Illawarra Slot Car Racers

[Vinno]

I haven’t raced Slot Cars for quite a few years now and having moved to the Illawarra a bit over 4 years ago. I’m in Calderwood which is a suburb of Shellharbour south of Sydney but near the coast for those who don’t know the area.

I did already know a couple of the guys down here having met them at Dapto many years ago and also raced with them at Penrith when the NASCAR oval was in place. The group had not raced since Covid and having done a bit of mountain biking with Camber since moving here and talking about racing I got an invite when they got it up and running again. 

After a couple of races I also talked Brett, aka Kar Kraft into coming along and having a look see. The group run predominately 1/24 scale cars which I was keen to have a go at having not even driven one before. Classes are 1/24 NASCAR, Slotworx V8 Supercars, Slotworx Porsche Cup and a few other different classes depending on the track. 

Racing is every Thursday night and last week was at Camber’s house at Coniston near Wollongong. Classes were 1/24 NASCAR, Go Karts and Slotworx Porsche. 

The NASCAR class is a hardbody class using MJK dogbone chassis and any 1/24 scale NASCAR body. Myself and Kar Kraft, (Brett) have been borrowing NASCAR’s until we build our own. Thankfully 1/24 scale veteran Jimmyslots has a number of cars and has been loaning me his STP car.

Next was host Go Karts. This class is close as you would expect with little more than one lap between the top 7 karts. There was an issue with the green kart early on and it need a lead wire replaced so we got to have a chat and talk more about cars while Camber did the repairs.

Last was the Porsche Cup class and I got to run my first build. It seems I didn’t do too bad a job but a bit too much wheel banging put me a few places down. Later Cam showed how fast the car can go when he gave it a bit of a hiding while we watched. These cars are very fast with 25k long can SRP motors so accelerate very hard out of the corners and stop on a dime meaning some brake adjustment is necessary. 

It seems myself and Brett have found ourselves something new to do in retirement, well I’m not done working yet but it is going to be very soon. I am a 1/24 scale convert and am working out who in my 1/32 collection will be sold off to fund the racing? It’s a great group of guys with half working and half retired and decades of experience to learn from.

Check out the pictures and results below.

 

[Camber]

Great to have you in the group Vinno. The racing has been really good lately, your 1st cup car build is impressive. It looks great and goes really well. 

Would be nice to get some new faces at the race meetings.

Cheers,

- Cam

[Vinno]

14 minutes ago, Camber said:

Great to have you in the group Vinno. The racing has been really good lately, your 1st cup car build is impressive. It looks great and goes really well. 

Would be nice to get some new faces at the race meetings.

Cheers,

- Cam

Thanks Cam, it helps that everyone is supportive and want competition. A great bunch of guys.

[gref]

great looking track!

[Vinno]

We missed our race at the Bull Ring as Pagey has a horrible lurgy. Poor bugger is still sick so he missed last Thursday nights race at Camber’s Coniston.

This week racing was a little different with Breakout racing first up. This was a bit of fun and something I haven’t done before. Basically a minimum lap time was set at 7 seconds. Go under and your lap doesn’t count. The best move is to build a car that won’t go under that lap time but will sit as close as you can to it. Obviously not many of us had cars that fitted so it was all about either driving slow enough but not losing concentration or being one of those guys that had a car that fitted. It was a really run class and I am looking at building a car for this class now. I ran my Slotworx Falcon Ute which is basically a Supercar anyway. The fun was racing someone for most of the lap and slowing on the 270 degree final corner hoping the guy you are racing would breakout. It took me a couple of heats to get this right so but I am looking forward to the next one. Captain Slow won this one from Jamie and Clinton. You can’t beat experience in a race like this. 

Next was the host class Go Karts. As usual this was extremely close if you ignore track owner Cam’s score from Mr consistency Jimmy and Captain Slow getting me on the last heat. A great class and the Lart’s are a credit to Cam’s building skill. 

Last were the Slotworx Porsche Cup cars. These cars are absolute weapon’s with the long can SRP 25k motor and really respond to precise driving. I have a new version of the car with the carbon T Plate and body mount although I have weighted the T Plate up to the same weight as the cars with the stainless parts. Anyway now I am a bit more used to the car it was pretty clear it was fast and very smooth making pretty much no sound at all. I also got a little lucky that track owner Cam had a rare off night getting caught in a few scraps that dropped him back to third. Clinton as usual quietly raced away and drove a great race into second. I finally won a Porsche race which I have been trying on borrowed cars for a while. New car and new tires helped me here. I did get a race record number of laps though. I expect my car will be a target at the next race. Hopefully we can race at The Bull Ring soon once Pagey recovers and I can try my luck there. 8 lanes of a very technical track is a different kettle of fish. 

The Jim Beam car is Jimmy’s build and as usual a beautiful car with a great livery. Really enjoying being back racing and doing something different.