The majestic curves of Austin Slot Car Club’s modified figure eight track were host to the first round of the Slot.it Porsche 911 GT1 EVO Series this past Saturday, July 13th. The silky wooden track, known to favor milder, inline and sidewinder powered, slot cars was now welcoming high torque sidewinder models.
Early tests of the Slot.it 911 GT1 revealed a hoppy, twitchy, seemingly-untamable, beast.
It was speculated that the car’s chassis flexed on acceleration due to the high torque nature of long can motors. To add fuel to the fire, the spec tire for the series – BRM 25 shore GT– offers some of the highest levels of grip on the club’s track.
These variables got racers scratching their heads, weeks before the race, while preparing their cars. For most, motor-pod & body float settings were the hardest to pin down; any slight alteration could be measured in tenths of a second at the track. Conversely, gearing wasn’t so hard – the stock gear ratio (2.54:1) seemed to work quite well, a huge contrast from Slot.it’s inline short-can motor cars, which normally race with a crown gear five teeth smaller than factory.
Fast-forward to the practice session, one hour before race.
One-by-one, racers take their Porsches to the track and lap times start to appear on the timing screen. At first glance, it seemed the race was destined to slow lap times and poor lap counts; the 4.2 second laps failed to impress … tires are cleaned. A few more laps and the timing system now shows 4.1s all around, a single 4.0 lap is recorded … controller knobs are adjusted. Approaching 15 minutes of practice we hear the “vroom” sound (indication of a new fastest lap), as we look to the screen, there it was, the first 3.9 seconds lap. From thereon, it wasn’t long before sub 4.0 second laps were registered in all lanes – the once uncontrollable stallion had been tamed.
Although Slot.it has only released a couple of the Porsche 911 GT1 racing liveries, none of the five cars entered were duplicates. Russell ran a silver model, fresh out of the paint booth, not fully finished. Marty raced his Mobil, black and gold, car. The white and red Jever belonged to Roy. Ary entered a blue, red and white Valvoline model. Steve’s car, a white Blaupunkt, completed the list.
The twenty five minute long round-robin race had a total of five heats. Ary, Marty and Steve ran laps under 4.0 seconds and took the top-three spots of the race. Roy came forth on the race and was really close to breaking the four seconds barrier in many occasions. Russell’s car, fresh out the box, was a handful.
Here are the details per heat:
Heat #1: Roy on green (69 laps), Steve on blue (72 laps) and Ary on yellow (74 laps).
Heat #2: Ary on green (74 laps), Roy on blue (73 laps) and Marty on yellow (73 laps).
Heat #3: Marty on green (72 laps), Ary on blue (73 laps) and Russell on yellow (65 laps).
Heat #4: Russell on green (68 laps), Marty on blue (74 laps) and Steve on yellow (73 laps).
Heat #5: Steve on green (73 laps), Russell on blue (69 laps) and Roy on yellow (71 laps).
Congratulations to all the participants. Tune-in in approximately one month for chapter #2 of this series.
Thanks for posting the results. The races were very close and were super fun. Can’t wait for the next one! Just hoping Stephen doesn’t get any faster.