Before beginning the “Group A 32- Pack Muscle Car Challenge” I decided to do some track maintenance, and one thing led to another…you know how that goes, right? And so, I decided to finally do something that I’ve been thinking about-and sitting on the fence about-for over a year.
The corkscrew has been removed!
Why? Well, there are 2 reasons. The 2nd and less important reason was that shortening the track a little might help with some of the power problems I’ve been having. Ever since installing the additional power taps that hasn’t been as much of a problem, but I still sometimes get a power drop mainly due to a pesky joint coming off the 2nd banked turn that only seems to affect Lane 2. I had to mess with that yet again today as part of this change. But that was corollary reason; the primary reason I took the cork screw out was realism! I never was comfortable with it; in terms of a slot car track it was cool, but in terms of trying recreate a real racing track, it never rang true to me. So now it’s gone; I’ve taken out 4 sections of track and turned the former corkscrew into an “up and over.” This will not only make the power flow better but it will also make the track faster!
Doing all this work did cause some damage to some of the diorama elements, in particular the chain link fence, and many of the spectators were jostled by the work so part of the area looked it had been hit by a tornado when I was finished. Of course they don’t have tornados in California (they do have leftist democrats, which are even more destructive, but still), I had to do some repairs which was rather time consuming. Since I had to do this additional work, I decided to use the opportunity to add a few more peeps to the scene, since I recently painted some more figures (I recently placed an order from one my preferred 3D Printer vendors and more are on the way!)
A few pieces are still in the shop for some additional glue and paint, but mostly things are back together, and after running my dark blue Nova “track test car” around both lanes several times and determining the results are satisfactory, I’m now getting ready to start the first actual race @ DC Mk IV since last year!
So, I guess it’s now “DC Mk IV.II”
The power has been dialed in at EXACTLY 20V, which from the experience I’ve now had appears to be the maximum that I can use without risk of overclocking and burning up motors while still getting enough speed and action to keep it exciting!
I’ve spent nearly 5 months buying and building, rebuilding, repairing, and maintaining the cars. Now, let’s get down to some RACING!
Actually, I think that even looks better. I hope that you can get some better power performance now with a little less track and of course some great racing!