Home Racing World

Had to pick up this pair. Been on that "list" and with the #11 finally, in....had to do it :)

Harry....would you say they are pretty much the same chassis wise... save for the body differences? I have many 69s so the reason for my inquiry...I have found the chassis to be a very disappointing as they break at either the bushing or motor mounting locations. Have had to scrap or replace quite a few . Seems with racing conditions it is merely a matter of time till you are left with an unuseable car...They do look great on the shelf though...Thanks
Tom Baker

Just got these today. I'm seriously thinking about selling my #3 and building this one. The actual car is a little cooler than the production photo shows with the lower front air dam.

Bruce

Close to the same. Not had many chassis issues here. All of mine are still stock and run great. Some are many years old.

The small cracks some have had near the bushings were easily fixed with some super glue.

Have had to replace about a dozen chassis in the last year or so. I started out buying around 30 of the 69 Camaros and unfortunately the chassis give out with just moderate use. I havent seen as much breakage when used stock except for all the wheels falling off. Once all the money is invested bringing them up to raceable use...gears, bushings, axles,wheels,tire,guides and so on,then they just dont hold up to the rigors of racing. I think the 30 car inventory is a pretty good controll for analizing the results. Where I have a problem is having to replace chassis to guys who have bought cars from me and gotten little milage with them. Other wise, besides the weak chassis the bodys do look nice...P.S. Your results my vary...just my experience with them...
Tom Baker

Tom, every time I hear about plastic chassis breaking up I wonder what the heck is being done to them. You just explained it. You and have been around all this stuff forever, so we should understand it the same way. At last I understand. The chassis is by no means weak- its being asked to do something it was never designed to do. A cage can be made to encase an egg in such a way that it will survive a 30 foot drop from the top of a football stadium (I did it for a science project 60 years ago), but if you drop a bowling ball on it from 1 foot, it will smash the cage and the egg. By the time you have put all those speedy bits on it, the stresses on the plastic are multiplied many times. I recommend adding some flexible plastic reinforcement to the chassis at the stress spots you have already observed. A little goes a long way.

I agree with waaytoomuchintothis. These transAm cars are as tough as any other plastic chassis $40 car as long as they are driven as intended. I have broken a few of the Camaro chassis but only after trying to make them competitive with much more expensive cars. Race them completely stock except for your tire choice and they hold up well.

I have come to a conclusion that even being a "Home Racer" I do or I should say I did buy certain cars with absolutey that in mind...To race them... if I want shelf queens I suppose I could simply collect them or buy model kits. It has come to my understanding that I must be an exception here. When our group ran them stock then the wheels all fell off one at a time till epoxing them became fruitless. So in order to change wheels the axles and gears have to be changed. You say this upgrade is not recommended so now I see I am not to repair a failed car with upgrades.I see...so the car at that point is deemed what useless?As Bob has said he has broken them trying to race with more expensive cars. Can you elaborate? We as a club have always ran them together whether stock or upgraded. As I said previously we did run them stock as originally planned till the wheels kept falling off. So there you have my synopsis. The 69 Camaro is one of my favorite cars and the reason I had spent well over $1200 on the scalextric product.So, what Bob is saying,they have to run them stock and they hold up well? How do you run them stock without wheels falling off? If as waytoomuch states the chassis is by no means weak -it's being asked to do something it never was designed to do.I beleive you may have something there...It was never designed for racing only designed to play with. I admit I am a home racer. Now I no longer spend money on play cars. To me it is a shame the chassis/running gear isn't up to the specs of the beautiful bodys!!!

"How do you run them stock without wheels falling off?" seems a very interesting question. I find it quite difficult to take the wheels off intentionally, and cannot fathom how you could have this problem.

Well in some ways, referring to brands such as Scalextric, Carrera, NINCO, etc as "play" cars is accurate. But they don't claim to be anything else either. These are the brands for simple home racing. Many clubs do race them hard and many add quality gear. But at the heart of them, they are just simple toy cars.

Brands like Slot.it, NSR, ScaleAuto, etc are the next level. Designed for the competition/club environment. They have the more advanced and durable gear that that level of racing demands.

I have had many a Pioneer wheel fly off, but very rarely a Scalextric. But then again I am not racing in your club. Just simple fun running, but we have many miles on them.

Rebuilding the cars is something I have done many times, I don't feel it was wasted. None of my chassis have broken to the point of "junk" unless a trip to the hard floor was involved. I have seen them break of course...when someone hits a wall at light speed or maybe a head on collision on the back straight when they do not, or cannot slow down.

So you feel they are not that good and that's fine, everyone has their own opinion. No right or wrong.

But I don't regret my selections for a second. I will tune them lightly and enjoy them, right next to some of my 69's that are 15 years old.

Tom,

What brand of track are you running the Scalextric cars on? What track voltage? Are you running with or without the traction magnet?

I rarely have had a wheel come off but when I do, it's easily fixed with a drop of super glue.

Best regards,
Brian

Good discussion about a very popular slot car make and model (Scalextric Camaro), and also one in which 'Individual Results will Vary' certainly applies. I have nearly 50 Trans Am cars, and all but one SCX 'Cuda are Scalextric or Pioneer. I race all of them constantly, and have never had an issue with breakage (except rare off table excursions) or wheels falling off.

BUT, I'm a solo racer who races one car at a time to record lap times for simulated races. I run each car as hard as possible so each has a fair chance to do well - but since there's a time penalty for deslots a great run can be ruined by not staying on the track. So 'hard as possible' for me means 'without crashing'. This is not the case in club racing as I remember it where some guys (or gals) enjoy crashing as much (more?) than racing. I'm guessing the breakage issue has more to do with crashing than racing, if you separate the two.

After some 200+ mph cars nearly climbed the catch fences in NASCAR and other forms of racing steps were made to slow them down for overall safety. All racing series now do numerous things to regulate speed so crashes aren't catastrophic and deadly. I proposing it's not that 'toy' slot cars aren't meant to be raced, they weren't designed to be crashed at the speeds we can tune them to attain. Grippier tires or magnets allow cars to carry more speed into a corner than the car's body or chassis may be able to handle if it deslots and hits another car, fence/wall, or other object. Maybe this problem can be alleviated by lessening the overall number of crashes (pit penalties, crash & burn rules, etc.) or creating our own version of safer barriers to limit car damage when crashes do occur.

Just going to add my 2 cents here I have just over 50 T/A cars mostly stock tuned and and a handful modified. The only cracked chassis I have is from exesive tuning and it ran Docs proxy cracked I’ve also never had a Scaley wheel fall of myself so I guess I’ve had good luck. My buddy has a 69 camaro that’s is highly modified and insanely fast. He will hand it to just about anyone and say “take that for a drive “. It’s been beat with in an inch of its life and it shows but it tears up any track you put it on to this day and it has to be over 5 years old now at least just saying :dance:

I think this is a great conversation. but it's totally hijacked this post about new Scalextric releases. I'm starting a new post entitles "Why & When Slot Cars Fail" to keep the conversation going. Please share your thoughts.