SlotCarMAG issue 11

www.slotcarmag.co.uk

ISSUE 11 • VOLUME 2 •DECEMBER 2012

FOR RACERS, COLLECTORS AND BUILDERS

Dutch Rally:

Just how many rally tracks has Hub Habets made?

Cartrix:

New limited edition Porsche 804 F1 – Jo Bonnier, Italian GP 1962

LiFE Tales:

Part 2 of Maurizio Ferrari’s life story – the years of opportunity and Ferrari!

Long Grass:

Lynne Haines, a ball of string and a flea comb... a great way to make grass

Kit Bashing:

Brett Jurmann creates a realistic 1/32 workshop from a cheap toy building

PLUS: Bored with Christmas? Try Ric’s not-so-festive crossword... You can ignore Grandma for hours!

Mag SLOT CAR

Contents

FOR RACERS, COLLECTORS AND BUILDERS 2

In This Issue:

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Pit Board: SlotRallyGB – Farnham 45 entrants for the penultimate round of this series shows rallying is a popular form of slot racing. Excellent stages... and just look at the gradient of that hill!!!

Life Tales: Part 2 – Maurizio waltzes his way to Ferrari Life has a strange way of offering you chances to make the right decisions. He turns down one job for a dance, which leads to an offer from Ferrari.

Some cross words from Mr Woods: No really, it’s a crossword So Grandma is snoring in the corner, the Queen’s speech is on and the kids are on the PlayStation. What better time to get out a pen and start thinking?

Cartrix Limited Edition:

9 11

Porsche 804 This is Cartrix’s first venture into the 1.5 litre swinging ’60s era. Mark Slade is more than pleased with the result too.

HO Le Mans – November 2012: The twentieth event – what an achievement!

Derby HO Racing Club hosted a 24 hour event that was fast and furious... all on a 233 foot replica of the Circuit de la Sarthe. Andy Player sums it up as a success!

The Long Grass: Lynne Haines, a ball of string and a flea comb It’s all very well putting some realistic grasslands around your circuit, but to make it look even more “real” you need to know how to make some of it long.

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.

ISSUE 11 • VOLUME 2 • DECEMBER 2012 visit: www.slotcarmag.co.uk

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March 721X and Matra MS10:

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Dutch Rally:

19 21 24 28

The latest from Penelope Pitlane Hopefully there will still be a few of these wonderful kits left by the time you’re reading this. Why? Because they’re absolutely gorgeous.

Hub Habets reveals another of his rally tracks Hub usually races on his own, so a rally track suits his needs. Over the years he has come to perfect the art of not just a good track, but also fabulous scenery.

Slots-A-Lot: New York’s premier slot car raceway Kenneth Piccola runs a slot car raceway in New York which boasts a variety of circuits that most us can only dream about, including a scale 1/4 mile drag strip.

Kit Bashing: A plastic toy building transforms into a workshop Next time you need to take the kids to the local toy shop, don’t dismiss all the farm and town buildings that adorn the shelves... there could be a gem there.

The Art of Dave Jones:

by Mark Huber In this, the concluding part of our Dave Jones interview, we ask about his paintings and delve into the art of creating a Dave Jones shell.

Dilworth: To the finish line The chequered flag is in sight; can the old lumbering Humber relive the Dunkirk spirit? “Cut” yells the director... but whom, monsieur, has won?

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

Pit Board Hello!

Firstly, our best wishes to our contributors and readers everywhere for Christmas and the New Year, and our sincere thanks for making 2012 such a great year for the magazine.

This issue sees the usual heady mix of dancing, explosions and there’s even some slot stuff too!

Oh yes, look out for the SlotCarMAG Celica of Lynne Haines (see pic), currently going well in the OZ Rally proxy series.

