Slot Cars

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1:32 Scale – Setting a World Record

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September 29, 2005 – Before heading down to the Atlanta area for the 2005 American Le Mans Series “Petit Le Mans” race, I had heard about what was claimed to be “The World’s Largest Permanent Slot Track”. I packed some slot cars and made plans to meet two other Fort Wayne slot racers, who were also headed to the ALMS race, at the huge JD Model Raceway at DISCOVER MILLS MALL, Atlanta, Georgia.

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 The Track

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This JD Model Raceway 6 lane track had an official running length, as of September 29, 2005, of 396 ft or 120 meters. JD Figoli is the proprietor and he used almost 1000 Ninco track sections to build the track. His claim to the “World’s Largest” is based on the multiple of 6 lanes and 396 feet or 2376 total running feet:

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Above – The longest straight is 68 feet. It certainly does let a car wind out!

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Above – The twisty section is particularly tricky, especially if you are driving from the far end of the drivers stand at the other end of the track along the right wall.

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Above – JD and his wife did an excellent job of putting the cars back on the track as we were learning to stay in the slot.

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Above – The 360 loop.

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 The “Yankee Invader” hits Atlanta

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Among the cars I took was the A-125 Corvette C5-R made by the Fly company in Spain. It is painted, very fittingly, to represent the winning car from Petit Le Mans 2001. The flag scheme, along with the “FDNY” and “NYPD” logos were on the actual car at that event to honor the 9-11 heroes. These cars are loaded with details and are one of the major reasons that I got back into slot cars.

Below are pictures before I modified the car:

• The overall weight stayed the same as stock at 85 grams due to the lead weights under the rear axle but the center of gravity was greatly lowered. 

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 The Payoff

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After running an unmodified Scalextric Corvette L88 and a Monogram Greenwood Corvette and 3 mildly modified cars in order to learn the track, I decided to try the Corvette “Invader”. Our Fort Wayne crew generally assumed that we would enjoy the play time but had no expectation of challenging any records on an unfamiliar and complex track. 

To get on the record board, you have to do better than the slowest car on the board. There were several classes, the Corvette was in the ‘Driveshaft – Front Motor’ class. When I started to see times in the low 20 second area, I checked the board and noted that 22.80 sec was the slowest in class. When I beat that time, JD agreed to forego his weekly update and add us to the board with our final times. Then I loaned the Corvette to a Fort Wayne buddy, Gary, and he got on the board within 0.3 second of the class lap record!

I finished the day driving my Corvette again and did a 20.60 to beat the 20.72 class record!! I’m braggin’ but I couldn’t believe I did it!! What a thrill!!

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The info above is repeated below in a little easier to read format. 

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	Driver	Car	Motor	Time (sec)
1	David Palmeter	Corvette C5-R	37K	20.60
2	Cory Allen	Panoz Esperante GTR1	35K rpm	20.72
3	Kevin Daily	Ford Capri RS Turbo	35K rpm	21.01
3	Luis Garcia	Dodge Viper GTR	46K rpm Falcon III	21.01
5	Gary Trump	Corvette C5-R	37K	21.02
6	Max Coleman	Viper Competition Coupe	35K rpm	21.28
7	Greg Smith	BMW M3	48K rpm Falcon IV	21.31
8	Joe Riccio	Dodge Viper GTS-R	28K rpm	22.80

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And understand, children, I am a Social Security-eligible, retired, senior citizen!! (Sorry, just had to throw that in – just imagine what someone with quick reflexes could do.)

Thanks a million to JD and his wife and staff for an EXCELLENT morning. They were kind and helpful to us newbies and did some of the quickest marshalling I have ever seen – and remember, this is a 396-foot track!! JD also immediately emailed me digipix of the record board and track. He normally doesn’t update until the weekend but he did it while we were there for us out-of-towners. 

A truly Terrific time!

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And then it was over….

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WOW! When those southern boys git riled up, they’re tough! I figured it wouldn’t be much more that two weeks for someone to take a shot at us. Looks like it was about 17 days on top of the heap. I’m still proud!

Congratulations to Steven – he knocked 1.2 seconds off the best “Yankee Invader” time. With a little more practice time, I believe Gary and I both could have gotten the “Yankee Invader” into the mid-19’s but a 19.40 would be tough with that car. Maybe next year – another car, another shot!

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The Final Chapter

2006-03-01

Well, the record is now permanently in the books. JD has lengthened the track again, so my second fastest time, at 20.60 seconds on the 396 ft track length, will stand forever:

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Above – 2006-02-10 – This is the layout JD mentioned in his latest email above. When we ran the earlier (396 ft) layout, we were coming toward the camera on the far left straight. They run this new layout the opposite direction.

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