What defines a Bull Ring.

There has been a huge amount of discussion locally offline about what exactly should define a small oval track as a bullring. Obviously opinions will vary, some people who are space-challenged may object to their track having such a reference. One only has to consider the history or racing, especially dirt racing, in this country to understand.

Many of this countries early race tracks were actually horse racing tracks. As such most were a mile to a mile and an eighth in length. In the 1920's cars began racing on wooden banked tracks (board track) that were built for speed. After a decade of horrific accidents and destructive fires the tracks lost favor in the early 1930's. Around 1930 as the car industry began building race specific cars the tracks shrank to a half mile or less in many instances. This also allowed the spectators a better continually view of the racing action. These tracks were often built inside the horse tracks at fairgrounds sites.

In the 1950's dirt tracks were typically a quarter mile, a third mile or a half mile. Most pavement tracks were a half mile to a mile. The Bull Ring track began emerging where lack of space (or money) required a smaller track. Fresno's Kearney Bowl was an example of the type of Bull Ring that existed from the late 1930's through the mid 1960's. As a kid I sat in the wooden bleachers and watched some of the greatest names in motor sports race there. The track is long gone but the heritage of that bull ring remains.

If you use the 1/64th scale measure of length a mile is 82.5' in HO scale. That means, conversely that a half mile would be 41.25', a quarter mile 20.62' and a fifth mile would be 16.5'. Most tracks built on an 8' long board would be between a fifth and quarter mile. Shorten the board, shorten the track, bring in the bulls. Sequoia Speedway has a single lap length measured in lane 4 of 10.5', which makes it about a 1/10th mile in true scale. That's just over 500' per lap, a go kart track in the real world. But in the HO slot car world it's a good length for a bull ring track.

Figuring scale speeds are easy for these track. First you really need to know what your lap length is, and I suggest measuring the length around at the outside lane. Take that length and divide a mile, or 5,280, by that length. As with our example we got 1/10th mile. Next take your lap time, let's say 1.5 seconds to use a nice round number. Multiply that by the number of laps needed to make a mile, here it would be 10, so we get a figure of 15 seconds for each mile (average). Now we need to know the average speed, so we take the number of seconds in an hour (3,600) and divide it by your average lap time (of 15 seconds) and come up with 240 MPH (average). This formula will work to figure any scale speed regardless of scale or track distance.

In my opinion a Bull Ring can be defined by a track being 1/4 mile (scale) or less. This means basically a 4'X8' layout or smaller. I think 1/10th mile would definitely qualify, even as small as 1/15th mile would still be fine. There are midget tracks in this area that are just 560' in length per lap. We have the benefit in slot cars to interpret scale as we wish, so let's do so.

Hi Mr. Champion!

I'm a virtual friend of Pete's out in the Houston, Texas area. I've heard a lot about you, your racing and your shop.

I really enjoyed this post as the only racing I could appreciate when I was growing up was watching the drag racers at Houston International or the local track just North of Galveston that we could here racing from my home that I grew up in that was about 15-20 miles away. LOL! Pete and I have talked about the old San Antonio track he used to go to and I'm amazed that place existed over there. But these places sound like such a GREAT venue and I'd love to see them come back to the 1:1 world.

Regarding bull rings, I told Pete the other day that I kind of setup one, two-lane on my 6' folding table to get some laps in on my cars (which hadn't been done in a while). When I first got back into slots about 4-5 years ago I started up with 1/32 (mainly because the local shop was only 1/32 racing). I bought a Scalextric Sport T2 track and my daughter and I raced a bull ring setup for a long time. Very fun, especially when she always had the inside lane and had started learning how to side swipe her old dad to knock me off. LOL! Since then I got into HO because we were told that the local shop was going to build a track...that never happened....but the great thing is that I fell in love again with my childhood racing of HO. Most recently, I've been enjoying a little 1/43 too and switch back and forth between 1/43 and HO bull ring setups on my 6' table.

So, with a 6' table, I must be down to like 1/18 of a mile in scale. LOL! Way less than 500 feet. More like bicycle/BMX track, huh? Eh, its fun regardless and since I work from home or out of a home office, while I'm on those long conference calls where I don't have much to say or input, I'll find myself many times running laps on the tracks. hehehehe

The only thing funner than a track setup to look like a 1:1 track is a bull ring!

PD2

Welcome Paul, and thanks for posting.

