OK,

I hope you guys can help.

I just recently bought the AFX International Speedway for my son. Seems like a great track. Unfortunately we are finding it VERY frustrating. We have two major problems:

1. 4 lane set-ups: we have tried numerous configurations and have yet to find one where the lanes are equal in difficulty, i.e. one or two of the lanes are always noticably better than the others. I'm not talking about a slight edge here, I'm talking about one guy who can just hold his trigger and the others have no chance of keeping up.

2. 2 lanes: we tried to alleviate the problem above by running 2 lanes only. Same problem, depending on the set-up, either the inside (usually) or the outside it notably faster, too fast ot make it competitive.

In both cases the slower lanes are forced to run so fast to keep up that they continually run off the track.

Are there any solutions to this problem?

Thanks.

sounds like you need a seperate power supply for the other the other lanes

OK,

I know nothing about power supplies but I do know that the slower lanes are not slower because the cars can't keep up (they are too fast in fact) but because the slower lanes are noticably disadvantaged i.e. driving.

In other words, though I admit I could be wrong, I don't think its a power thing but an equal playing field thing.

Please correct me if I'm misunderstanding here.

You need a lap counter (and ideally a track power controller hooked to a timer). The solution is called lane rotation. You run timed heats in each lane, count the laps, then move the drivers and their cars to the next lane. Repeat until each driver has run once for the same amount of time in each lane. The driver with the most total laps wins. This evens things out and has been the standard practice for slot car racing for decades. Unless you have a simple 2 lane figure 8 track there will always be differences, often major ones, between the lanes. That's just the way it is.

you could try on the 2 lane setup, use both control tracks. 1 to control the outer lane and 1 to control the inner lane to have equal power to the individual lane. remember, each individual car will be different in speed and control. even though there the same chasis, one will be faster than the other. find one you like and stick with it. also, keep in mind to lubricate the chasis of the cars after a good run. usually clean dust/dirt and lube up when your done racing.
keep the tracks rails clean also. use a nickel or a very fine grit peice of sandpaper and "lightly" rub across the power rails in order to keep the car on a good connection.

i hope this helps. btw, welcome to the forum.

I agree with abouna. It's not a power issue, it's just the basic nature of slot cars. Because they are in slots you are stuck in a lane and the lanes are seldom the same length or challenge. A perfect figure 8 is about the best design for equalizing the lanes as much as possible, but even that doesn't hold true when you have more than 2 lanes because the middle ones will never see a gutter lane. You can come up with variations of a figure 8 that make things a little more even but there will always be differences. That's why organized slot car racing always involves lane rotation.

Believe it or not, what you are seeing now as a major hassle is one of the things that makes slot car racing so exciting. With larger tracks, better power, and faster race-tuned cars nobody can ever run full-out all of the time in any lane. Everyone must run in every lane, so setup and driving skill becomes the major factor. Racers who can master both of these skills are usually the ones who have a strong chance of winning. The different lane challenges force you to make smart choices about how you setup your car and these choices affect how you need to drive your car in each lane. Set it up to drive well in the gutters and you can lose the race in the fast lanes, and vice versa. With several well matched drivers it's these fraction of a percent differences that often mean the difference between winning and losing the race.

What to do In the meantime without lap counters and timers? You need to find a way to handicap the driver in the faster lane. The easiest way that I can think of is to make the fast lane guy run a slower car with less downforce. The Tomy Turbo car is a good choice, as is a Tyco/Mattel or an older Life-Like with the M chassis. You can get Tomy Turbos in open wheel and closed body configurations. Tomy sells a Turbo Twin Pack that has 2 open wheeled Turbo cars. The Turbo does not have nearly the same downforce as a Super G+. Don't mistake the Turbo for the Turbo SRT, which is roughly equivalent to a Super G+ on a smaller track setup. The other brands of cars like Tyco/Mattel are also not quite as fast as the Super G+.

Also, going to a car type that doesn't have high downforce traction magnets will slow everyone down. The best cost choice in this department is the Johnny Lightning X-Traction. It has a little magnetic downforce, but nothing close to the Tomy, Tyco, or Life-Like cars. These will slide around just enough to keep you honest. However, when you move to this type of car the lane with the guard rail may be an advantage for one of the lanes. I'd also say the Johnny Lightning TJet500s are also an okay choice, they have no significant magnetic downforce but they are somewhat difficult to run on a smaller track with stock controllers because of their gearing. Vintage Aurora TJets would work well but they are somewhat more expensive and you'll need to buy new rear tires at the very least. You could buy new old stock Aurora chassis for $10, a Johnny Lightning body for $3-$5, and a set of silicone rear tires for $1.50 and you'd have a nice little TJet to run. But for overall cost and performance the Johnny Lightning X-Traction is hard to beat. You can get these for anywhere between $5-$15 in hobby stores and on EBay.

Take the guard rails off and use weather strip to make the track a bit wider.. takes away some of the advantage a outside lane runner gets by leaning on the rails...plus everything else everyone else said.. You'll get it over time in the mean timer just have a a ton of fun!

Coach

Usually when you make a 4-lane track, 1 lane is longest in running length (usually the outermost lane, because it usually gets the wider radius curves which allows you to run faster) and 1 lane is the shortest length, but also is the toughest to drive (because being the innermost lane, it gets the inside lane, and is more likely to get stuck with 6" curves).

Check out this site: http://www.slotcarracing.com

And check out the layouts section on the menu to the left. You'll see lots of track plans that are fair to all lanes, and can give you an idea of how to make your track. One way to even thing out would be to set things up so the 'faster' lanes get the tightest turns......and the inner lanes get more consistant turns. that will even things out. If posibble, see that the inner lanes only get 9" turns, or as many as possible. That would even thing out.

I've been looking at some ideas to try to equalize things a little better on my tracks. Besides the overall track layout, I want to eliminate the guard rails and put some foamboard around the outsides of the turns. Usually when I have a guest, I try to keep the action on the inside lanes. I run separate wall warts and also a Tyco Turbo Boost terminal track, so I can actually limit the power to two of the lanes. Tomy is my favorite track as far as connection and the variety of radius turns, but Tyco track actually has some cool pieces that the other brands don't have, like the Turbo Boost piece and the train/slotcar intersections. The Turbo Boost acts as a reostat.

I assume you are referring to www.hoslotcarracing.com

Equal lane lengths don't matter. There will always be a significantly faster lane and a significantly slower lane whether or not all lanes are equal in length because slot cars that are being raced do not travel around the track at a constant velocity.

Having variations between lanes is not a big deal at all. With lane rotation the track variability goes away and it all comes down to the setup and the driver. If you remove the setup variability with an IROC style format, setup variability goes away too. All that you're left with is driver variability (and accidental effects).

That my friends is what's called racing.