When I first started racing (1988) I got help from the experienced people in the group. One of the big concerns at that time was shoe flatness. Everyone had a piece of Tyco track with a hole cut in it. This was to see the underside of the car. You would check how flat your pick-up shoes were to the track. This was before everyone came out with properly bent shoes. I learned how to bend the shoes.
Tire height was another important factor. There were no independent fronts or precision-ground front tires
in .002 increments. The instructions were simple: Take a drill you had at home (I didn’t have one of those
expensive Dremel tools) along with an emery board (appropriated from my wife) and grind your own front
tires.
I would show up every Monday night and have someone check the work I did to prepare for the
race—armature spacing, body-mounting tubes, gears, pick-up shoes, etc. Tire height was the one I couldn’t seem to get correct. Too high, too low, too out of round. This applied to both front and rear tires. The only tool I saw was the test track being used to see how much room was between the Tyco bulkheads and the rail. This governed the tire size i.e. car height. Everybody was switching tires, snapping rear wheel sets in and out, etc. I did what they did but my car still went sideways in the esses. We were racing on Dan Briewick's track at the time. His track was an L track about 78-80 feet long. There was a straightaway going into a set of S’s as I recall. After 6 or so weeks of working on the car, doing everything they said, it was getting very
discouraging to see my car be competitive in speed and not in handling. I would hang with the group and every time my car would go sideways at the esses and they would go through.
Tim Essman to the rescue. A quiet, but very good racer who pitted over in the other corner of the basement asked if he could help or look or something at my car. Sure, everyone else has offered their opinion, so
why not? We went over to his box; he took the Lexan body off my car and pulled this strange-looking semi-circle device from his box. He started to slide the tire through this opening in the semi-circle and turn the handle. “What’s That?” I asked. “It’s a micrometer”. Tim explained the increments of measurement
and how important .002 is to the handling of the car. We marked the car, ran it two laps, and looked
underneath. Too high here, ground of .002, and repeated procedure until we had the car level and just
touching the track. 10-12 minutes later, BINGO! My car now went through the esses like everyone else’s.
Now I had a fighting chance to compete!! Yes, I still needed to learn to drive better, but the car was now
handled through the esses.
Tim Essman was my mentor over the next few years. He is a craftsman and technician extraordinaire! I
learned so much about building and driving slot cars from him. He is a good friend and I wish he were still
racing with us. In the early days of racing, I helped where I could. I made a personal vow to make sure everyone had the information on how to set up his or her cars. I was not the best builder in the group, but I did my best to get people started with a positive experience in HO racing. Guess what is one of the first things I tell new people? (Tire height and how to measure it).
Tire height was another important factor. There were no independent fronts or precision-ground front tires
in .002 increments. The instructions were simple: Take a drill you had at home (I didn’t have one of those
expensive Dremel tools) along with an emery board (appropriated from my wife) and grind your own front
tires.
I would show up every Monday night and have someone check the work I did to prepare for the
race—armature spacing, body-mounting tubes, gears, pick-up shoes, etc. Tire height was the one I couldn’t seem to get correct. Too high, too low, too out of round. This applied to both front and rear tires. The only tool I saw was the test track being used to see how much room was between the Tyco bulkheads and the rail. This governed the tire size i.e. car height. Everybody was switching tires, snapping rear wheel sets in and out, etc. I did what they did but my car still went sideways in the esses. We were racing on Dan Briewick's track at the time. His track was an L track about 78-80 feet long. There was a straightaway going into a set of S’s as I recall. After 6 or so weeks of working on the car, doing everything they said, it was getting very
discouraging to see my car be competitive in speed and not in handling. I would hang with the group and every time my car would go sideways at the esses and they would go through.
Tim Essman to the rescue. A quiet, but very good racer who pitted over in the other corner of the basement asked if he could help or look or something at my car. Sure, everyone else has offered their opinion, so
why not? We went over to his box; he took the Lexan body off my car and pulled this strange-looking semi-circle device from his box. He started to slide the tire through this opening in the semi-circle and turn the handle. “What’s That?” I asked. “It’s a micrometer”. Tim explained the increments of measurement
and how important .002 is to the handling of the car. We marked the car, ran it two laps, and looked
underneath. Too high here, ground of .002, and repeated procedure until we had the car level and just
touching the track. 10-12 minutes later, BINGO! My car now went through the esses like everyone else’s.
Now I had a fighting chance to compete!! Yes, I still needed to learn to drive better, but the car was now
handled through the esses.
Tim Essman was my mentor over the next few years. He is a craftsman and technician extraordinaire! I
learned so much about building and driving slot cars from him. He is a good friend and I wish he were still
racing with us. In the early days of racing, I helped where I could. I made a personal vow to make sure everyone had the information on how to set up his or her cars. I was not the best builder in the group, but I did my best to get people started with a positive experience in HO racing. Guess what is one of the first things I tell new people? (Tire height and how to measure it).
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