Lovely paint job, Lynne…

Enjoy Issue 11 The Team

Farnham 2012 SlotRallyGB Round 7 of 8 – from Nick Garton

W

hile we all pull each other’s leg as much as any selfrespecting slot club, I think it’s fair to say that Farnham is rather proud of the job that our board member and SRGB impresario Gareth Jex makes of running the series. In such a spirit we held our annual ‘Summer Stages’.

This year we were the penultimate round and, with all but one class still in the thick of a title battle, we mustered a high turn-out of 45 starters from across the UK – including Wales, the Isle of Man and East Anglia. All that equated to 1600 stage times to be diligently entered on the day – well done again, Gareth!

Confronting the runners and riders were nine special stages, each with their own challenges, vices and virtues. The SCX ‘Scenic Loop’ returned, as did the mighty Circuits to Scale routed farmyard and mountain. The fast, slippery, routed ‘Car Park’ stage and Scalextric Classic ‘blue stage’ with its plethora of hump-back bridges were also brought out of mothballs for another year.

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New stages included ‘Ken Block’, a twisting nightmare of SCX and classic Scalextric wrapped up in an industrial setting, and ‘Seaside’, an SCX track formed of curves that tighten from flat-out R4s to fiddly R1s to test a car’s balance on the brakes – and on the throttle heading back again. But if any of the new stages really made an impact it was the ‘Ninco Bar’. Yes, it ran along the beer pumps and then made a near-vertical plunge to almost floor level using the dreaded Ninco Raid track.

The action was fast and furious but, as ever, the atmosphere extremely convivial – despite our reticence at Farnham to put

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

S E L TA

ri a r r e F izio r u a M by

Part 2 – Maurizio finds that life has a strange way of offering you chances to make the right decision!

esides Life Racing and Ferrari, I actually worked for a third F1 team: Lambo, the brainchild of Mauro Forghieri. Well, almost. After Life Racing folded I received a few phone calls from other F1 teams; the job pool of engineers with some F1 experience is not so deep and engineers tend to go from one team to another. Someone from Lambo contacted me and I was given a job interview, during which I clearly stated that I was not available for a position as an F1 field engineer following the team from circuit to circuit, as it would have meant spending too much time away from home. A job with the Lamborghinipowered Spice Gr.C was what I was promised.

Instead, just two days before taking service, I was summoned to be ready on Sunday morning at 8 a.m. in Modena for a week of F1 testing in Estoril, as their field F1 electronic engineer had

B

left and I had to replace him for the season. Apart from this job being exactly what I had told them I wouldn’t do, this was colliding with a planned Saturday evening out in Florence with a blue-eyed, dark-haired girl who had painstakingly and without any success tried to teach me to dance waltz for an evening that was supposed to be a very special one at her dance school. So, I resigned before even taking up the job, went out on a date with my girlfirend who later became my wife, stepped on her toes while dancing, and that (quitting the job, and later marrying her, not the toe-stepping) was certainly the wisest decision in my whole life.

After a job as electrical engineer at the R&D offices of a local automotive car alarm systems company, I moved to Magneti Marelli in Bologna, which one year later sent me to Ferrari to

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

PORSCHE 804 Cartrix

by Mark Slade

Jo Bonnier, Italian GP 1962 – limited edition

A

t the beginning of the year, whispers were heard on Spanish forums about a new car from Cartrix, a brand now best known for its 1950s Grand Prix Cars. This muchtalked-about new model, though, would see the firm dip its toes into the next decade and fans of the cars eagerly awaited an official announcement that it would go ahead.

If you’re getting on a bit (like me) then your first slot car set probably featured a similar car, either by Scalextric or Airfix, although you were more than likely the proud owner of a red, green or yellow version. Cartrix however have produced a lovely (rather life-like) silver version of the car raced by Jo Bonnier in the Italian Grand Prix of 1962. “Rivet counters” will “tut tut” as usual about the accuracy of the models from Cartrix, but as you probably know from previous readings, I do have a soft spot for this Spanish enterprise, because they produce cars that, with a minor amount of adjustment, can be raced hard and close on any type of circuit. Maybe just a small amount of lead to keep the nose down and (the only annoying part for me) making sure that all wheels are secured on the axle and of course not wonky!

