Which Track Is Best For Your Digtal System 86 March/April 2016 $6.95 Ferrari Formula 1 Champion 312 T4 Grand National 1949 Ford Tudor Race A Bugeye Sprite Snap-Together The Giant Blue King Track Tech Tips: • Scenery for Your Race Track • Assemble a Ferrari 250 www.modelcarracingmag.com GTO LM Kit Flip to Page 7 to compare with the real car! Graham Hill on his way to winning the Monaco GP in 1968. — LAT Photo, 86 Model Car Racing 3 17 Start Here The Grabber Does It 86 by Robert Schleicher 18 Real Race Track Plans 4-Lane Blue King Raceway for Scalextric Sport, Classic, SCX, Ninco, Carrera (with optional CONTENTS lane-changing) on a 16 x 24-foot tabletop by Robert Schleicher 21 Race Tracks on a Tabletop 4-Lane Blue King Raceway for Scalextric Sport, Classic, SCX, Ninco, Carrera (with optional lane- changing) on a 5 x 9-foot ping-pong tabletop by Robert Schleicher The SRC 1/32 scale Ferrari 312 T4 of Jody Scheckter leading Gilles Vil- leneuve at the 1979 Italian Grand Prix at Monza. — LAT Photo 1/32 Scale Model Car Racing: 7 Formula 1 23 Vintage Racing SRC 1979 Ferrari 312 T4 1970 American Model Car Raceways 22 x 49-foot 8-Lane by Albin Burroughs Blue King Raceway 24 Start Here Overpass Support for Scalextric, SCX or Ninco track by Robert Schleicher 26 Vintage Racing Studio 65 1959 Austin Healey "Bugeye" Sprite 27 Your Track 10 Tech Tips Jim Norton’s 4-Lane 8 x 16-foot 4-Lane Wiring A Wood or Plastic Track Scalextric Boomerang Bend Raceway 12 Home Racing 30 LeMans Build A Wood Race Track Slot.it Lola-Aston Martin DBR1-2 Part 5: Wiring Any Plastic or Wood Track & Race Control by Bill Wright by Robert Schleicher 33 Historic Racing LeMans 2009 in 1/32 Scale 34 NASCAR (Grand National) American Iron 1950 Ford Tudor by Bill Wright 38 Race Car Shop LeMans 14 Digital Racing Build The MRRC “Clubman” Which Track? 1964 Ferrari GTO LM Kit by Robert Schleicher by Bill Deuroen 4 Model Car Racing 39 Tech Tips 28 Your Track Learn To Love Your Kit Jim Norton’s 4-Lane 7 x 13-foot 4-Lane AFX Battle Creek Track 40 Tech Tips A Third Hand 36 Muscle Cars Auto World 1958 Plymouth Hemi Fury 37 Drag Racing Auto World 2015 Ford Mustang GT 45 Home Racing Auto World Banked Curve Track 42 TRACK TEST MRRC “Clubman” 1964 Ferrari GTO LM Kit by Marc Purdham Departments 6 Editorial: Big Thrills 44 Pit Board 46 Club Directory 54 New Stuff On Your Tablet Model Car Racing is now available for iPad or Kindle. Just click on the Apple iTunes icon and search for Model Car Racing to order individual issues, subscriptions or a limited number of back issues. There’s more 48 LeMans information on page 57 of this issue. MMK Jaguar XK 140 coupe by Albin Burroughs Where To Buy Model Car Racing Products Dealers: A listing of the addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, 50 Historic Racing and websites of all the dealers that carry Model Car Racing magazine LeMans 1956 in 1/32 Scale appears on our website at www.modelcarracingmag.com Manufacturers: A listing of the addresses and websites of firms that 52 Formula 1 manufacture model car racing products appears on our website at Scalextric 1968 Lotus 49B www.modelcarracingmag.com: by Albin Burroughs 53 Tech Tips More Information There is an Index of all of the past issues, a Digest of the results of the Upgrading the Scalextric Lotus 49B first 291 cars in our Race Track Test series, Pros and Cons of plastic track by brand, the Pros and Cons of the four digital systems, Pros and HO Model Car Racing: Cons of 1/43 scale and an index of the 157 previously published track plans, by size, on our website at www.modelcarracingmag.com. 22 Track Plans 4-Lane Blue King Raceway on a 6 ½ x 11-foot tabletop by Robert Schleicher Model Car Racing 5 Editorial ������������������������� Big Thrills controllers, parts and ever-more expensive chassis and seventies and the plans in this issue replicate that mon- The concept of a winner and a loser is, apparently, part motors and exotic controllers. The Blue King track on ster raceway. It has taken a couple of decades for these of most folk’s mindset. For us, racing centers around au- page 23 of this issue is one of the legends of commercial plans to materialize but I realized that racing on a com- tomobiles of every conceivable type. It is tempting to be- racing. mercial track really is fun. Those of you that have know it lieve that every model car racer shares the same passion. is true. There is too much speed and too much focus on Some do. Most don’t. The physical nature of tabletop Door Stop Racing machines rather than replicas of real racing cars for my racing favors road racing