SlotCarMAG issue 17

SlotCarMAG

FOR RACERS, COLLECTORS AND BUILDERS

Guided Tours pt2: Hub Habets reveals

ISSUE 17 • VOLUME 3 • DECEMBER 2013

www.slotcarmag.co.uk

more on keeping that guide in the slot

Immense Miniatures pt2:

Size really doesn’t matter... it’s attention to detail that counts

Ninco Karts:

They’re back... and just as nippy and exciting as before

1/24 Niemas Racecars:

This issue Michael Niemas reveals some of his build secrets

Giovanni Montiglio:

Part 2 of our interview with Giovanni and his NSR passion

Classic In The Attic: Tim Busch has created a home track gem

SlotCarMAG

FOR RACERS, COLLECTORS AND BUILDERS ISSUE 17 • VOLUME 3 • DECEMBER 2013

www.slotcarmag.co.uk

In This Issue:

Guided Tours

Home Track Build

22

Niemas Racecars

14

2

What a package!

12

2 A Classic In The Attic:

18 Giovanni Montiglio Pt2:

Tim Busch – With permission from “ ’er indoors”, Tim has turned a restricted room into a realistic raceway anyone would be proud of.

The NSR Story – Ric Woods continues with his interview with Giovanni and tackles the scale vs. speed debate.

No “GO” In Karts – Ready, Steady, but don’t say “Go”! – Ninco ceased production of karts, but they’re back, and Mr Abbott is happy about that.

Stay In The Slot – After the guide and axle construction in part one, Hub Habets now takes a closer look at some modified cars.

It’s All In The Detail – Mark Huber continues his talk with Marc Tyler about what heads him towards perfection

Years-End Round-Up – Gareth Jex has championed the very popular UK rally series in recent years. 2013 proved to be just as great!

A Blast From the Past – A package arrives and Andy Player takes great delight in showing us the cornerstone of the early ’60s US HO market.

Smuggling – Is Dr. Sloterdijk importing legal parts in illegal cheese, or is it all above board?

Can Inspector Thumb bring him to justice?

Edam well better try!

6 Ninco Karts back:

9 Immense Miniatures Pt2:

12 Thunderjet:

14 Niemas Racecars Pt2:

McLaren M23 – Is that really Jody Scheckter waiting in the McLaren pits or is it another model

by Michael Niemas just fooling us?

22 Guided Tours Pt2:

26 SlotRallyGB: 28 Dilworth:

Ninco Karts are back 6

SlotCarMAG is an independent magazine for the Slot Car enthusiast. It is produced bi-monthly and available to purchase from either: www.pendleslotracing.co.uk (hard-copy, hi res digital) www.lulu.com/uk (hard-copy, print-to-order hi res digital with laminated cover) www.slotcarmag.co.uk (hi-res pdf download) For further information, please contact the publisher via email. Address opposite.

Hello!

It’s Ric the Editor here, standing in for Wayne who unfortunately has just experienced the downside of living by the sea; a combination of very high tides and very high winds has meant that he has been evacuated from his house! I’m sure you’ll all join me in wishing him a speedy return to normality.

There’s some great stuff in this issue. I was blown away (sorry Wayne) by the Niemas Scheckter McLaren M23, having first seen the real thing behind the pits at Silverstone, shortly before it made headlines all around the world with the shunt that decimated the Grand Prix field. Also from Germany we have the first article from Tim Busch (and which contains some excellent scenery tips) and of course there’s much more from our regular contributors.

Finally, I have to apologise to NSR’s Giovanni. Some shoddy mouse-work on my part meant that we omitted some of his greatest achievements from the already huge list last time. Here’s the missing section, and once again my apologies: “1985 was the year IMCA was created by J.P.Van Rossem. In 1986 the very first Slot Racing World Championship was raced in Valkemburg (Holland): I won the 1/24th Group 20 Box Stock missing four sections only (controller brake broken wire) and the 1/32nd Eurosport… (my favourite one). In the same year I won the European Championship 1/32nd Eurosport in Bordeaux. In 1987 I won the European Championship 1/32nd F1 in Newport (Belgium). In ’94 I won the 1/32nd production Italian Championship with my Demon and in ’96 I won the ISRA 1/24th Production World Championship.”

Wow. Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy and Peaceful New Year!