I really do want to stress that Bullrings can be in any scale. I love the 1/43rd cars, they are a great "gap filler" between those liking HO's size but still wanting some detail like their 1/32nd cars. I believe John Mears has a 4 lane 1/43rd scale track as well as his HO track, we used to race two years ago on his little 4X8 1/43rd oval, and it was indeed a bullring. John and I built Oswego style super mod bodies out of the Formula cars and had a nice field of about 6 cars at one time.

On a 6' table you'd probably be down to 1/10th mile, like Sequoia Speedway is. I walked off a 528' per lap oval in my undeveloped lot next to the shop for an R/C track and got an idea of how big we're talking about. Really it is a matter of scale, if you want to say your track is 1/76th you will be marginally larger in scale, and in true HO (1/87th) even larger.

With a stock pancake motor car they top out in just over 6' on 12 volts, that is their terminal velocity (vT) distance. More voltage = more speed and more vT distance. Figuring that you still are carrying about 25% of your speed coming out of the corner you can reduce your vT by the same factor, meaning you reach vT 4.5' now instead of 6'. The better your car handles the more percentage of your speed you can carry, and the faster you reach your vT down a straight. If you have three 15" straights on a short oval track racing stock XT's or TJ's on 12 volts then you are getting the best result from your racing.

Remember that when the Model Motoring sets came out, they were 12 volts. The pancake stock armatures built today are built to those same specs. Sure you can run 18, 20.5 and 21 volts through them, but remember what a double shot of nitrous would do to a stock engines bottom end with that sort of instant on power. XT's are not built for that sort of power, no matter what anyone else will tell you.

There are a few tricks that will allow you to carry more momentum speed, and once we start racing the Outlaw cars this may I'll be talking about weight transfer and aero loading those big wings we'll have.

At Sequoia at least you can figure you can carry as much as 50% of your vT as momentum speed because of the banking. If it was banked with the 45 degree Tomy banks it would be close to 90%. With a stock, new out of the box X-Traction that is hooking up it winds out just as you get to the corners. On the flat Mosqueda Speedway they wind out about 2/3rds of the way down the straights on 12 volts and are still accellerating with the 18 volt wall packs sometimes used. On my banked track using the old Tyco Pro 20.8 volt, 4.9 vA packs it takes an entire 8' straight with a lot of wheel spin.

You are correct, Mr. Champion, I've got three 15" straights done my setup so at 12V vT on the T-Jet and X-tractions are already there! Cool! That makes sense though, considering I can pretty much hold down the trigger through the straights and just blip through the first corner and then get back on it without must sliding and definitely no deslotting.

I actually have a Model Motoring/Aurora 1963 Corvette (picked it up to match the one's in the garage) and you are right - at 12V it seems to be OK, although I smell a little electronics or dust burn off when I run it. When it runs on the track any higher, it seems to get a bit too hot after only a few laps, so yes, I've chosen to keep it at 12V or less.

I really like the 12V setting on the AFX tri-power pack and doubt I'll go back to the standard wall wart that comes with the Tomy AFX track. I was thinking about getting another one and trying it out with my 1/43 and 1/32 cars to see how it behaves on the 1/32 track. I was really hoping that the tri-power pack would slow and settle down the SRT and Turbo cars from Tomy AFX, but the only thing it appears to do is make them lightning fast but without deslotting. That fun every now and then, but I kind of enjoy the 12V running.

Yoshi, that's interesting about carrying the speed more as you bank the curves. I don't think I have anything temporary I could use to create the banking on my track, but that really sounds like an interesting experiement for me to do later.

PD2

PD what you're smelling is probably a little Ozone, the same thing you get when you have an old style distributor on a car and it's carbon fouled. With some of the older cars and the high carbon motor brushes during warm up you can get an incredible smoke show. Once they get that out of the way they run like every other car. What I'd suggest is a simple switch to a new compound of brushes and take a clean eraser to remove any fouling from the commutator. I have a dremel polishing kit and that is part of my race prep, to polish my comms.

With banking you get to sustain yout vT to a certain point, but the Tomy banks are 45 degrees and you actually loose speed through them because of the increased downforce. Plus you have to have a really good car to hold those bankings at loer speeds. We use a rolling start, it's going to be interesting with pancake cars at low speed on those banks. I'd say 50% is a conservative figure at Sequoia, it might be a little higher with a car that was hooking up, we'll have to throw a stopwatch on that someday.

