Model Railroad & Slot Car HO Racing Layout: Slot Cars in video: Plymouth Cuda 1970 Auto World Four Gear vs Volkswagon Van Auto World Four Gear. These two vehicles are from Auto World Deluxe Pit Kits that were selfpainted and assembled.
HO Scale Trains in video: Erie Lackawanna Alco PA Diesel locomotive engines (Lifelike Proto 2000) and eight Rivarossi Erie Lackawanna passenger cars. These Deluxe Pit Kits had to be painted and assembled. In the assembly the magnets were put in reversed as a mistake, however it was decided to leave them in and race these cars the other way around the track. The slot cars worked well in the opposite clockwise direction of the normal counterclockwise. They ran well with no glitches noted so far and were fun to run around the track in the new clockwise direction. Funny how this was never tried before (always had factorybuilt cars). Maybe will keep a few reversed cars. They stayed on the track very well going quite fast in speed on the straightaway tracks. The Plymouth Cuda was usually faster eventually winning this informal race. The cars had nice range of speeds on the Parma controllers, so they could be slow through the curves and also sprint on straightaways. In the practice driving, they had to slow for curves, or the wheels lost contact with the road. The occasional times car wheels lose contact with the road is at the squeeze track when they get bumped by the other car. These 4 gear cars scuffed each other a few times at the squeeze track (and other places due to their width) but stayed on the road possibly due to more downforce magnets. One time both cars went off at the squeeze track on camera. Video is not at all in order or continuous, the one Canon camera on tripod was moved around various viewing angles during the race and the clips were edited and intermingled. The onboard train video segments were made with a GoPro camera strapped on a flatcar. Slot Car Track layout has been engineered to keeps cars rolling. Track sections have jumper soldered wiring. Also feed wires go to these jumper wires.
History: We emphasize staying on the road, so speed is secondary to staying on road which is prioritized. We had two cars in the past that got totally cracked chassis from high speed. When the banked curves were replaced with flat curves that helped slow the cars from literally "flooring it" around those banked curves. The car that stays on road and goes off less or is disabled less wins. Experience has shown that car performance is determined by the condition and shape of the pickup shoes more than anything else.