I've seen companies do some exclusive cars for the Japanese market, but it seems nost of the interest in HO is in the US, and maybe Australia. Not sure if that's a true statement but that's my perception.

So how popular is HO racing in places like Japan and Europe?

Dan

From some of the reading I've done, it seems like it's popular in Germany. For some reason I even got the sense that it was more popular than here. Maybe one of our German members can comment.

As a side note, it also seems like there is a regional nature to popularity in the US. If you look at the number of shows, raceways and the like, it seems like there are stronger pockets that others.

Let me say that i've never seen a "commercial" HO track. Now when i was but a child (i'm 45yo now) there were a couple of 1/24 tracks...gone since childhood even ended. But, in the late '80's (when the economy was much better) about 8 or 10 of them sprouted up, however, they really didn't make it past a year. By the way, i'm talking about the San Fernando Valley here.

I sure do miss those big tracks!

In Europe, 1/32 is more popular, but those who do run HO is more into the high end magnet cars like the SG+. Anyone who remembers the giant HO track in the gym, please add that link here to show Lenny.

http://www.dhorc.freeserve.co.uk/images/Ns7a.jpg

I couldn't even race on that track. Heck I'd never see my car after that first turn.
:eek: rr

I couldn't even race on that track. Heck I'd never see my car after that first turn.
:eek: rr

Once you get used to it, it changes your oulook totally.

In the past 6 months I have raced on tracks of 233', 205', 200' and 185' plus an oval with a 40' straight.

Given that the cars lend themselves to such large scale layouts, US cars are much faster & that the USA usually prides itself on having the biggest of anything we are constantly amazed that nobody your side of the pond has copied what we do.....

I'm not sure I could race anymore on a track that wasn't at least 90'-100' long!

Nico

some tracks can be too big, WOW......

some tracks can be too big, WOW......

I can only think of two ways that could be true. visibility wise, which you address by position & height of the rostrum and having more corners than available marshalls.........

Nico

Visibility wise it is, In my racing years I never used "marshalls". We had kill switches on each side of the platform. (4 lane track) if you fell off you hit the switch, stopped everyone where they were at, and your car was put approx. 18" behind whoever was in last place. (we awarded points for number of fall offs too) so it paid to hang in there and not push your luck, it slowed the races down a bit and made the finishes closer.
Why? It seemed every race had 2 guys break out, and 2 guys lag, the leaders pushed and pushed and when they fell off there really wasn't a penalty, just right back on the track, and the 2 "lag" guys, even though they never fell off, never scored any points. so we came up with this points system, and the kill switches.
Keep in mind our little racing league was me and 2 high school friends, and a few family members (cousin, brothers). All our cars scored individual points and were all set in divisions. "The AFX lords" were the best afx cars. by giving the cars points it was setting up for rivalry's.
And don't get me on the video taping.............lol.
Sorry to ramble guys, I should probably post a whole post on our point systems and the rules we used, cuz its nothing like what I see these days. It was an absolute blast.

yep, thats my longest post ever, probably a crapload of misspelled words too.

For all my home raceways, I used the exact same method, right from my first HO set (aged 8), through my 3-lane routed 1/32nd track and to the present day.

The kill switches evolved from being a light switch on floor, to swirches in the controllers wires and then to switches actually in the controllers. A friend had voice-activated power-kill!! That was cool.....

But I have never had the courage to put anything like that in place for one of our National races, maybe some day I will.

Nico

I've never raced on anything with straights longer than 25 feet or so. I do enjoy the longer tracks more because they challenge your setup skills. It's a non trivial challenge to build a (super stock or lower class) car that's really fast on the long straights that doesn't lose too much in the corners and doesn't suffer from serious heat problems before the end of the race.

As far as marshalls vs. no-marshals. I've done both, as well as crash and burn, and on the whole I vastly prefer having marshals. But I would be happy to race in a series that presented alternative formats for some of the races. I find it very distracting to the racing rhythm to have the power dropped out whenever a car comes off. Of course it's also distracting to have a marshal thumb your car even when you are trying hard to avoid becoming part of a wreck.

