or by laps. if i get more than 6 guys race. I brake then down into teams and run time race and switch drivers at each fuel stop.but its hard getting new people to try it and my location dose not help either. 99.9% of the racers live across the river and getting to my place on a week day is pain in the back side. so In other words there not much action on my track. So most of my racing is non digital with the local club across the river. I'll keep trying to get them over. I think most of them would like it. more like real racing.

[RazorJon]

I tried digital at one of the SEMO boys house, had a good time, I have a few cars with chips and would race digital more if it was close

As far as the different chip, I don't see it as a big problem, lots of how to info on chipping cars

[Czar]

My experience with digital? Sublime. Finally, I can race with up to five friends on a two lane track. Finally, a race doesn't stop because someone de-slots. Finally, cars can be driven through a real racing line. Finally, drivers have to strategize how to drive with other cars as they lap the track. Finally, you can drive your car with performance parameters that are adjusted for that car/driver/track. Finally, you can race with a real passing strategy. Finally, fueling/pit stops becomes a part of scale racing. Finally, you can race the line on the track that you choose. Finally, if you are driving alone, you can still race other cars on your track. Finally, marshals don't have to worry about what lane they put the car in. Finally, the fun factor has been amped up even more than analog racing.

Digital has simply unlocked the true and unrealized potential of what slot racing can be. The future is even more exciting.

[sidedraft]

^^^ Yes!, digital racing takes split second decisions to get to the front & choosing the line to do it adding REAL racing excitement into the mix.
Not knocking analog & have raced on it before both on commercial & home tracks, just seems waaay more fun passing & dropping back into your preferred line, as far as chipping? its not a big deal we have chipped many brand cars & if its got a guide keel it will be chipped to run on our track. It would be nice if slot makers would get their head out of their arse & come up with a standard chip that would work on all brand tracks. my .02 worth

[Nor Cal Mike]

I have both. I have for a long time had wood tracks but recently got a bunch of Scaley digital stuff in a trade. I but together a lightweight 6ft. X 10ft. table for the SSD. I like the digital part of racing but very quickly remembered why I went to wood in the first place. I just don't care for racing on plastic track, especially Scaley track. So now I am making plans to expand the table to 6ft. X 12ft. and to build a wood digital hybrid track. It would be a very simple on where I insert whole, or nearly whole digital track sections into the wood.

As to the digital racing, I like the option of running more than two cars on a narrow, more scale roadway. The small SSD chips make almost any car chipable. In fact, the largest portion of my chipped cars are not Scalextric. I only have one reliable race buddy locally so the SSD pace car option is nice. Even when my friend is here, we use pace cars to load up the track with traffic.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

I think of wood tracks when I think slot cars. I started that way with 1/32nd in people's basements in 1966. Other than HO, the first plastic track I ran on, or even saw, was a Strombecker track a guy had set up as an oddity in his spare room, his "real" track (wood), was in the basement and was one of the biggest I had seen at the time. Later, I had a Scalextric Sport track, and it was doomed to last only until I found a wood track to buy from a guy who was building a much better wood track. In the meantime, I built three wood tracks and helped with two others.

There have been a lot of trendy/popular innovations in slot cars over the years, and some of them remain as important features of slot racing. Digital is another one in this group, but there is a long way to go before it is a mainstay. For one thing, it limits you to plastic track, so I'm out. There are too many versions of it, but that will eventually settle out to one or two (some are gone already), so that will make things easier to convert if the manufacturers don't price it out of the market entirely or pull dirty tricks, which is already starting to show up even in the best brands. Having a lot of cars on two lanes really doesn't sound like fun to me. I really don't see the point, as it is a disturbance to the concentration and nuance for me as a driver. Fine for kids, of course- they'd love it. But will they ever get the finer, wonderful fun points of slot cars if they think THAT is what its all about?

But what I am concerned about is that there may be a generation who grows up thinking digital plastic is what slot racing IS. That would be a tragedy. Look around. How many R/C plane enthusiasts today build or have built balsa planes with doped tissue or silk covering? The skill and dedication of those guys in the '50s -'70s, building incredible planes (sometimes losing them after all that work), is unknown today. Better gadgets took over, and in doing so ran the cost up so ridiculously high that that hobby is now the province of big spenders for the most part, so much so that a cheaper class of planes and radios were invented in the last ten years or so. Sound for model trains can be fascinating, and somehow didn't seem to disturb the progress of that hobby, and the same can be said for walkaround controls for individual locos. So, new gadgets can boost or harm a hobby. What happens is up to us.

[strangebrew]

Never been exposed to digital....Don't think I'd like it 'cuz I don't think it translates well to oval racing.
But that said......I'm afraid of too much technology taking over the hobby......
I agree 100% with "waytoomuch"
We all know how fast things change in the technical arena & what's current today is obsolete tomorrow...(literally)
I'm afraid we'd be throwing away the latest (yesterday) & buying new (today) & spending more money every year.
i.e. 8-tracks became cassettes became Cd's became thumbdrives became playlists....on & on ad nauseum.
I feel we should find something that suits us & REFINE that, rather than REPLACE it.