Interesting - polishing comms must be the equivalent of cutting a comm on the R/C electric motors. Wonder if any of the juice drops I used to use would work on the comm's too?

Oh, so you will loose some vT through a 45 degree banked curve? Interesting - I thought some of it would carry you through due to the momentum and force going in about the same direction as the banking. All I know is that back when I did a lot of racing on the 1/32 road course we had, banking would totally change the game for the racers that were fast - seemed to throw them off their game, but there were some that it improved it. I just chaulked this up to different people not knowing how to use the banking to their advantage - kind of like using a berm in R/C offroad racing.

Good stuff Mr Champion and Yoshi! Really enjoying this discussion and learning alot!

PD2

I had a hard time wrapping my head around that one too Paul, but John showed me that the additional down force pulls the armature down harder into the brushes causing extra drag, and the momentary G increase also slows it by fractions of a second. We're talking about maybe a few hundredths over a turn that would be banked, say, 30 degrees.

As far a comm drops are concerned I use Trinity Revtech Drops on my pancake cars only. They only last a dozen laps at the most but in shorter heats they come in handy. I started polishing my comms too but I don't use the high speed of a dremel, I use the facing tool that RT-HO sells and I get about the same results using toothpaste and parchment paper.

Mr. Champion wrote:
There are a few tricks that will allow you to carry more momentum speed, and once we start racing the Outlaw cars this may I'll be talking about weight transfer and aero loading those big wings we'll have.

My dad used to tell stories about an HO Scale wind tunnel Pete built to test body design and wing design. I saw a picture of it once, it was a clear square tube with a motor and a propeller on one end and holes in the sides where the car sat. The motor was set up on a light dimmer so the speed could be varied. Dad would say you could always tell when there was testing because the garage smelled like incense, Pete used that to trail smoke over his test subjects. I don't know if it ever amounted to much but on race day at Pan Am if you smelled incense you have to go look at his cars to see what was new. I've seen a couple of the wings that Mr. Champion, Yoshi and Pete are doing and wish I understood aerodynamics a bit more. I may have to buy my wings instead of building my own.

Pete McKay wrote:I had a hard time wrapping my head around that one too Paul, but John showed me that the additional down force pulls the armature down harder into the brushes causing extra drag, and the momentary G increase also slows it by fractions of a second. We're talking about maybe a few hundredths over a turn that would be banked, say, 30 degrees.

As far a comm drops are concerned I use Trinity Revtech Drops on my pancake cars only. They only last a dozen laps at the most but in shorter heats they come in handy. I started polishing my comms too but I don't use the high speed of a dremel, I use the facing tool that RT-HO sells and I get about the same results using toothpaste and parchment paper.

Wow! Now that's interesting bro! Yeah, you are right, it's hard wrapping your head about it, but, then again, Mr. Champion has a point with the comms place that extra drag on the brushes - that's funny you say that because back when I raced R/C I'd try to line up my motor so that my brushes where not up and down, but instead, parallel with the ground so that they "cut" evenly or as evenly as possible. Totally forgot about that.

Thanks for the tips on the tools - I'll have to check that stuff out for maintenance and up keep on the cars.

PD2

JHicks67 wrote:

Mr. Champion wrote:
There are a few tricks that will allow you to carry more momentum speed, and once we start racing the Outlaw cars this may I'll be talking about weight transfer and aero loading those big wings we'll have.

My dad used to tell stories about an HO Scale wind tunnel Pete built to test body design and wing design. I saw a picture of it once, it was a clear square tube with a motor and a propeller on one end and holes in the sides where the car sat. The motor was set up on a light dimmer so the speed could be varied. Dad would say you could always tell when there was testing because the garage smelled like incense, Pete used that to trail smoke over his test subjects. I don't know if it ever amounted to much but on race day at Pan Am if you smelled incense you have to go look at his cars to see what was new. I've seen a couple of the wings that Mr. Champion, Yoshi and Pete are doing and wish I understood aerodynamics a bit more. I may have to buy my wings instead of building my own.

Hi JHicks!

Some how that does not surprise me about Pete! Of course, you know he could have been using the incense to cover up whatever he was smoking to create some of his creations! LOL!! Just kiddin Petey! I've only seen a few winged wonders that Pete came up with - these guys are gonna have to do some pic posting now....got my curiosity up now!

PD2

From the old CCRA rulebook, dated September 1987:

"Wing sets are to be constructed from 0.007 to 0.010 styrene plastic only. No top wing may have any part that would be wider than the rear track of the car it is mounted on. No front wing may be wider than the inside edges of the front wheels."

