Slotters Blotter

New Online Hobby Shop with lotsa slot cars!

2009-10-08T15:49:00.002-05:00

A new website from Chicagoland Hobby just went online and is full of great slot car deals. It is Chicagoland Toys and Hobbies and can be reached at http://www.chicagolandtoysandhobbies.com

Revell Monogram Lola T 70

2009-06-06T18:30:00.013-05:00

Review By Steve Sorrentino, pictures by Michael Blaha

After a long anticipated wait the new Lola T 70 finally arrived. This new entry from Revell Monogram has been talked about for some time so I decided to review this new entry.

At first glance this slot car looks amazing. The bright red paint is flawless and the white stripes and number roundels are spot on. The wheels and tires seem to match the car perfectly.

The rear exhaust pipes exit through the body and are attached securely. The motor and roll bar are also attached securely and are of decent detail.

One thing that struck me as a little odd was that the driver is sitting a little too high in the cockpit. If you look close his head is quite a bit above the rollbar. Nothing a little shaving of his

posterior couldn’t cure.

Now on to the nitty gritty of this car. With the body you can see it is of a standard sidewinder configuration with a welcome straight axle in front.

Flipping the car over you can see a magnet pocket in front of the motor and a standard guide flag set up.

The body is pretty basic with a minimal interior but the front lower portion of the body is a separate piece. There are two body posts that the front part of the body slips over, and is held in place with the chassis screws.

With the screws for the magnet pocket removed you can see there is a spacer to lower the magnet and a spacer to position the magnet to the front or rear of the magnet carrier.

With the tires removed I was really surprised to see the strangest wheels I’ve ever seen. What am I going to do with these?

The spur gear is kind of unique. Looks like they molded it with some reliefs in the gear.

Maybe to save weight.

One thing I was happy to see was the front axle was fitted with plastic bushings and spacers.

Here are a few shots of the Lola T 70 from different angles.

Now on to the actual performance of this car. Out of the box on a wood track the car is pretty much un-driveable. The rear tires spun on the rims and the car hopped all the way down the straight. Maybe a standard wheel with a plain old center rib would have worked better. The pinion gear on the motor is plastic and 1 mm larger than a standard sidewinder pinion. What that means is if you want to run a slot it sidewinder spur and pinion, you will have to shave the motor mount and move the motor closer to the spur gear to get a decent gear mesh.

As I said the car does come with a straight axle with bushings up front and a standard guide flag which makes tuning a bit easier. To achieve a good competitive car you can go one of two ways. Just replace the wheels with a nice set of aluminum rims and some silicone tires or go all out and shave the motor mount so you can pick the gear ratio that suits your driving style.

Pictured below is the Lola T 70 fitted with some Ninco ProRace 17’ wide on the rear and Ninco ProRace 15' wheels on the front.

All in all this is a very nice body on this car. A vintage Cam Am is a great addition to any ones stable of cars. To race this car stock is a waste of time and would frustrate the best driver. Add some good parts and some time and you will have a real runner.

For me I’m going to throw out the chassis and stick a Slot it HRS chassis under it and have a great looking Can Am racer.

They even look better in person!

2009-02-14T17:05:00.008-06:00

I remember back when I was a kid, every year around the middle of September all the kids that had gasoline running in their veins would hang around the automobile dealerships and peek through the back windows to see the new models when they came out. I still remember the sight of my first '55 Chevy Bel Air after all those stodgey '54s and to this day it may still be my favorite. Sure, we had pictures maybe the week before, but the real thing is the real thing.

Which comes to our description of thre new Revell/Monogram Lola T-70s. I got a sneak peak.

Here they are. The first to be released, probably around the end of March, is the red number 7 Surtees 1966 CanAm champ. The ones they gave me are pre-production, but I think the cars are flawless. Mechanically it's the good old Revell high revving Mabuchi with no brakes, sigh.

