Do your lap times improve with age and experience? No.

[JULES]

[HomeRacingWorld]

Good for him, congrats on the win.

If I went slower, you might mistake me for racing a HO train.

[Modlerbob]

I remember a kid who was 9 or 10 a few years back that could race with the best of the adults. And this was 1/24th scale wing cars. He had lightning reflexes. More recently I have had a couple of young boys race at my track that have the potential to become excellent slot car drivers but they will probably move on th RC cars and leave slot cars as a faint memory. Their dad is an avid RCer and will push to develop their RC skills. Too bad.

[Pappy]

I've been racing slot cars on and off since about 62,63 and my reflexes are just as good as they always were, it just takes me longer to get around the track. :lol:

Joe Nuxall who use to pitch for the Reds back in the 60's use to say back when he was in his 60's that he threw a baseball as hard as he ever did, it just took it longer to get to home plate.

[dr fabio]

Wow the marshalling was pretty awful. As much as Id like to think that Im as good as I was when I was in my 20s I know that aint the case. Be it slot car racing or getting on my bike and riding up the local hill. I just aint as fast as I used to be. Race craft and a well engineered car helps narrow the gap and that does come with experience.

[mattb]

I can still run about as fast as always, but only for a few laps. Don't talk to me or otherwise divert my attention either.

[munter]

I like to think slotcars is an arena where the old wise grey fox can still whip the butt of a young upstart................I like to think that.

[strangebrew]

I think I'm even better now,
'cuz I can run 'em with an adult beverage in the other hand! 8-)

[Pappy]

Just fart at the drivers station, you can whip about anybody that way. :lol: :banana-dance:

[nhdungeonracer]

:text-yeahthat:

That happens a bit at Sick Puppy raceway, doesn't it Cliffie? :o :lol:

[Wobble]

It's not so long ago that I got into slots and my lap times are improving but it's got nothing to do with age but more from practice. Also learning how to tune a car to perform better has had a lot to do with quicker lap times

[Mayberryman]

Having been into slot racing off and on since the early mid 60s I can tell you that age does not help with lap times. What age does do is to help with patients, car preparation and the understanding of slot racing dynamics. Over the years you learn several basic lessons in slot racing and they are.
(1) You can never deslot fast enough to win a race.
(2) The old saying of to finish first, first you must finish.
(3) All lanes are not equal and at times you go faster when you allow faster cars to pass.

There was a time in my slot racing life that I would not concern myself with my fellow competitor and would nerf him any time I needed to pass and was on the inside of the curve. I also could not understand why another driver would nerf me.

When I was part owner of a commercial track and did a lot of the technical inspections every race I would see at least a couple of cars or more that I knew would not make the complete race without problems because of the shoddy preparation or lack of any preparation.

When I started to do a lot of oval track racing I learned the concept of racing the track and not the other drivers. A great segment on the outside lane might look like a bad segment on one of the inside lanes.

Today I enter a race with the idea of going as fast as my car is capable of and staying in the slot. It is fairly much the norm for me to qualify about four or five positions worse than I finish the race. On an oval race I consider it a good or bad race by the number of times I come out of the slot because of my driver error without being deslotted by the actions of others. I normally give myself three as acceptable on an eight lane race.

So, I go back to my original statement of that age has not made me faster but it has taught me how to run, win and not to loose a race because of consistent driver error.