However, this particular model and the one before (a Talbot Lago) feature the very small FF motor. This has been done to make sure that the body or driver detail didn’t have to be sacrificed too much by trying to lever an over-large familiar Mabuchi-type motor into the car. I have still yet to obtain a Talbot Lago, so when this car arrived, my main interest was to see whether the smaller power unit would allow the Porsche to handle as well as its 1950s cousins.

In “real life”, this car gave Porsche its only win (as a factory entrant) in Grand Prix racing, with Dan Gurney winning the French GP and also a non-championship event. Strangely, shortly after the win, the team announced it would leave Formula 1 as an entrant for the foreseeable future; they have never returned, except as a supplier of power units (remember their partnership with McLaren in the eighties).

For the 804, Porsche produced an eight-cylinder ‘boxer’ engine of 1.5-litre capacity, which was the maximum permitted at the time. This particular engine was good at high revs, producing around 180bhp.

Obviously as the 1962 season progressed, the chassis and body were developed, primarily allowing the driver to sit lower in the car, and the weight distribution improved. By other teams’ standards the car looks quite wide.

The hierarchy at Porsche didn’t like to be embarrassed if their cars might not prove to be potential winners and so they failed to appear at a number of races, and only one car was entered at Monaco. Fortunately, after a

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

7

s n a M e L HO

: 2 1 0 2 r e b m Nove

er

by Andy Play

T

o organise one successful 24-hour slot car race is quite an achievement. To organise a race a year for twenty years is verging upon legendary.

That’s what Nick Sismey, Phil Rees and the Derby HO Racing Club have done. This year was the twentieth anniversary of the HO Le Mans 24 hours and I was honoured to be leading the Écurie Anglaise team up to Derby for the race. Our team was back for a second year on the 233 foot replica of the Circuit de la Sarthe. Our five team members are all club and national HO champions and range in age from an ‘A’ Level student to a pensioner (early retirement, I believe).

Any number of trophies and titles mean nothing at Le Mans. The challenge is one of building and maintaining a fast car, of driving consistently fast and without crashes, of working as a team and avoiding bad luck. We managed some of those with Écurie Anglaise this year, but nowhere near enough. It was a highly competitive race, worthy of the anniversary. Records were broken and the racing was very close.

We did build a quick car and, with some excellent driving, were up in fourth place after 6 hours, in a close battle that ran from third to fifth. That was as good as it got. Overnight, our team was plagued by bad luck, scrappy driving, less-thandecisive maintenance decisions and a collective lack of sleep that saw us drift back to sixth, then seventh and, as dawn broke over Derby, we slipped to eighth and last.

At the end of the 24 hours we had achieved 203 laps more than last year, but we’d dropped back a place. It was disappointing after that early promise, yet it was still a brilliant experience, great fun and I was really quite sad when the clock clicked round to 24 hours.

Next year we’ll be back with lessons learned. Can we take on the all-dominant Wrun Wragged? It will take some doing, but all teams have to learn the ropes when they start out. Third time lucky, maybe?

More details at www.dhorc.co.uk Andy races at Worthing HO Racing www.whoracing.org.uk and in the EAHORC national series www.eahorc.com

On the starting grid (credit: Nick Sismey)

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

9

Long Grass A chance to hide in the

by Lynne Haines

U

nless you have a very vigilant team of miniature grounds keepers to constantly tend the grass areas around your race track, there are bound to be some areas that are less than perfectly manicured. Even the besttended lawn is inclined to have patches where the mower misses – around the base of trees, among rocks, along fence lines.

So, the question arises, how to produce long, untended grass in scale world?

When I first tackled the problem I resorted to buying the Woodland Scenics Field Grass. This product is a long fibre that can be cut to the required length prior to use. My dissatisfaction with the product stems from the common problem of scale.