"Top wing flat panels are to be 1" to 1 1/8th" in span, at least 1 1/8th" but no more than 1 1/4th" in chord. Panels must be flat, no articulations or Gurney bills permitted."

"Top wing side boards must be no less than 3/8th" and no taller than 5/8" tall, and no more than 1/8th" longer to the front and rear of the flat panel. Suggestion is that the side boards be offset as with real sprint car wings to use maximum aerodynamic benefits in the corners."

"Side boards may be braced for strength and durability. Bracing material must be plastic and have a maximum diameter of 1/32". No more than 4 braces may be placed on the outside of the sideboard, no more than 4 braces may be used to brace the side board to the plat panel. Any bracing is optional, you may have outside side board bracing and no side board to flat panel bracing, or vice versa."

"Top wings may not have any part that extends beyond the edge of the rear tires. They must be mounted at all times and be held in place by two side tape, velcro or glue."

"Front wings are to be 1/2" to 5/8th" chord with a span from 1/2" to 3/4" maximum. Front wing side boards are to be of the same chord as the wing with a maximum height of 1/4th". Side boards may also be offset. Flat panels may not be bent of have articulations"

"Front wing must be mounted in such a way as to have the center line of the wing (span wise) line up with the front axle of the chassis if possible, nor may the front edge of the wing may not extend in front of the body."

And here's the kicker...

"It is at the promoters discretion to disallow any wing that he may feel violates the letter, or the spirit, of any regulation regarding wing design, construction or attachment with due notice to the driver, and to either provide for or permit the driver to adjust the objectionable subject into compliance."

There were more rules governing just the wings than there were for any other part of the car because of the "creativity" that erupted in the 1986 season. We had true "billboard" wings that had huge 2 1/2" side boards and bi-wing flat panels, we had ribs, vortex generators and even one guy who shall remain nameless figured out to build the wing very heavy on the left side and light on the right side to get weight transfer into the mix. It was crazy. I even designed and built a body buck that was aerodynamically offset, that was the first thing to get outlawed after I won 6 A Mains in a row with it. It wasn't the body....it was the zapped Magna-Traction magnets, but since I didn't sell that body to anyone else they banned it. I took the magnets out when I changed the body, it was 15 years later that someone finally figured it out.

Those were the days.

I added up all of the fractions and by my calculation the width of the top wing is 1.387" with the side board braces using the maximum allowed measurments, assuming it's perfectly squared. With a 1.312" max limit you're 0.065' over width. Best to stick to a max span of 1" for any new rules.

That's a bit insane on the rules! GEEZ! You guys really provoked someone to go to those lengths! HAHAHAHA!!! We had to do some similar things like that in 1/32 when we started having guys redrill wheels and lighten axles and things like that to make "un-noticeable" changes just to get the slight advantage. Needless to say, the constant tech checks and claiming drove those guys off, but the rules remain in case anyone else pops up and is smokin the field.

PD2

Now there is just a diagram and a parts description. Much simpler.

I agree! A picture is worth a thousand words....Mungo like to look at picture book.

PD2

:::Points at Pete:::

Mongo. Heh.

Yoshi wrote::::Points at Pete:::

Mongo. Heh.

LOL! Now that just aint right! Funny....but aint right. LOL!!

PD2

OK, we've been running the standard 1" square flat panel wings for almost a week now, and last night some of us got our new bodies. Testing today was mixed.

My car has the top wing mounted extremely forward on the cage and the nose wing mounted extremely aft on the nose. I'm running 0.016" of rear tire stagger and I clocked a 2.41 seconds on clean hard tires.

Pete's car, an older MT (mine is a newer XT) has an identical wing set, same placement on those wings and a 0.019" stagger and runs in the 2.33 second range. Pete's car is heavier, has spun aluminum wheels and a new 440X2 right rear tire. But it gets off the corner so much faster and gets in deeper into the corners because of the lower CG weight.

Jim's car was running a respectible 2.52 seconds with no stagger but he's still working on it. Sarah car has yet to be built.

The Bakersfield Outlaws just got their bodies today so it will be next weekend before any testing happens up here. The word is that Mr. Champion has already built a Sequoia Speedway clone in B-town and will be doing testing down there.

26 days to the first race.

