In 2001 sometime we started racing slot cars and really got hooked. We liked it so much that we actually started a club called M.A.M. Slot Car Club. Marius, his father and his brother put their money together and invested in a 21 meter, four-lane track. They opted for the SCX make due to it's compatibility with Scalextric. Jacques drew up a few track designs using software called SnapTrack (click here to download demo version) from which the guys chose the one below. Jacques to wrote the lap-timing software himself in Visual Basic 6 as they wanted their own custom software. They found electronic circuit diagrams on the internet for the sensors which Jacques then built. He also constructed the start/finish bridge which houses the start lights and sensors.
We used this SCX track until 14 March 2002:
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One of the guys actually got hold of a very nice, 4 lane, 25m, wooden track which he said we could use if we wanted to. So we packed up the SCX track and put the wooden track in it's place. It's much more trickier than the plastic tracks due to the fact that magnets don't have any affect on handling whatsoever because of the slot 'rails' being copper. These are in fact copper strips screwed down onto the track surface and not just a tape. That means that they won't wear through like tape could. The track's layout comprises of three long straights and a few technical 'S' bends. Due to the good electrical conductivity, smooth flat surface and long straights the cars can reach a much higher speed. Unfortunately we also had to rebuild the bridge for the lap timing sensors and start lights.
On 21 March 2002 we started using this wooden track:
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If you are in the Roodepoort area and you're interested in joining us in the fun then you are welcome to do so. We race every Thursday evening and start at 7pm sharp. Our club fee is only R100 a year. We also ask a further race fee of R10 per event no matter how many classes you compete in. For non members we'll be asking R15 per event.
Here is a map to the venue:
Feel free to e-mail us for more information.