Produced for use in smaller-scale rail modelling, the fibre is too fine for my liking at 1/32 (see below).

And so I went in search of a replacement. By now everyone should be aware of my cheap’n’cheerful approach to scenery.

How does $2 for enough long grass to do several tracks sound?

(That’s about £1.30, unless Sterling goes down the pan by the time we publish – Ed).

Sisal twine is the answer. In its raw colour it could easily be used to make very effective hay and being a natural fibre it takes colour well. To dye it, I used green acrylic paint. This is one of the few instances that I actually recommend just using the cheap craft paints.

Mix paint and water into a plastic container (see below).

Amounts really don’t matter, but you do want it fluid enough to be able to soak into the string. It’s always a good idea to do a few colours at once. Remember, variation in colours is one of the keys to a natural look.

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

11

With an availab

By Hub Habets le space of 5.75 m x 3.45m in th with a table in th e loft, I started e shape of an o by filling the ro pen circle. Bec no problem sta om ause I mostly d nding in the ce rive on my own ntral point of th shelves made fo , it e table. Undern r storing slot c eath the table a is ars, spare part re s and books.

T

he trying of some track shapes resulted in a layout with a lot of dierent bends, from tricky tightening to wide flat out. Like a real rally special stage, the track also contains some hairpins and twisty sections. The total track length is about 42m.

I used Scalextric Classic and SCX track parts and on the longest straight a Ninco lap counter and time keeping. With only one crossover, a spectacular total special stage length of 84m has been achieved. If the crossover section is replaced by a straight track piece, the rally special stage becomes a two-lane public road racing circuit. In this case,

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

it is easy to race with two people, standing on the outside of the open circle with extension cables on the controllers.

After testing the circuit in both driving directions, I removed all the track pieces from the table so I could start with the background, which is made from board and glued on a wooden frame. The total height is about 30cm and the horizon is painted 10cm above the table. I painted a hilly landscape with some woods and rocks, so the landscape on the table should look like this to get a seamless conversion from track scenery to the background.

Now the track pieces returned to the table to be

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Kenneth "Slotie" Piccola

W

hen you think about slot car racing in New York, Slots-A-Lot Raceway comes to mind.

Slots-A-Lot Raceway is a 1/24th scale slot car raceway run by racers for racers. We have three 150+ foot slot car tracks: a hillcimb, Kingleman and King, custom built by Steve Ogilivie, not to mention a newlyadded, state-of-the-art scale 1/4 mile drag strip. There is a handful of classes to choose from, from retro to NASCAR to hard body and, of course, the ever-growing wing body class. We are always trying to introduce this hobby to new people, especially children, and we make that our mission, because they one day will be the future of slot car racing. We have rentals and starter kits for beginners and advanced parts and nightly races for the more seasoned racer. There are many adults as well as children who call Slots-A-Lot Raceway home. Every Saturday we have wing body races just for the youth. About twenty young boys, and occasionally girls, take part in our children’s wing body series. The top three contestants in the beginner and advanced groups at the end of the series win trophies and it’s an all-around good feeling for everyone who participated. Every year we get new recruits, as well as returning racers.

Slots-A-Lot Raceway has been in full operation for nearly two decades, being established in Queens, New York in 1994. Back then we were home to the world-famous largest slot car track, the “White Lightning”. We moved to Franklin Square in 2001, which

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

has been our current location ever since. Needless to say, the White Lightning didn’t find a new home at Slots-A-Lot Raceway due to smaller space. Long-time manager Kenneth Piccola and Robert Valentini took the business over in 2008. Kenny made many renovations, which included adding new paint to the walls, installing high-tech flatscreen computer and television screens throughout the facility and arranging theme-setting décor, in addition to adding Slots-A-Lot Raceway’s first-ever drag strip.

Believe me when I say that a visit to Slots-A-Lot Raceway makes slot car racing look like just a bonus.

