Here is a description of the recent slot car race day I held at my track here in Danica Patrick's home town. :p

We had six participants and there were twelve races involving a variety of different cars. Each driver raced eight times (twice in each lane) and marshalled for the other four races.

I supplied the cars. Here are the cars used in each of the twelve races:

50's & 60's Tjets
60's & 70's Tjets
Gran Sport Tjets
XT Muscle Cars
XT Sports Cars
XT GTP Cars (Tomy GTP bodies on XT chassis with magnets)
PT Cruisers on Tomy Turbo Chassis
Yenko Camaros on Tomy Turbo Chassis
Cobra Daytona IROC
Tomy SG+ Stock Cars
LifeLike NASCAR
Tomy Champ/IRL

The night before the event, I filled six shoe boxes with the cars to be raced by each driver. The cars in each race had similar lap times during recent testing. The shoe boxes were randomly assigned (using a six-sided die) as the participants arrived on the morning of the event.

Here were the lane assignments for each race. An X indicates that racer was marshalling that race.

Team1: 1, X, 3, 2, 4, X, 1, X, 3, 2, 4, X
Team2: 2, X, 4, X, 3, 1, X, 2, 4, X, 3, 1
Team3: 3, 1, X, 4, X, 2, X, 3, 1, 4, X, 2
Team4: 4, 2, X, 3, 1, X, 2, 4, X, X, 1, 3
Team5: X, 4, 2, 1, X, 4, 3, 1, X, 3, 2, X
Team6: X, 3, 1, X, 2, 3, 4, X, 2, 1, X, 4

So, for example, driver 4 was in lane 1 for race 5 involving the XT sports cars.

Each "race" was divided into three segments -- up to 20 laps of practice, 2 laps of time trials, and the race itself. TJet races were 10 laps. XT races were 15 laps. The rest were 20 laps. The TJet lap times are around 11 seconds. The SG+ cars can do laps in about 6.5 seconds.

My track doesn't have table borders so wild driving can send a car flying off the table. To help keep my cars from getting destroyed we used the following rules -- If your car flies off the table during the practice, you don't get to try for qualifying points. If your car flies off the table during qualifying, you start the race a lap down (just ahead of the timing lights). If your car flies off the table during the race, you're done with that race. Scoring went as follows:

Fastest qualifier gets 3 points. Second fastest gets 1 point.
Race points were 7, 5, 3, and 1.

We got started around 9:30 in the morning and finished the last race of the day around 2:30, with a break for lunch. Everyone seemed to have a great time. Two points separated the top two finishers (who raced against each other in the LifeLike NASCAR race and then had to marshal the last race) and the battle for 3rd place was settled in the last race of the day.

I know that most of you who run competitive races use heats in different lanes to balance things. That makes sense if guys are bringing their own cars. My system probably seems weird but it worked well for my "average joe racing with buddies on a Saturday" event. Everyone got to race with a variety of different cars and spent equal time in each lane. One of the guys who raced has since bought a track for himself and another is looking into it which is one of the results I was hoping for.

I figured I'd share the details here for others who plan similar events. Comments and suggestions are welcome.

I love this hobby... :woohoo:

Very Cool! :thumbsup:

Bookmarked for later reference.

So, if I understand correctly, you put 8 cars in each shoe box, and the luck of the box received also determined which 4 races the driver marshalled (as they did not have a car for that race).

I think that is the only clarification I need.

Having done the race, what if anything would you do differently next time? Did the qualifying points weigh too much, or not enough?

Did you keep track of points on a large eraser board, or use the computer, or paper?

I will need to do something like this during the summer with my family, and I would like to have it real organized as you have done. I like the shoe-box of cars aspect alot - that is a fun twist, and even though the cars are all yours, it would make the racers feel like they are theirs at least for the racing.

Great results too, with a couple people wanting to get into slots themselves.

:thumbsup:

Scaf, you understood it perfectly regarding the shoe box. We kept score on a sheet of paper but I have an electronic version (Excel) of the scoresheet too. I can email that to you as an attachment if you want a starting point for your own race day

What would I do differently? Here's one thing... Two of the racers were inexperienced so to try to give them a better chance of doing well with the faster magnet cars, we turned the voltage down from 18 to 15 for all the magnet car races. That actually had the opposite impact of what we intended. The two weaker drivers didn't change speeds too much anyway so they rarely risked flying off the table. Turning the voltage down just slowed them down while the better drivers were able to be more aggressive without as much fear of flying off the table. In other words, the only chance the weaker drivers had of scoring well was if the better drivers raced too hard and wrecked each other. By powering down, we reduced that possibility.

The qualification points seemed about right. There was some tension in the air as you were the only car on the track for those two laps. Lane 1 always went first and Lane 4last. We used running starts. You had to decide if you were going to push it a little to go for those 3 bonus points with the risk that you could end up a lap down to start the race if you flew off a turn. It got more intense as the day went on and guys were scrapping for points.

Because all the cars are roughly equal and randomly assigned for each race, you may need to handicap yourself to keep things competitive if others haven't practiced much. In my case, I wasn't allowed to get the top qualifying points unless everyone else flew off (which never happened) and if one of the racers going against me was able to race me fairly close without a spin or deslot, I'd let them finish ahead of me. I settled for several 2nd place finishes because of that. I ended up winning by 2 points when my rival rolled his #19 LifeLike Charger over the guard rail and off the table on the second lap of his last race. A LifeLike at 15 volts is tough to deslot, so he bummed. All he had to do was finish 3rd or better in that race to win the day. He said he was distracted by a marshal reaching to fix another car. The opening lap was pretty aggressive and he just got sucked into the enthusiasm. I can tell you that he's now hell bent on practicing more so we can eliminate that handicap rule and he can try to dust me straight up. That's fine with me!

I was thinking about this alot last night.

As for the spreadsheet, sure! You can email to slotcars at scafremon.com

I know I am going to have to change some of the race format around, as I will not have the assortment of classes, nor the quantity of cars that you have. I also think I will have closer to a dozen racers.

I think I will take a digi pic of each racer, and incorporate that into the spreadsheet standings. The standings will be on the monitor in between races.

I wonder if a 'timed' practice round would be better then a certain number of practice laps. I can see some of my neices and nephews quickly going through their 20 laps, while the aunts and uncles may be needing more marshalling. So maybe 5 or 10 minutes of practice would work better.

Since I have table walls I think I will change the disqual rule to be leaving the slot, and when in the race, if 3 people disqual, the remaining driver gets the win automatically, lest they spend too much drive driving cautiously for the remainder of their laps.

Also thinking about incorporating some points to the best lap time during the actual race, maybe in lieu of the qualification laps, or in addition to.

Lastly, since I may not have enough cars to do the shoe-box game, I may try and think of another game-type thing that assigns cars to people.

One last question: How did you assign lanes, and which races people particpated in? Was that also in the shoe-box of cars?

Thanks!

The lane assignments are in the spreadsheet I sent. I designed it so that everyone raced twice in each lane and raced against the same competitors roughly the same number of times.

12 racers should be fun. Maybe teaming them up somehow would work best. You could also use teams to handicap some of the more skillful racers.

I like your ideas. The digital pictures will be great. It's the little stuff that makes the day fun. The races go by quickly. It's the laughs between the races that we are remembering now.

One of the guys in my race day mentioned bonus points for fastest lap during the race. That's a good idea for bonus points.

Practice laps turned out to be dangerous for a couple of my racers. By the rules, if they flew off during practice, they lost out on trying for qualifying bonus points. By the second half of the day, a couple guys were just taking 6 to 10 practice laps to avoid being tempted to push it and fly off.