Ric Woods

PUBLISHING / WEB: Wayne Tooke: info@slotcarmag.co.uk EDITORIAL: Ric Woods: ric-woods@slotcarmag.co.uk ART & DESIGN: Marc Abbott: marc-abbott@slotcarmag.co.uk SlotCarMAG is printed digitally by LDP Ltd

ldpltd@btconnect.com

Disclaimer: Whilst every effort has been made to accurately compile the information contained herein, SlotCarMAG or any of its contributors or advertisers accepts no liability for any errors and omissions or any inadvertent disclosure of any information not meant for publication. SlotCarMAG neither endorses or accepts responsibility for the reproduction of material supplied that is of sub-standard quality, such as photocopies, laser prints, pre-printed photographs, low resolution digital images etc, and reserve the right to refuse the use of such material, products or services of advertisers in this publication. Opinions expressed shall not necessarily be that of the SlotCarMAG. All information should be verified before being acted upon.

Copyright: Contents of this magazine or our web site, cannot be reproduced in any way, shape or form without the written permission of the publishers.

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1

A Classic in the Attic

Part 1

by

Tim Busch

It all started with...

“Honey, don´t you think…?”

Part: 1 – History:

A

ugust 2011 : After moving to a new house with my girlfriend, I was in the situation that I had a lot of cars, scenery, craft materials and tools but no space to build a track. I therefore started to make the best of what I don´t have and tried to stay in touch with the hobby by building single buildings and dioramas.

I then bought a couple of small mobile cupboards to put all my stuff and tools in.

This was one of the best ideas I’ve ever had because it was a great effort to get all things needed to build a diorama down from the attic (where all my stuff was packed in more than forty boxes) to the living room and back up to the attic afterwards. For the next few months you

2

could say I was ‘living’ out of the box. It was not perfect, but better than doing nothing but reading about the tracks people are building on forums all over the internet…

Now we come to a point / problem I think many of us have. We love this hobby in almost the same manner that our wives / girlfriends don´t do. Correct me if I´m wrong…

The magazine for racers, collectors and builders – Slot Car MAG

KARTS!

There’s no “GO” in those The Ninco Kart – Probably the best and most driveable slot-based versions of karts ever produced... and they’re back with two new models!

by

Marc Abbott

K

arting first captured my imagination when, as a young lad of thirteen, my friend invited me to a practice day at Rye House Stadium in Hertfordshire, England. This was to be my first foray into the world of motor racing and when I came back to the pits I thought I had been going really fast indeed. I can’t remember exactly what model of kart he had, but he gleefully informed me that I was about five seconds off the pace! He volunteered to let me follow him round so that I could see where it was all going wrong. This was a real eye opener! If any of you know the Rye House track, the first bend is quite a long right-hander... and in a 100cc gearless kart, you do not back off – the foot remains embedded flat to the floor (or chassis in this case). I can still remember it vividly: The thought of “there’s no way this thing will stay on the road”. Yet it did. My turn-in changed to a gradual opposite lock and a smile went right across my face as for the first time I felt a total on-the-edge control.

Meanwhile my friend’s dad was timing me again and was pleased to inform me

The two basic variants of the Ninco karts: at the back, a basic kart to represent the lower formulae, whilst the foreground picture shows a mighty super kart.

There are many more colour variations in the range.

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The magazine for racers, collectors and builders – Slot Car MAG

Immense Miniatures Part Two

by Mark Huber The story so far… Childhood slot racer Marc Tyler has met and married Heidi, and together they are running a business which supplies miniatures and monsters to the film industry.

As with so many of us, slot cars never quite left Marc, and for his 50th birthday he asked for an SCX 1/43 F1 set. Within days he was making improvements, and he had decided to try his hand at some miniature figures…

An SCX Compact set on Marc’s 50th birthday got gears turning, and ended a 30 plus year hiatus from slots

H

is first effort was Cannonball Baker, a turn of the century (that would be turn of the 19th century) motorcycle racer. Marc then decided to make a Vintage F1 driver. Marc recalls one important detail of those first figures, “The F1 driver had very small feet”. That probably wasn’t the worst thing in the world, as scratch builders are known to

chop off feet in order to fit those drivers into their little cars!

Marc was still exploring at this point; he really wasn’t thinking of a commercial venture in any way or moulding masters.

Heidi wasn’t involved in these early models, and Marc noted, “This may explain why my first figures were rather strangely proportioned.”

