World Land Speed Record for Britain!

I don't get that. You've left out the punchline.

The world record for an electric car is 983.88mph. FACT!

http://www.wonderlandmodels.co.../article/scalextric/

I loved it when Lord Drayson raced his cool Lola/Judd in the American Le Mans Series. My wife and I miss seeing his team compete. As a privateer team they sure had a lot of heart and enthusiasm.

Imagine this said in the Peter Sellars' Cleuseau voice!

ATB from George

When I was a kid, scale model racing was huge!  There was a racing center not far from my home, and for at least one long summer, it was how I spent all of my lawn mowing money.

Simpler times I suppose. Today, if it is isn't on a computer screen, seems like kids just aren't interested...

Congrats to Lord Drayson -- this is quite an achievement!

Hook

In the early 70s, my best friend and his dad built an indoor slot racing track in their basement. My friend and I had built our own car chassis, soldering up carefully shaped copper plates, tubes, then adding exotic brushes, electric motors and racing slicks from mail order catalogues... Our cars were about equivalent in performance, until I surreptitiously treated my racing slicks with oil of wintergreen. My buddy couldn't believe it as the car whipped around the first bend, glued to the track.

Thanks Hook for stirring up the memories.

Over here, Hydro-Quebec's research institute has a team dedicated to developing and refining technologies for electric cars. Their latest patented invention is a system for recharging an electric car in 5 minutes...

Jan

Hi Jan -

Too funny!! I do remember that the more serious older kids and adults used a "secret sauce" for traction, and that it smelled kind of funny. They usually kept it in a small unmarked jam jar, and used a small flat brush to paint their slicks. I only found out years later that it was actually a product from the 1920's called "Marvel Mystery Oil". 

A quick google just showed me that one of MMO's ingredients is... oil of wintergreen! 

ATB.

Hook

PS - Wanna race? 

Inspector clouseau walks into the hotel,proprietor and a yapping dog at the desk;

Inspector clouseau; 'does your dog bite?'

Proprietor; 'no' (dog bites)

Inspector clouseau; 'i thought you said your dog dosn't bite'

Proprietor; 'that's not my dog'

Sorry Tony for hijacking your thread

Seriously, now!

http://inhabitat.com/ev-racers...ging/scalextric_usa/

Oil of wintergreen, was the traction goop. We had a ban on all traction additives  just a sandtex finish. Many visiting teams wer well pissed off when we made them change to virgin spongies.

It was also really funny to see a quote "this is a really fast" Scalextric car on a 100 foot self build track and see just how little top speed they had.

I would love to, but Minneapolis is a little far, and I'm not sure that oil of wintergreen could match the local traction :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fFVT_CtL62M

(and amongst other excuses, I now apply my soldering skills to speaker crossovers... in fact the pair of speakers I built are at the top of their class (it's a class of one).. it's all about building brand exclusivity .

But thanks for the invitation,

Jan

BTW, oil of wintergreen contains methyl salicylate, a mild form of aspirin. I used to give it to my racing buddy to help relieve the pain.

J-E - in the same family as aspirin, but not so much a "form" of it.  And yes, you are correct, it would have analgesic properties!

Quite right ; thanks Doc.

Back to the OP, when we bought our last car (2003), we had hoped the next one would be electric. Ten years after, you'd think it was about time. I'd love to change the world and buy electric, and I'm going to try. Perhaps one of these days... before I'm over the hill.

Watt?

Youth of today?

My 5 year old daughter insisted on digging out the Simpsons scalextric (mini, used to be 'powertrack' when I was young) and assembling it herself so that we could race at the weekend. 

Great fun.

Drayson Racing Technologies is based in Kiddlington, a northern suburb of Oxford. 

Ironically last year,  with great trumpet blowing ballyhoo, Oxford was pronounced the “Electric car Capital of Europe”

The city council was heralded as paving the way for the future of motoring by installing charging points around the city giving Oxford more charging stations per head of population than anywhere else in Europe.

In conjunction with this, the Oxford Mini (BMW) factory launched their e-car & Nissan made a big splash together with Hertz with a new vehicle-sharing club starting with 10 Nissan Leaf electric cars for city use.

Yesterday the press & local TV/Radio news announced the plans have stalled & the battery-powered car revolution has gone flat (pun intended) 

Council leaders say charging points are not being used & the high price of electric vehicles is to blame.  It’s bought into question the public car parking spaces reserved for charging points not being used,  this is especially galling to the public when the already limited number of normal parking places are full.  Its also questioning the lost revenue of cost vs income on the charging equipment & the loss of parking revenue on these charging stations.    And finally the car-share club has failed to materialise.

Sad irony considering the Drayson Racing achievements. 

I didn't think Oxford allowed cars anywhere near the city centre. It certainly feels that way driving in.

You can drive in the centre but discouraged from staying for any length of time with very high parking charges.

It cost me over £30.00 for a 24 hr stay. . Plus the tip I gave the homeless guy for showing me how to use the ticket machine.

Although to be fair the traffic wardens are the excellent. Very, very lenient.

Its only the 4 streets that join at Carfax cross roads.  

The High, Aldates & Queens are bus/taxi/services only,  Cornmarket is ped only.

A great relief for us locals, all we have to avoid now is the busloads of tourists & the marauding cross channel kids on school trips.  

Oxford as it is - the way it looks, the history & the multitude of listed buildings - will never be visitor friendly.  There's why us yokels dirsun' go there.

We used to have team meets at the Telephone exchange , 'twas easiest to meet in a P&R.