because you can squeeze more The slot cars that raced on commercial tracks evolved in tastes, but it is fun. And there is a definite appeal about action into the limited space by having both right and left the seventies from very accurate 1/24 scale models made being able to run with your trigger finger squeezed tight hand turns. Because that focus is on road racing, there is by Revell, Cox and Monogram to four-wheel machines for all but a few instants of every lap. If you have the space little interest in models of cars that race strictly on ovals. that were about the size of a 1/24 scale model but with (and the loot to buy the track) build a track from one of That leaves about 100 years of various types of automo- a wedge-shaped body that looked more like a 4-inch these plans. Who knows, you may find that it really is biles that raced on roads, from a 1949 Grand National wide door stop wedge that a full-size race car. The wedge another way to experience the thrill of racing. Ford Tudor to a 1959 "Bugeye" Sprite to a 2015 Formula provided more downforce when two-inch high pieces of 1 Williams (yes, we have two out of those three in this clear plastic sheet were stapled to the sides and rear of iHobby Expo issue---the Bentley was back in issue number 55). Given the body to force the airflow over the car for more down- March 12 and 13, 2016. The National Hobby show, the that common interest, model car racing fans have their force. iHobby Expo, is now at the New Jersey Expo Center, in Edison New Jersey, about 20-minutes from the Newark own unique spread of options from exact scale models, to Commercial slot car racing peaked in the early seventies, Airport. The iHobby Expo (http://ihobbyexpo.com/) is close-enough, to the “wedge” cars that race on the com- then almost disappeared. The number of tracks had di- the largest gathering in the United States for the model mercial raceways. We do not usually feature the cars that minished to less than 100 tracks worldwide in the eight- car racing importers and manufacturers. Usually, Scalex- race at the commercial raceways because they are so very ies. That hobby has grown slightly and stabilized at about tric, Slot.it, AFX and Auto World have demo tracks as different from the 1/32, HO, 1/24 or 1/43 scale models 200 commercial raceways around the world. You won't well as displays of their latest products. that do appear on these pages. However, for the first time find those cars or tracks in Model Car Racing magazine, we have a commercial race track plan for all of the brands but if speed is more important to you than absolute re- Volume 15, Number 2 of 1/32 scale track and for HO AFX track. alism, you might enjoy racing on commercial raceways. (issue number 86) March/April 2016 Back At The Dawn of Civilization There are listings of commercial raceways, clubs, and websites that cater to these 1/24 scale cars on the web. Publisher: Technical Editor: Slot car racing as we know it today began in the fifties You can run realistic 1/24 scale cars on Carrera sectional Robert Schleicher Chris Walker as a hobby for those that wanted to race model cars in plastic tracks, and Carrera, BMW and Avant Slot also of- their homes. The early tracks were built with a variety of Editor: Track Test Editor: fer ready-to-run 1/24 scale cars. You can also assemble materials ranging from plywood to plaster (yes, there was Robert Schleicher Marc Purdham your own 1/24 scale cars from a variety of static model a track-building system that used a poured-plaster road plastic kits, clear plastic and cast-resin bodies and sepa- Layout & Design: Aaron Tipton - [email protected] surface---built one myself). In the early sixties, someone rate chassis (as you can in 1/32 scale). Some commercial discovered that you could use an electric power router Contributing Editors: raceways offer special events for these exact-scale 1/24 to cut a slot in particle board (some tried it with ply- Mark Gussin Jeremy Dunning Jason Boye scale cars. You can, of course, race any 1/32 scale car wood but the router bits broke too quickly). Meanwhile, Dan Wilson Alan Schwartz Dan Esposito on a commercial raceway, but the car will be lost in the toy companies like Lines Brothers (with the Scalextric Brad Bowman Bernard Sampson Pat Dennis vastness of the track and the 1/32 scale models are not brand) in England were producing slot car sets with plas- Editors Emeritus: rugged enough to withstand the high speed crashes that tic track in sections much like the track used for model Rocky Russo Bill Sipple Albin Adams occur on commercial race tracks.