Mounted as a sidewinder with 14 to 37 teeth. Same as their old Galaxies. The tires are plenty wide enough. I griped a lot about their Chaparral rears and now they've compensated. Maybe overly. They magnet is about what they had in their March GTP cars. I intend to remove mine I told them. Take a look at the engine and interior details. Magnificent. The 6 Lolas they will produce in total (they hope) will be 3 Chevy powered and 3 Ford powered. These 2 are the Chevvies of course, with sidedraft Webers, their Fords will have down drafts.

The blue car is of course a Mark Donohue driven Roger Penske owned car with yellow pinstriping, wheels and exhaust pipes. This will follow the Surtees car by about a month. And next after that will be a light blue metallic Lola driven by George Follmer, number 16. Hopefully another month away. The size seems a little larger than the old Lola T-70 they made in the sixties as a companion to the Chaparral. But remember, it's not size that counts. Rumor has it that the old tooling was in need of repair and they also wanted to take in to account a body that would be a sidewinder and have the capability for many liveries. This, to me was a resounding success.

Also during my visit with the folks at R/M they showed me a peek at the next model in their old Ford stock car program, the Ford Fairlane. Pictured is the Mario Andretti Daytona 500 winner. Another gem! So, my advice is to hang around the local hobby shop a little more than normal to see when these little gems roll in. It seems these guys at R/M don't know how to predict demand and they won't sit on the shelves too long. Just try to find one of those purple Fireball Roberts number 22 Galaxies.

Those were gone in 30 days!

Dirve fast, Michael Delaney

2009-01-03T10:50:00.000-06:00

Board Track Racing from the early 20th Century

I have become a little obsessed with board or wood track racing from the 20’s. Now I’m not talking about slot car racing, I’m talking about real auto and motorcycle racing on oval tracks made from wood (yes, the track surface was wooden). So as I do research and learn about the history of these motorsport events and tracks, I’ll be posting my findings. Here is my first introduction to the motorsport of board track racing:

Board track racing

Board track racing was a type of racing where the track had a surface of wood boards. The genre was popular in the United States in the early 20th century.

History

The first board track opened at the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1909, and numerous tracks up to two miles long had opened by 1912. Tracks popped up because of the ease to construct a track and the low cost of lumber. Cars and motorcycles were both raced on board tracks.

Deaths led to the end of board tracks

Very high speeds and a complete lack of safety precautions lead to spectacular wrecks on the board tracks in the 1910s, often killing a half-dozen competitors and spectators at a time. The 1913 motorcycle championship races were moved to a dirt track because dirt was safer. Board tracks slowly faded away by the early 1920s. Famous racers to die on board tracks included Gaston Chevrolet.

More to come!

Written by Father Bob

2008-09-28T10:41:00.000-05:00

What you most likely won’t see at the iHobby Expo next week.

Unfortunately fewer and fewer European Slot car manufacturers make the trip to the United States for the iHobby Expo in Chicago, preferring to attend shows such as Slotlandia which was recently held in Milan, Italy.

Here are some exciting highlights from Slotlandia.

NSR showed the first prototypes of their 1/32 Porsche 917K. Based on the samples shown in Milan, there will be 6 liveries early in 2009 including the “Gulf” #1 and #2 cars, Salzburg #23 and #24, David Piper #11 and a Team Wicky version.

BRM (who will be represented at iHobby by their North American importer) had previously announced their Toyota 88C Group C car in Minolta and AAR liveries, but in Milan also showed prototypes of the Mazda 787B IMSA (Charge), Sauber-Mercedes C9 (AEG) and Porsche 911 GT1/98 all in 1/24 scale.

Slot.It have apparently delayed their highly-anticipated version of the Ferrari F40 (initially to be available in “LeMans Test” and “Totip Lottery” liveries) and next decoration of the McLaren F1-GTR (Loctite) to first quarter 2009.

Slot.it instead will concentrate on the introduction of their new driver telemetry module that “broadcasts” lap times to a driver headset in real time and Slot.it’s Oxigen Digital control scheme which allows 20 cars to be raced at once on either Ninco or Scalextric digital tracks.

Written by Vincent Vega