# F1 Technology Trickles Down to HO



## 1976Cordoba (Sep 20, 2000)

The Ferrari Formula 1 team sported controversial 'wheel frisbees' on their cars at the last F1 race. The wheel fairings were deemed legal by the FIA race stewards despite other teams insistence they were a movable aerodynamic device.










So I figured why not move that technology (or at least the _look_) down to HO?










I think this turned out pretty trick :tongue:

'doba


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## coach61 (Sep 6, 2004)

Good one Doba. Like the Rubino Car too...


Dave


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## Montoya1 (May 14, 2004)

1976Cordoba said:


> The Ferrari Formula 1 team sported controversial 'wheel frisbees' on their cars at the last F1 race. The wheel fairings were deemed legal by the FIA race stewards despite other teams insistence they were a movable aerodynamic device.
> 
> So I figured why not move that technology (or at least the _look_) down to HO?
> 
> ...


Very nice. How did you do it? I mentioned in another thread inserting interchangeable color-coded rings in the wheels to do away with lane stickers and this looks like it could be adapted.


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## zig (Mar 11, 2004)

Sprint cars have been using similar style wheel covers aka mud slingers, for about 20 years.
They are used to keep mud from packing inside the rims causing them to go out of ballance.
Can't argue the aerodynamics spun alum wheel discs have been used on land speed record cars since at least the 50's... whats old is new again!


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## Slott V (Feb 3, 2005)

Montoya1 said:


> Very nice. How did you do it? I mentioned in another thread inserting interchangeable color-coded rings in the wheels to do away with lane stickers and this looks like it could be adapted.


Your idea is cool Montoya but I don't know if you've ever raced at an event. You have very little time between heats and fussing with those little wheels discs instead of preparing your car for the next heat could get hairy.


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## Montoya1 (May 14, 2004)

Slott V said:


> Your idea is cool Montoya but I don't know if you've ever raced at an event. You have very little time between heats and fussing with those little wheels discs instead of preparing your car for the next heat could get hairy.


At our club I'm the guy on race control! So if I have time to do it I think the others can...


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## BKracer (Sep 25, 2005)

great idea!!i'll be puttin those on my 43/rd scale F1s now!it reminds me of those covers on the porsche 956/962 racers.


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## Montoya1 (May 14, 2004)

BKracer said:


> great idea!!i'll be puttin those on my 43/rd scale F1s now!it reminds me of those covers on the porsche 956/962 racers.


Yeah, I loved those. By comparison the Ferrari F1 ones look shoddy.


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## AfxToo (Aug 29, 2003)

Ho hum. So what's the big deal about hub caps? My wife's minivan has them. You can get them for golf carts. Now if those F1 guys would start showing up with spinners like these on their wheels, even I WOULD be impressed. http://www.buggiesunlimited.com/Merchant2/merchant.mvc?Screen=PROD&Product_Code=WHCUNV9073

What's next, a fur steering wheel cover like this? http://sewing.about.com/library/weekly/aa031401a.htm 

C'mon F1 teams, if you're looking for a way to build interest in your sport, try pimping your ride with style. Fire the geeks and hire some creative customizers. 

---

As far as using colored hub caps for lane marking, changing hub caps between lanes would be hilarious to watch. The little colored ringy dingys would be flying all over the place and the racers would be swearing and chaos would ensue. Unless you're into watching, or taking part in, that kind of comical mayhem I'd stick with the big blob of colored tape or sticker. If you think some marshalers are color blind when there's a 1" x 1" hunk of tape on the topside of your body, wait and see what happens with the wheel rings.


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## Montoya1 (May 14, 2004)

Thanks for the advice but I think I'll look into it some more anyway. Must just be a UK thing but everything is calm between heats and there is time to tune the cars without the extra 'work' involved here causing any ill effect.



AfxToo said:


> If you think some marshalers are color blind when there's a 1" x 1" hunk of tape on the topside of your body, wait and see what happens with the wheel rings.


Give me the benefit of your experience, what does happen??


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## AfxToo (Aug 29, 2003)

We run 2 minute qualifiers with 1 minute between lanes. In the mains it's typically 5 or 4 minute heats with 2 minutes between lanes. In enduro formats it's one hour per heat with one minute for lane changes. In that 1 or 2 minutes you have to: 

1) Disconnect your controller from the current lane drivers station.
2) Move to the next lane drivers station. This may involve walking around the entire track table if you're going from red to yellow.
3) Hook up to the next lane drivers station.
4) Locate your car on the track.
5) Clean your tires and/or shoes (optional)
6) Change your lane sticker. 
7) Put your car in the next lane.
8) Go to the drivers station and prepare for the start. If you have a fancy controller you'll probably want to dial it in for that lane. These few extra seconds are also a very good time to double check that you hooked your controller up correctly. 

All of these times are strictly enforced when running under national rules. When running with TrakMate the computer sets the pace to the millisecond. The track power comes on when the timer ticks down whether you are ready to go or not. The lane change time does not leave much time for fumbling with tiny parts on the car. Add to this the fact that your adrenaline is pumping and you are primarily thinking about your strategy for the next lane. Like Slott V said, it's a hectic minute or two already and adding anything tedious would be a challenge. Trust me, every racer has at one time or another screwed up one or more of the steps I listed above. I have the charred remains of a couple of Parma resistors to prove it.

