Ford v Ferrari 2020 Round #8 - Pebblestone Model Car Circuit

[Gascarnut]

the large box of cars arrived today from Mitch in Oregon, so the next round of this COVID-affected (but not infected, fortunately) Series will be conducted soon, in a solo format as was the case for Round #7.

If the local weather cooperates, I hope to qualify the cars Saturday and run them through their heats on Sunday. However, our forecast calls for some rain this weekend and that will mean I will need to delay the racing for a week.

More info on Friday, in the meantime, for those who don't know the circuit, here's some information about PMCC:



The track stands on a covered but not enclosed patio behind my garage. We don't have the luxury of basements here in SoCal and space is always at a premium. I built the track in 2008 and so far it has resisted the weather extremely well. Lap length on each of the three lanes is 60 feet and 3 inches, but the "outer" red lane is about 1/10 of a second faster than the center blue lane and it in turn is about 1/10 faster than the inner yellow lane. The surface is painted with UMA, a urethane modified acrylic, that gives good grip for all types of tire, although rubber is the preferred tire here. Power comes from a Pyramid PS26KX power supply set to 11 volts. Lap timing and scoring is by Trackmate with a light bridge. Good times for cars like those in this proxy will be around 5.8 seconds.

[arroldn]

Alright. Hopefully my Ferrari will race better than it qualifies.

[Brumos RSR]

I think many of us feel the same way 😀

[Vintage 1/24]

Looks like a great track. I like how there is always room for a track somewhere, if you want it.

I am not in on the Proxy, but I have always thought about an outdoor track - maybe under a carport, porch, tent, pavilion, or something. Now they have these modern synthetic boards and panels that won't rot and are resistant to moisture - So it makes me think.

But I am sure the SoCal weather makes this much more feasible than where I am at in the North East.

Anyway looks great!

[Audi1]

Glad you're all set up and ready to go, Dennis. Have fun running the cars and stay safe. We look forward to the results of the qualy and the race.

Good luck to everyrone!

Allan

[Gascarnut]

Well, no racing this weekend I'm afraid. We are experiencing some very welcome rain, which means that my track has to stay covered.

On top of that, I have an appointment to receive my first shot of COVID vaccine tomorrow, so I doubt I will be in much shape to drive slot cars for a day or two after that.

I will set everything up to run next weekend, Qualifying on Saturday, racing on Sunday. I will stream the Qualifying and possibly one lane's worth of solo racing.

Details to follow.

Stay safe, all.

[docdoom]

next week end is the Rolex 24 at Daytona

[steeveew]

Thanks for the update,Dennis.
Hope your vaccination goes smoothly.



Steve

[Audi1]

Thanks for the update, Dennis. Glad you’re getting your first dose of the vaccine shortly. CA sounds like they’re way ahead of MA in that regard.

Allan

[DRW21]

No worries Sir Dennis, the cars can wait, you focus on you.
All the best

[Brumos RSR]

Just seeing this Sir Gascarnut. Take care of you and have a great weekend and thank you.

[dungeonracer]

Thanks for the update Dennis. Take care, you can run the cars when you're ready and the weather cooperates

[Gascarnut]

Well, our weather has improved remarkably today, after two days of pretty constant rain.

I am going to try to run the Qualifying round today, and I will record as I go, for later posting of video.

I'm not going to live-stream as I'm not sure exactly when I will start or how long it will take.

So, watch this space for more details alter today.

[Brumos RSR]

Cool SirGascarnut. Looking for forward to watching later. Good luck to all the builders today and on Raceday.

[Audi1]

Thanks for the update, Dennis. Have a good time running the qualy!

Allan

[Gascarnut]

Well, qualifying is in the books!

I apologize, there is no video, I just did not have the time to figure out how I was going to do it. However I will try to make up for that with some extra photos.

I ran all the cars once before qualifying to check that they were all OK. In most cases they were fine, but there were one or two that I need to highlight.

GT6's car had the pod jammed in the chassis so that the left rear wheel was not touching the track. That was easily corrected and the car ran fine. It should be noted that this car has nowhere near the mandated 1mm clearance, but since it did not drag on my track, I'm happy to run it as-is.

dfracing's #3 Ford chassis has some missing screws at the front end:



Not knowing how many were there in the first place, I tightened the remaining one and drove the car. It handled fine and did not display any weird behavior, so I will run it as-is unless Rob wants to allow me to replace the missing items.

Before I get to the results, some overall comments:

1. It's amazing how fast some of these cars are! I took out my own versions of some of the cars entered, just to see if I could match the times, and in some cases I could not. For reference, my own Policar Ferrari in stock form other than N22 tires on the rear and my normal tuning ran a 5.684, one of my Slot.it GT40s managed a 5.792 and my NSR GT40 managed to squeak in a 5.967. All of these cars have been run on this track for a long time and are amongst some of my best.
2. Traction on the track was very good today. My track's grip is very temperature-dependent, and we were lucky to get a real nice warm afternoon (well, warm for winter time, around 68 degrees!).
3. Many of the cars had trouble exiting the turns smoothly. My track rewards a car that transitions smoothly from straight mine travel to a nice progressive slide in the turns, and some of the cars would snap rather than slide. I think this might be related to the amount and type of tape being used, being too stiff.
4. There are a few turns where drivers can accelerate hard on the exit, and some cars had trouble handling that, especially with the high grip conditions.
5. The big difference as always between the top few cars and the rest comes down to tire and guide preparation. I see this with most Proxies that come through here. Tires not glued well, not trued as well as they could be, and guides that are loose and sloppy in the guide holder. Braids in general this time were better than normal and of course the cars have had 7 races already.

Ok, onto the results. Here a snap of the spreadsheet with times and comments for each car:



Congratulations to Audi1 for a spectacular car, so much grip and smooth as glass.

From one scratch builder to another, Slotracer35, your car is a gem! So good and so predictable, to get where it did with an 18k motor is testament to how easy it is to drive the car at the limit lap after lap.

Aloha, my friend Dale, your car was superb too.

And the next two cars that also got under the 5.6 second mark, well done. I think the proxy record here is around 5.4 seconds for the old Group 5 proxy cars, and that was on 12 Volts with unlimited motors, so for the current 11 volts and limited motors, this is serious speed.

Two photos of the Quali podium, then it's on to the racing tomorrow and maybe Monday as well. I will run 3 minutes for each car in each lane, solo, so that's going to take some time.



As a builder, I like to see the "real goodies":



More tomorrow, thanks for looking!

Dennis

[Dodgefarmer]

Not knowing how many were there in the first place, I tightened the remaining one and drove the car. It handled fine and did not display any weird behavior, so I will run it as-is unless Rob wants to allow me to replace the missing items.

Well that is certainly disturbing. there where 4 screws in there when it left here. I must have forgotten to glue them.

Randy

[Brumos RSR]

SirGascarnut, thank you for the qualifying round. Congratulations Audi1 that genius combination of Policar and Thunderslot continues to perform well. Slotracer35 job well done and Aloha your incredible run of podiums continues regardless of what proxy it is great job. The top 10 cars are all within a lap of the TQ so good luck to everyone on Raceday.