*UPDATE*

Thunderslot posted pics of the McLarens on their Facebook page this morning and it sounded like they were going to be available sooner than Armchair racer was predicting.  I asked Thunderslot when we might see these cars in the States and they replied “Christmas +0-“.  Sounds like they might be here sooner than expected.

Picked up this critter for a song…does anyone have this livery, or can I claim it. 🙂

Do chime in if you have it…I have lots of time to make it into a custom livery…

Cool – I have time to re-color the car. I have been building a livery of cars in my personal colors (for Surströmming Racing), so this one will follow!  🙂

David,

Great questions.  You can run those tires but they will need to be trued all the way down to where they have no tread.  The easier and perfered method is to use the Thunderslot slick rear tires.  Having said that, they are unavailable from any on-line slot car retailer in the States.  I just ordered the last three bags (12 tires) from Armchair racer in Australia.  I ordered three bags with the thought to sell some, at my cost, to other racers that can’t find them.

The slick tires will need to be glued and then trued to make sure they are 100% round.  It makes a big difference in this series.

The blue #21 is being run by Russell.  The difference is that Russell painted his from a white kit last year before the #21 was a stock item from Thunderslot.  Crazy.  It’s a beautiful version.

Wow, that’s the only alternative?
-Marc

First of all, about the tire with the injection dimple, once trued, the original, treaded tires will work fine; I believe they are the same compound as the slicks.  Perhaps truing all the tread off will yield slightly more “rubber on the road”, but sanding them round will probably be sufficient.  Neither will it be necessary to remove all traces of the dimple/injection.  As long as the area around the imperfection is level it should be OK.  You want to be careful and not over-true the tires; there is not much clearance under the chassis and you don’t want the chassis to drag.

On hubless wheels, where the set screw hole for the wheel is inside the width of  the tire, requiring the edge of the tire to be curled back to get to the grub screw, I use a leather punch to make a hole in the tread of the tire.  This does not affect traction.

I hadn’t realized there was a shortage of tires.  Marty had the foresight to purchase tires for those in need.  This is very much appreciated.

I have not seen the factory release for the #21 Andretti; the white kit version that I built may be  sufficiently different from yours.  If not, it might be necessary to put tape with a different number over the 21.

My bad about not posing the new gears rules on the Rules page.  I should have revised it.  Pinions and spurs will now be open.  I need to find out how to access the new server to edit the rules page.

I personally will probably not experiment with gearing, but those that want to are welcome to try.  Any suggestions for gears that will fit should be posted on this Thunderslot Forum page (unless, of course, you do not want to share any tips…..)  The issue with the gears came up when David said that his motor had lost power last year as the series progressed and he wished he could have done something about it.  As competitive as the series was, I did not see a need for changing the rules, but thought there might be some instances where a tweak might correct a problem.  We allow open gears in Group C, mostly  to adjust for weaker motors, but this is less of a problem at 12 volts.   I did not want to see the series become a free-for-all but rather remain as a primarily box stock series.  And besides, with a series as fast as Thunderslot, driver skill becomes even more important.  A deslot will easily cost the driver half a lap or more.  And speed consistency also becomes more important.  Driving consistent 3.9 second laps will yield more laps than an occasional 3.7 among numerous 4+ second laps.

Again, right now I, myself, don’t plan on messing with gearing.