On the marshaling front, on average I see at least one car carefully placed in the wrong lane by a marshaler every race night. They're rushing to get the cars back in the lane and weird things happen. I've done it. If you want to seriously increase your chances of marshaling errors: 

1) Paint a nice pretty red, white, blue, or yellow stripe right down the middle of your car's body.
2) Put a petite little sticker on your car that hides as little of your fancy paint job as possible.
3) Use an off color sticker. Purple ain't blue. Tan ain't yellow.
4) Use a sticker that falls off very easily.
5) Use a very neat and perfectly aligned sticker on your car that makes the sticker look like a color detailing feature.


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## Manning (Mar 2, 2004)

Semi related anecdote...... Wheel "dots" were popular with the oval racing RC car crowd in the early '90's. Most tracks banned them, or enstated penalties when they came off of one car and stuck to another car's tires......


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## 1976Cordoba (Sep 20, 2000)

Montoya1 said:


> Very nice. How did you do it?


 Wow -- this turned into a lively thread.

I did it by:
1 -- Reverse-mounting a set of BSRT double-flanged hubs
2 -- Holding the car over a 9-volt battery with my left hand while holding a silver Sharper marker to the wheel edge with my right hand
3 -- Adding three red dots around the wheel center to mimic the 'BBS' insignia

How's that for F1 tech in three easy steps? :lol:

'doba


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## noddaz (Aug 6, 1999)

*That's beautiful...*



1976Cordoba said:


> Wow -- this turned into a lively thread.
> 
> I did it by:
> 1 -- Reverse-mounting a set of BSRT double-flanged hubs
> ...


But why didn't you turn the front wheels around?

And another thing...
I think that I will change some wheels around just so my car looks "different"...
And I will claim 2 tenths improvement per lap....:jest:


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## 1976Cordoba (Sep 20, 2000)

noddaz said:


> But why didn't you turn the front wheels around?


 The 1:1 car didn't have them on the front either 










Although I thought I'd give the red wheels a try on mine!

'doba


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## Montoya1 (May 14, 2004)

AfxToo said:


> In that 1 or 2 minutes you have to:
> 
> 1) Disconnect your controller from the current lane drivers station.
> 2) Move to the next lane drivers station. This may involve walking around the entire track table if you're going from red to yellow.
> ...


I'll concede the guys may, at first, struggle with seeing the smaller markings - although no one has actually tried them - but I have no worries on the time aspect. The UK system is pretty relaxed and the four drivers who have just been up vacate and four different ones come up. These guys will have been prepping their cars during the proceeding race and the remainder will have been marshalling.

The whole day rotates like this so a driver will have 15 minutes or so to get all his jobs done including fitting two ID rings...

dw


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## oldraceral (Dec 1, 2005)

AfxToo said:


> On the marshaling front, on average I see at least one car carefully placed in the wrong lane by a marshaler every race night. They're rushing to get the cars back in the lane and weird things happen. I've done it. If you want to seriously increase your chances of marshaling errors:
> 
> 1) Paint a nice pretty red, white, blue, or yellow stripe right down the middle of your car's body.
> 2) Put a petite little sticker on your car that hides as little of your fancy paint job as possible.
> ...


One of the funniest marshalling nights we had was when a racer showed up with a very nicely done M+M's NASCAR scheme. He was put in the wrong lane at least 4 times that night. They just couldn't tell the lane markers from the paint job. That was the last night he raced that body.


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## AfxToo (Aug 29, 2003)

I've committed a couple of those "bad marshaling enablers" myself, mostly in the paint and "too subtle" category. I do recall a box stock race where an open wheel F1 car, a yellow Tyco from the Jordon "Hornet" series, had a lane marker sticker cut into a nice little pointed triangle so it fit very neatly on the pointy part of the nose. All of the marshalers would pick it up, frantically stare at it trying to figure out what color lane it should go into, and finally the driver would shout the color. Yellow lane was especially bad.

And I also recall marshaling a silver car with a blue painted stripe down the middle of it. I marshaled it into the blue lane two or three times in a row and kept wondering why the driver wasn't taking it a little easier, but instead blasting into the esses and coming right off again. Doh! 

I now use colored electrical tab as a marker, with a little folded over piece to serve as a tab, and I always place it on the car askew so it doesn't look good. Keep it big, ugly, and obvious and your chances of being marshaled incorrectly will go down. Poka Yoke principles applied to slot car marshaling.

The lane changes sound very leisurely in the UK. As hectic as things sound over here in the colonies, getting through all of the qualifying heats and mains in a single class still takes 2-4 hours. I can't see us slowing the pace down too much if we want to get more classes in or to get everyone home early enough on a weeknight.


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## Montoya1 (May 14, 2004)

AfxToo said:


> ....on a weeknight.


That is the key phrase. UK races take place on weekends and last all day.

dw


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