FLEISHMANN
Who ? Fleishmann ? They make trains don't they ? So why are thay playing with old Faller Porsche slot cars from the 1970s and have a slot track hidden in the railway hall ?
We were keen to find out more and what a big surprise we had. Expecting to have a gentle play with a couple of old cars on a Carrera track layout, we got a big dose of advanced technology that should make other manufacturers sit up fast and smell the coffee.
Fleishmann have developed one of the most refined digital systems for their trains. They are also very advanced with app control systems, which is way ahead of the slot world (if you know about model railways you will appreciate this is true, there are industry standards and the manufacturers actually talk to each other). Like a light bulb coming on, the Fleishmann development engineers wondered what would happen if they could adapt their system for slot racing, so a couple of old cars were dug out of the archives and somebody went to the shop for a Carrera set.
The first experiment was with real-time in-car cameras exactly as they do with their trains. The cameras are small enough to fit inside a normal Carrera DTM car and transmit to a receiver that can display on a TV screen or iPad. We tried hard to get you a screenshot of this but it wasn't possible, but we can show you a car with the camera installed, and tell you it really works.
What about race simulation ? With the Carrera digital system as a starting point, Fleishmann imagination was added and the result is a slot racing control app with real life features. Choosing your car doesn't stop at adding a name, you also get an in-car view with the correct dashboard for the selected model. The view through the screen shows a 3D gameplay graphic if the onboard camera isn't available, moving in real time according to the track layout you have chosen. Naturally you can dial in features for tyres, fuel, etc, and set the normal race parameters of laps or time. You can also turn on digital sounds for the correct engine in your car, and driver - pit communications. This includes your race engineer telling you when to stop for tyres or how much further you can go before refuelling.
So how do you handle these features, as well as other additions which bring the race to life ? Taking a tyre pitstop as an example, you have to enter the pitlane and stop in the required place. At this point the screen automatically changes to tyre-change mode, and you become very interactive with the app. On screen is a display of the car wheel, a wheel-gun, and a new wheel. Using touchscreen drag & drop you pick up the wheel gun, move it to the wheelnut, and undo the wheel. Then you have to drag the old wheel off, pick up the new wheel and position it on the car, then pick up the wheel gun again to secure it. Only after you have successfully changed the wheel are you allowed to continue back to the race. Not too fast though, the pitlane speed limiter will give you a penalty if you exit too fast, and you will then see the drive-through procedure. Fascinating, and a lot of fun.
What about real race situations ? We tried the Yellow Flag function, which can appear at random and actuates a speed limiter on the car. Thats fine but obviously too simple for the Fleishmann guys, so they came up with a real race crash situation. The on-screen window display changes to a crash secene with damaged cars on and around the track, loose wheels bouncing around, in fact a lot of obstacles to negotiate. This is also done with touchscreen interaction, a steering 'slider' appears at the bottom of the screen which you can use to steer the car between all the obstacles. This operates only in the on-screen display, it doesn't actually steer your slot car on the track, this continues to circulate at Yellow Flag speed while you enjoy a real race event on screen.
Once again, we tried to get screenshots of all this action, but the demonstration iPads were sealed and taking useable pictures proved impossible. The Fleishmann guys were very helpful in explaining all the current operations (enough to make us think we had stepped into another slot age) and also hinted at other things to come. There is a tie-up with Carrera, obvious given the geography, so we went back to Carrera and talked to one of their techy guys to get their side of the story. Not giving too much away, they did confirm that the Fleishmann systen has been tested for integration with the Carrera Digital system and so far everything is working well.
Wow, what a nice surprise to find at Nuremberg, and a very good demonstration of how far technology can take slot racing. Or is it slot racing or something else ? To those of us oldies who have been around since rubber track, slot racing is driving a car around a fixed racetrack and going faster than the other cars on track. It involves designing and building cars, tuning them, or simply having fun against others with similar cars. To a new generation this could seem a bit old fashioned. If you look at the advanced graphics and gameplay in computer or console games you realise they are far advanced of what was available when slot racing was at its peak. The expectation for youngsters is real time graphics and sound, a variety of roles and functions, and a competitive element. What the Fleishmann guys have done is combine many of these with traditional slot racing, and this may be the step that will bring more people to a racetrack near you. Even if it just has a coupe of cars on a simple track and is fun for a few hours......