Slot Car MAG – The magazine for racers, collectors and builders

Marc applied his skills of design and CAD and did some research on 3D printing.

He discovered Shapeways (New York City) and made some trial pieces. Through one of the online forums, Greg Petroloti saw some of Marc’s early work and gave him some suggestions for improving the figures and also recommended that he build a Tazio Nuvolari.

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a r o r u A e Th nderjet Tsht fruom the past a bla

The chassis has myriad tiny parts.

Christmas came early with Mark's box of T-jets

O

ne of the best things about our hobby has got to be the people involved. Okay, perhaps not everyone, but where would we be without the ingenuity, generosity and enthusiasm of our fellow slotters?

The reason for my warm fuzzy feelings of Christmas cheer is a package that arrived today. Me and Mark, from Aurora Illinois, have exchanged a few HO goodies

Getting the brushes in place and then the armature down straight between the magnets takes some practice.

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– stuff that is difficult to find on our respective sides of the Atlantic. That's Micro Scalextric body shells for Mark and older HO cars for me.

The highlight of my package is a box of Aurora Thunderjets, tiny cars dating back to 1963 and featuring the iconic 'pancake' motor that sits vertically – yes vertically – in the chassis.

The Thunderjet 500 was the cornerstone of the massive slot car craze in 1960s America. It is claimed that between Christmas 1960 and the end of 1965 Aurora had sold twenty five million slot cars.

Today, the T-jet is still much loved and raced hard across the United States, with the HO slot car racing calendar packed with events organised solely for the old pancake cars.

Despite being the all-American slot car, the Thunderjet's lineage is British. Aurora

entered the slot car business in 1960 when it bought the US rights for the Playcraft Electric Highways Model

The gear train is a complex one: the armature drives a 14T pinion, which turns a 24T idler gear on the top plate and then another 24T gear drives the 9T drive pinion underneath - and that finally drives the 15T crown gear on the rear axle.

The magazine for racers, collectors and builders – Slot Car MAG

Bauprozess Niemas Racecars part 2–

the quest for slot car Shangri-La

by Michael Niemas

Slot Car MAG – The magazine for racers, collectors and builders

15

High On Speed... ...and made in Italy

In the second part of our interview with NSR’s Giovanni Montiglio, we move on from the origins and early days of the company and discuss reaction to their early cars, including the thorny issue of scale vs. speed…

18

I

n slot racing there are those who prefer accuracy, others just care about performance….NSR was initially criticised leaning too far towards performance at the expense of realism.

How did NSR see it?

When our first car – the Mosler – was released, NSR was accused of making an out-of-scale model. This attitude went further with the Clio and the Fiat Abarth Punto because they were wider than the real cars… it’s a matter of fact that was true! Unfortunately Renault supplied us with the wrong dimensions, and we should take some blame because we should have double-checked them!

But regarding the Mosler we never agreed with the criticism. Giovanni went to a couple of races at Monza where two Mosler GTs were racing and while they were behind the pit lane he personally checked the dimensions – he took pictures as well – and we will never go

back on what we did. Basically the question started off when another company came out at the same time with the same model but made it more square, tall and long, and because that was such a well-known company it was taken for granted they were right and we – the almost unknown – little company were wrong… In any case we believe the difference in performance between the two cars is down to the different technical approach.

Then at a certain point I stopped to wonder how could we make the big step to prevent further criticism of our ‘out-ofscale’ models. The NSR cars were fast, they would win as top-performing models, but now we had to improve the aesthetics, with better detail. The valuable hand of Giovanni Montiglio came again, as an expert in classic cars!

The Ford Mk IV was an immediate success, which was consolidated by the

The magazine for racers, collectors and builders – Slot Car MAG

A closer look at the front axle and guide... Part 2.

22

The magazine for racers, collectors and builders – Slot Car MAG

by Gareth Jex

T

With eight stages on offer at Wye Valley, including some classic favourites along with some challenging new (made on the day) stages and a full-to-capacity entry list, it was a busy day. Several of the top runners used the opportunity to test out some new cars for the 2014 season, whilst the majority of entrants carried on with their normal cars to accumulate valuable points. Here are the top three in each class results from Round 10 (final) Winter Slot Rally: d by Ninco SRGB 2013 – Modern 4WD Rally – Sponsore 387.85 seconds Ninco Subaru Impreza 397.19 seconds 1st Phil Field 88 seconds 400.