Ah yes, leave it to Pete to push the clock and squeeze out more. I kind of like the MT chassis better than the XT's, even though they almost look the same. So what's the dealio with the 440X2 tires? What compound are they made of that one rear tire would make that much of a difference?

Oh, and what's the deal with not getting Sarah's car going Yoshi? Geez man! The Honeymoon is over, eh? LOL! Just kidding bro - just messing with ya!

Sounds like you guys are about to have a great series in less than a month! Very sweet!

PD2

Paul remember the older Tyco 440X2 tires that had the raised ridge down the middle? We call those "humpers", that raised rubber surface for some reason always was stickier than the rest of the tire. Once you true them up and removed that ridge the entire surface of that tire gets sticky. It's still a "hard tire" by rule, but it is about as much traction as a silicone. Unfortunately you can't get these tires after market anymore and my supplies are drying up. I also learned a trick from some 1/32nd scale oval guys about tire truing; they true at an angle, the inside of the tire is only slightly higher than the outside so in the corners it lays down on the entire tire surface better. Sort of built in caster angle.

I have the old AJ's aluminum wheels on my car, double flanged on the back, single flanged on the front. I can't find these wheels anywhere anymore and I have two cars with them. John Mears is supposed to start making them in September with a titanium axle set but he's selling pre-orders for $25. I don't have that sort of scratch just now. But the weight of those wheels down low keeps the car settled in the lane. That, and an original steel G-Plus guide pin.

I also have just a touch more pitch in my wing, pictures posted tomorrow will show you what I'm talking about.

I really don't think aero makes much difference, we're hitting maybe 3 mph heading into the corners. I'm not a physicist but 3 mph pressing down on 1 square inch angled at about 10 degrees doesn't amount to squat. I mean, if you consider THAT a principal, decals make it go faster because it smooths out the surface of the car.

With pancake cars there are just so many vairables that contirbute to speed and handling. Pete's car has been boiled, the chassis has been planed (bottom sanded to ride lower), had those low GC aluminum wheels and a very fresh motor. That and who knows how many laps he's run at Sequoia. Thousands maybe.

What matters is race day. 25 days until the tale is told.

Ah yeah! Yoshi talkin smack and callin out Pete! Gotta love that! LOL!

Pete, I actually have some of the older Tyco cars from when I was kid, so yes, I know what you are talking about with the raised ridge. Mine are a bit dried up, litterally, but I sanded them and those cars still drive - amazingly, but they are still operational!

I've actually heard about the oval racers in 1/24 doing what you describe with the angle sanding on the tires. Never thought about it working in HO too.

Yoshi, I'd almost agree with you, but, it must be a scale thing. When I raced a lot of 1/32 cars, the IRL/F1 cars handled completely different once they lost their rear wing. Now, you would think that it should make a squat of difference like you say, but it did have an impact. I'd jus assume that the HO scale is no different. For that matter, try it out - run some laps without the wings and then run them with them setup and see what difference in times, deslotting, etc. you come up with. It might be psychological, but I honestly think it will make an impact.

PD2

Having watched both Pete and John Champion run for a while I know what both of them do is about 80% psychological. Standing between them is like touching a Tesla Coil, your hair stands on end and you really don't know if letting go will cause you to be electrocuted. Pete's deal with crashing in qualifying at the Clash Championship still comes to mind.

Yoshi on the other hand is a quiet racer, doesn't say much at trackside except the occasional "See ya" when he passes you. Much like Hicks does. But when it comes down to it, like Yoshi said, Sequoia is Pete's track and he has won probably 80% of the races there. We have a bull ring under construction here in Bakersfield that will be part of the next series starting in July. Based on the Lowe's Motor Speedway it is banked at 20 degrees and is textured with the brown Fleck-stone paint. It looks great so far but is a long way from having lapes run on it.

Got my car tonight, black #69 Kreitzer Excavation. The next body will be blue probably since the numbers and lettering are red with white outlines. Need to do some tuning, I was running consistently in the mid 2.40's but it still has a bit of a push. It may be the plastic guide pin though, that thing is really short and it won't take much to deslot.

I only say "See ya" when I pass Pete, which is rarely. Better than the "Opps" he does when he passes me and shows me the wheel. I think those big aluminum wheels help him do that bump and run to where it doesn't completely deslot you but picks your car up just enough that you lose power for a second while he runs off and leaves you. You back off thinking you've just been crashed when all the while you're in your slot and the race is leaving you behind. At least Mr. Champion has the decency to knock you completely out of the slot and halfway to the fence.