Slot car racing always involves compromises that make it deviate from real racing. How you handle crashes is the biggest one. In terms of racing realism, as strange as it sounds, marshaled races are probably the most realistic from a racing standpoint. When you wreck in a marshaled race you are off the track while the others continue on. Your car may also be damaged and you lose laps fixing the issue. My primary issue with marshaling is those racers, and there are plenty, who complain or yell at marshals for not being fast enough putting the car that they crashed back on the track. Plus, there are also instances where marshals cause wrecks or damage to cars. I subscribe to the belief that as long as a marshal isn't singling out anyone the performance, or lack thereof, of a mashal is part of racing. If you are concerned about a particular marshal, don't wreck in the corners where that marshal is working.

In my opinion there needs to be a way to inflict a penalty for crashing beyond simply placing the crashed car back on the track, either as quickly as possible with marshals or at a set point behind the pack or with a lap penalty in scoring. A really fast car can often make up the difference so crashing becomes just a cost of doing business that can be overcome.

I've often thought about something like reducing the track voltage when a car wrecks or reducing the voltage but allowing it to be restored based on the car stopping in a "pit area" on the track for a certain amount of time. The technical details of implementing such a scheme would be somewhat easier than trying to get people to buy into it. Automatically detecting a wreck would be the hardest part because a manual method would involve controversy. I've also thought that a more general voltage reduction scheme could be used along with the lap counter to simulate refueling. Once a car ran for more than a certain number of laps it's voltage would be stepped down until it parked on the pit spot for "refueling." I'm still thinking...

I seem to recall there is a french system, a forerunner to digital, which a has a low voltage lane that all crashed cars are placed on.

When they next reach a change point they can bolt back onto a racing lane.

But I doubt we will ever see digital HO.

Nico

South Dakota is another part of the world aint it? Seems like it to us since we are so darn remote from bigger populated areas. We have 8-12 guys racin tho and the ratio of racers to population seems better than I hear of large population areas. Rapid is a town of 60,000. There is no commercial HO tracks here but there is 3 private venues. We do have a 155' "king" 1/24 track at a local indoor racing complex that has operated several years now and that scale also has a few private tracks in the area.
I have to agree with RR and Seth tho that HO tracks can be too big. Marshaling and visibility being the biggest issues. As in real racing ripping off an organized, quick program is extremely important to keep the interest up because everyones time is too valuable to waste at a draggy, drawn out show. The only time we allow "red flags"(track calls) is if a car is in 2 or more pieces. Marshaling is as efficient as possible. (a slow marshall gets paybacks when its his turn to race).

Out in the "boonies" --- Circle Track DAC

We have stop-go penalties for offs. Your first three are free, your fourth is a 10-second penalty. Your next three are free, your eighth is a 20-second penalty. On your ninth off you are done racing. :tongue:

'Doba

I'm From australia and we dont get much HO over here. I enjoy the 1/34 scale it is great fun and realy easy to build tracks for.

We do something slightly different. Loosely based on NASCAR, when a driver calls "Yellow'' [deslot] everyone except the deslotted car completes the lap they're on. We then all line up at the start-finish line & away we go. Deslot= 1 Lap penalty.

We have stop-go penalties for offs. Your first three are free, your fourth is a 10-second penalty. Your next three are free, your eighth is a 20-second penalty. On your ninth off you are done racing.
Holy cow, who keeps track of all this complexity? You'd need a "scoring accountant" for each driver. These more elaborate schemes certainly are interesting but sound way too complex for organized racing. If you have 12-18 racers in a weekly series that starts at 7:30 PM running 2 minute qualifiers and 5 minute mains you'd still be there at 3:00 AM the next morning tabulating the scores - the first week. By the second week you'd have 3 racers and by the third week one, the track owner, and his scoring accountant, who doesn't count.

I totally agree with DACSIGNS, track calls should be avoided like the plague. They just slow things down and distract from the racing. I see less than one track call a month for rare cases where a marshall can't retrieve a car because it slid under something and can't be reached.

I'm From australia and we dont get much HO over here
I thought that HO was very popular in Australia. Tomy and Life-Like sell Australian-only releases of their products over there and Aurora was very popular down under in the day. There are plenty of HO racers down under. Hmmm. Maybe HO is losing out to what sounds like an up and coming "1/34 scale."