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Describe your transition to magnet-less ...

....It hasn't happened... :)

I like my racing quick and with a realistic track action, many of the magnet-less set-ups leave a lot to be desired, if any race car had as much oversteer in them, they would be set on fire with petrol....

Sorry, when it is realistic I will play.

It took all of 30 minutes for me. I hadn't played with slot cars since the 60's before magnets were thought of. On a whim, I bought an analogue Carrera F1 set, I set it up, played with it for about a half hour took it down and never set it up again. I went to the lumber store and bought a couple of sheets of MDF and a router bit and the rest is history. I knew right away that magnets weren't for me.

I, too, was an addict back before anyone ever thought of magnets in slot cars, so when I first ran with magnets, it seemed very artificial but I got used to them. But the guys here had wood tracks for the most part, so when I realized I was much more at home, and that it was most realistic in terms of the physics of movement (magnets make everything jerky and too fast- not enjoyable for me at all), Well, I now have a huge collection of all sizes of magnets that are ex-slot car magnets. They fill a crystal case lid from a big Carrera. I glue them to things to give as Christmas presents for refrigerator magnets, fix doors on cameras. pick up metal shavings and chips... But never again on slot cars.

When I first got into slotcars many years ago I bought the 1/32 Carrera banked oval set with the Carrera superbird & daytona. It just got released & I couldnt resist, so I purchased it. I ran it for about a day with the magnets. Then I removed the magnets & the cars were a handful on the banked corners. But once the track rubbered up, what a blast, seriously.

Theres no better feeling than getting a dog handling car into a real smooth runner that is an absolute blast to drive with no magnets. In my opinion running without magnets slows the car down to a more realistic speed & it makes you drive the cars on the track more realistically. Just my opinion

I bought Scalex track and an extra pair of cars as a second attempt at feeding the slot car bug that I had developed from being told I could not play with my brothers' slot cars during childhood. The first attempt was with AFX cars so glued to the track by magnets that they could drive up a vertical wall.

At the same time I got the Scaley track, I joined Auslot forum to learn what I could from there. The first thing that I learned was that there was a very vocal anti-magnet faction on the forum. I listened to what they had to say about running sans-magnet, but resisted all attempts at conversion.

The revelation for me came when I purchased my first Ninco Classics. Although some of the other releases had contained button magnets, the XK120 and AC Cobra came without them. And the Jag was such an absolute joy to drive I became curious as to what other cars would be like.

Fortunately the first two cars I experimented with were simple and fun to convert, requiring no tuning other than magnet removal and rear tyre change to urethane. The SCX Morgan and Scaley Ford GT are both cars that I would recommend for someone experimenting with the sans-magnet experience. These two were such fun that I moved onward to removing magnets from a pair of SCX 4WD rally cars and then 2 Ninco ones.

The pair of Scalex BMW Minis which were next in line to receive a magnetectomy slowed progress a little. These required some some work to make them fun without magnets and started me off down the tuning track. Once these were sorted to my satisfaction I moved to a pair of Mustangs, one Scalex and one Pioneer. I am so glad that these were not the first cars that I tried removing the magnets on. Had they been, I would never have gone any further. Both Mustangs took a lot of time and a lot of tuning and adjustment to get to a satisfactory stage, but they taught me an awful lot. I now consider tuning a car to perform smoothly on a track to be a big part of the fun.

...and while I should be sleeping, I'm in the dungeon tuning an SCX AAR 'Cuda. Why? Because I can! Thanks to the millions of tips learned here, it is actually pretty easy to get most cars running well. I'll post more on this one in a few days when I get the chance to, but let's just say this thing is SMOOTH and awesome. One last thing: only non-stock parts? PG Tires.

Can of Worms time -

I started with Scalextric cars that wouldn't stay on the track - saw AFX love them (I was 12) and the slow scalextric cars disappeared.

When I got back into slots I bought Carrera track, which we had for a month before my brother made a routed track with copper tape. No mags were the go though it took a bit to rubber the track up to improve the grip for some cars.

I prefer no mag - but I don't get hung up when we race a mag class

DM

....not funny at all really, but if thats your spin on it feel free.....

Most non-magnet cars Ive seen have major issues with oversteer, from what little Ive seen full scale cars dont get anywhere near the same attitude, unless of course the person that set them up is a knob.

My view is that magnets replicate aerodynamic downforce, something that scale racing cant reproduce due to the low speeds involved.

The models still move around (mine anyway), you still have to be precise to turn quick consistent lap times.

Id tell your mate to invest in a magnet marshall and then ease up on the cowbell a bit, by the sounds of it he has made himself a magnet barge....

actually we told him to take the magnet out :) the car was a stock scalextric classic GP

no offense was intended with the use of the word 'funny' Rob - 'interesting' may have been a better word - my intended use - was as in "Funny how you say that...as it made me think about something...... as in how different his car looked compared to others I hadn't really thought about it before in the sense of whether it was realistic or not

When I started to race with the Shoreline Model Raceways club the tracks were all Scalextric Sport. All of the cars used big Scalextric bar magnets and sometimes the cars could run flat out all around the track. We did use scales to measure the downforce. After a while we started to experiment with moving the magnets forward so the cars could slide a little. After our first wood track came online we dumped the magnets, dropped the voltage and learned to tune our cars.

My transition goes back to running HO cars. As a youngin', I was initially enamored with the Tyco cars that ran up the walls and did loop the loops at speeds so fast that they were merely blurs. Often I'd just squeeze the trigger all the way and watch the streaks of color as they moved like lightening around the track. Then I discovered my dad's old Thuderjets and it all changed for me. Suddenly I had to actually drive the cars, letting off the throttle at the turns. It didn't hurt that I loved watching Dukes of Hazzard and thought that insane fish-tailing should be a staple of every car. But what really sold me was that I could now actually see the cars.

Fast-forward to about a year and a half ago, when I decided to get in to 1/32. I wanted the same feel as I had with the Thunderjets, and the magless or even the reduced mag feel of some Ninco's and Carrera's filled that want. The 1/32 cars are generally so well detailed that it's nice to be able to actually see them as they go around the track. I have raced cars with fairly intense magnetic downforce, and frankly, I find it just too damn hard to do. Those refrigerator magnet cars don't give any warning before breaking in a turn, and the next thing you know, those fancy detail parts are being flung all over the room. No thanks. Maybe it's just that my reaction time sucks, but I'll take the laid-back feel of magless running over the adrenaline filled frenzy of thousand-mile-an-hour blurs any time.

And it's been said in threads by others with much more 1/32 experience than me, so I feel that it bears mentioning here, but a 1/32 magless car driven properly will not fishtail in a turn. It may look slow to some, but contemplate for a moment "scale speed" and then it will all make sense. If you're running mags, then the speeds that you are probably traveling with your cars are generally reserved for the Alkali Salt Flats rather than the tiny circuits that we have in our homes.

(This post is with a friendly tone of voice) Sorry, I didn't read all the posts but with non-mag, doesn't scale speed come into play? Most magnet cars are traveling at 700-1000 scale MPH. Now I'm not trying to be a :angry-boxing: starter but is that realistic? Like everything else. there's a fine line to make it all run smoothly. Enjoy your racing. Whatever it is.

Bruce