Shoreline Model Raceways has a class for open wheel cars, we run strictly on wood tracks. A few years ago we had a class for the Scalextric IRL cars that were stock except for spec silicone tires. At that time we found that there were large differences in performance between cars that we had expected to have close performance. We spent an evening testing all of our cars on a Kelvin Light Bench, on a skidpad and on our most challenging track. Some of the differences were due to differences in motor performance, but the main differences were in handling. Skidpad times varied quite a lot and some of the cars were faster in one direction than the other. We found that how the front end of the car was set up was very important. The front wheels need to be firmly planted, the stock cars have front wheels that barely touch the track and the axle can be skewed, accounting for different times in each direction. The pickup was part of the problem, the fix was to remove the braids and sand the bottom of the pickup to make it thinner. The braids were re-installed so that the back end was not wrapped under. In order to do that they have to be glued to the top of the flag. The feelers that make contact with the braids can lift the front of the car, adding a screw and washer will fix that. Another thing that we did was to reinforce the front end by adding a tube that goes all the way across the car. I use square section brass because that does not bend. The stock cars also have loose rear axle bearings, the Superglue trick was used to remove the slop.
Now that we are racing open wheel cars again most of the guys have dusted off their old IRL cars. We allow aftermarket parts like gears, axles bearings, wheels, tires and guide flags.