WRC 307 eot Peug Ninco 405.63 seconds 2nd Gareth Jones 06 seconds 418.

Ninco Mitsubishi Lancer 416.61 seconds 3rd Chris Binley

he final round of the 2013 SlotRallyGB Championship was held at Wye Valley Slot Car Club (Wales Winter Slot Rally) on Sunday 3rd November. Returning to one of SRGB’s founding events many of the championship titles had already been confirmed, with Chris Lewis and Phil Field taking first place in a number of classes, however in all classes second, third and fourth places were very tightly contested with results on the day finalising the championship awards, prizes and trophies.

SCX SRGB 2013 – Classic Rally – Sponsored by ult A310 Rena e Alpin slot Team s Lewi 1st Chris GT Powerslot Opel 2nd Matt Tucker GT 3rd Keith Clements Powerslot Opel SRGB 2013 – ’80s Rally 1st John Underwood 2nd Phil Field 3rd Gareth Jones

– Sponsored by Teamslot Ninco Porsche 911 SC Ninco Porsche 911 SC Ninco Lancia 037

d by MSC SRGB 2013 – Pro-Stock Rally – Sponsore 997 che NSR Pors 400.99 seconds 1st Chris Lewis NSR Porsche 997 y Tille Kane 2nd nds seco 13 407.

Fly Porsche 911 409.21 seconds 3rd Phil Field

d by Avant Slot SRGB 2013 – Modern 2WD Rally – Sponsore 392.00 seconds Polo VW t erslo 1st Keith Clements Pow 09 seconds 406.

Powerslot VW Polo 2nd Ben Clements 74 seconds 441.

Powerslot VW Polo 3rd Julian Pearce

Full results from the event can be found on Slotforum.com or on the SRGB Facebook page.

With the results calculated as quickly as possible for the event, we began to input the points for the championship. As you can probably imagine inputting this amount of data takes SRGB 2013 – Classic Rally – Sponsored by SCX 1st Chris Lewis Teamslot Alpine Renault A310 2nd Keith Clements Powerslot Opel GT 3rd Matt Tucker Powerslot Opel GT

SRGB 2013 – ‘80's Rally – Sponsored by Teamslot 1st Phil Field Ninco Porsche 911 SC 2nd John Underwood Ninco Porsche 911 SC 3rd Wayne Goble Ninco Porsche 911 SC SRGB 2013 – Modern 2WD Rally – Sponsored by Avant Slot 1st Ben Clements Powerslot VW Polo 2nd Matt Tucker Powerslot VW Polo 3rd Chris Angold Ninco Toyota Celica

26

366.97 seconds 373.38 seconds 379.72 seconds

s – Sponsored by Scalextric SRGB 2013 – Scalextric Production Clas 458.93 seconds Scalextric Ford Fiesta WRC 1st Chris Lewis 467.30 seconds Scalextric Ford RS200 2nd Nigel Lewis 30 seconds 498.

WRC a Fiest Scalextric Ford 3rd Don Stanley

time and for the 2014 season we are looking at issuing groups with iPads to enter the times (rather than pen and paper).

Fingers crossed it will work!

With the data entered, checked and noted we presented the 2013 Championship awards and prizes:

SRGB 2013 – Modern 4WD Rally – Sponsored by Ninco 119 Points 1st Phil Field Ninco Subaru Impreza 111 Points 2nd Wayne Goble Ninco Mitsubishi Lance r 108 Points 3rd Charles Tiley Ninco Mitsubishi Lancer

125 Points 92 Points 85 Points

SRGB 2013 – Pro-Stock Rally – Sponsored by MSC 122 Points 1st Phil Field MSC Subaru Impreza 114 Points 2nd Chris Lewis NSR Porsche 997 105 Points 3rd Bill Charters NSR Porsche 997

125 Points 114 Points 109 Points

SRGB 2013 – Scalextric Production Class – Sponsored by Scalex tric 122 Points 1st Chris Lewis Scalextric Ford Fiesta WRC 125 Points 116 Points (1st at every event!)

96 Points 2nd Nigel Lewis Scalextric Ford RS200 110 Points 3rd Phil Field Scalextric Ford RS200 102 Points

The magazine for racers, collectors and builders – Slot Car MAG