Racing with AMSCO
1-24-26
Out of the blue in December there was a post from a new organization calling itself AMSCO – American Slot Car Organization. In reading through the “about us” section on the website I became very interested in what their mission was and what they believed in. More specifically, the group is interested in creating a series of races around the country using a common set of rules on a plastic track that is set up just for the race where no one has the home track advantage of additional practice time. In other words, running races like the successful races in Europe. Where do I sign up!!!!
The organization wants to promote more endurance races, my favorite, but for their first race they are going to hold a sprint race with the goal of learning from this race and taking that experience to the next event, hopefully an endurance race.
Now that my competitive juices are flowing it was time to start thinking about going to another national event – not the Slot.it Nationals in California or the 24 Hours of Tacoma in Tacoma Washington – it was off to Burbank, Ohio for the Scaleauto GT Sprint Championships. Yes, Burbank Ohio. Not exactly the French Rivera but who cares.
Now for the rules. The race, as the name implies, will be run using Scaleauto cars. This has to be the only manufacture the club has not run in our fifteen years or one that I have any experience with. This should make things very interesting. At least one of the two classes they will be running – GT4 – will be running a more stock configuration as they said in their video presentation with Marty Ford on his Two Lines Slot Cars show.
Wait just a minute. Stock? Not even close. The GT4 rules actually allow for far more modifications than I would have thought for a “stock class”. Here is a list of items that are open – front tires, axles, axle spacers, guide wire, braid, your choice of six Scaleauto guides that you are allowed to modify as you see fit, your choice of 27 plus wheels, and a lexan interior that must be painted. Well, that is a bit more options that what I was hoping for.
The unfortunate thing at this point is that many of these items are currently unavailable from any retailer here in the States or in Europe. This makes getting a car prepared as early enough to have time to play tweak it a little more difficult. This is to say nothing about selecting what items to run on a car I have never seen that will be raced on a plastic track I have never run on. This should be simple.
Now it’s time to select a car. As much of a Porsche fan as I am, the slot car versions have never seemed to work great when scaled down to 1/32 or 1/24. That being said, I don’t think I can go without getting one and giving it a try. To back it up I will select the obvious choice – the SRT Viper GTS-R that finished 3rd at the 2016 Daytona 24 hours with local Austin racer Jeff Mosing and fellow Texan Ben Keating as part of the driver line up. The livery on the car is what sets it apart with “Don’t Mess with Texas” on the roof of the car.
Now that I have the cars it’s time to get my head around the car and start making part selections.
To be continued…………