Since then the Raceway has had its share of struggles and hardships but nevertheless we’re still around today. Without the dedication of the owner/manager, Kenneth Piccola, Slots-A-Lot Raceway would cease to exist. Kenny started racing slot cars as a boy growing up in Brooklyn in the ’70s. His first race was at BuzzA-Rama Raceway in Brooklyn, New York, which happens to be the last standing slot car raceway in Brooklyn. Kenny started building chassis and painting bodies when he was teenager. Today, in his 50s, he’s still at it.

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‘Kitbashing’

A Workshop Diorama

by Brett Jurman

O

ne of the things that got me into slotting as an adult was the fantastic modelling that the manufacturers are achieving in recent times. I always try to take good-quality photos of my purchases, using suitable scenery as a backdrop, but using my Fairmont Park permanent track is problematic as I have to rely on natural lighting which, being indoors, is only good in mid-morning.

So, I looked at the fantastic work done by SlotCarMAG’s own Lynne Haines on her Backyard shed diorama. I thought I could make my own, something that was easy to move for better lighting. I might not be able to achieve Lynne’s high standards of modelling, but hopefully produce something that adds to the realism of my cars.

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

I’ve made a slot car diorama before, using pieces of leftover track to make a scene reminiscent of Le Mans, but on this occasion I was motivated by something sitting in my spares box.

Some time ago I had been trawling through a discount department store when I found a cheap children’s farm playset that had several useful pieces for the scenery of my Fairmont Park track. Surplus to my needs was a barn façade, in garish colours, but with potential for later projects.

Putting my little barn up on the workbench, I looked it over.

My first thought was to ‘kitbash’ it into a workshop loaned by race teams when they are away from home. Ideally it would be a French garage somewhere near Le Mans in the ’60s. I researched photos of the era, but the building images I could find were either of garages with stone or rendered walls, or factories clad in sheet metal. My barn looked more like the workshops used at Daytona and Sebring during that era.

At this point I made a bit of a gamble, as my browsing of model railway publications had gleaned that the most convincing realism comes from modelling a 1:1 prototype. But not having a definitive image to work from, I thought I would be flexible and see how it developed. So out came the Dremel, as those clumsy wooden doors just had to go. They just didn’t look correct. Then I went to the spare parts box again and found some Evergreen plastic sheet and channel, to make a new door and window frame. A piece of clear plastic from hardware store ‘blister’ packaging supplied the window glass.

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ART The

of Dave Jones

In this, the concluding part of our Dave Jones interview, we ask about his paintings and delve into the art of creating a Dave Jones shell…

When did you first find out you were interested in art?

As my interest in painting developed, with the encouragement from Walkden Fisher, I found myself painting aviation and landscape works. Walkden was a most accomplished painter of landscapes in watercolour, and my long-standing liking of aircraft provided a natural outlet in that respect. I became a member of the Guild of Aviation artists. It was probably some thirty years later when I made my first motor racing painting. In addition to Walkden Fisher, other artists such as Terence Cuneo, Roy Nockolds, David Shepherd, Michael Turner and Frank Wootton have also been quite influential for my work, and it has been my great privilege to meet all of them.

I have been painting for forty plus years now, with my main areas of interest being watercolour landscapes and, primarily, oil paintings of aircraft and motor racing.

What is the process in creating a Dave Jones body? What sort of research do you do?

The process of creating a body shell starts with photographic research and studying any available plans. As far as plans go I have a very basic approach in that I never trust any plan entirely, and in some cases not at all. In this age of the Internet the amount of information for any given car compared with what was available in print twenty years ago is enormous and there are no excuses for producing inaccurate master models.

I create my own plans, but they are basic plan and side elevations based on known dimensions for the wheelbase and front and rear tracks. To some extent there has to be some sort of ‘feel’ about this and this ‘feeling’ carries through when carving the master model. It is about seeing how shapes flow and relate to one another and it is these features that bring the model to life.

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