Lasse's slotpage

What's New

1998

• 30 December
  This year is almost over now. The last update for 1998 is done thanks to Jan Andersson and Stefan Törnfeldt who have put together a list over World Champions in G7 since slotracing started to exist. Take a look at it here.
  Do you remember Barry Magee that used to race slotracing and who had worked for Formula 1 teams?
  He used to find things out and develop all sides of slotracing. Since the early 80:ies he hasn't raced much.
  I use to get Christmas Cards from him and this year was something special. He had put together a CD with Christmas Card, photos of himself and also, his music. It was really great.
  I wish you all a Happy New Year.

• 22 December
  Santa Claus will visit my home within a few days and bring fast motors and good luck, I hope, unless something happens.
  In the beginning of this month I went down to Partille, outside Gothenburg and raced Saloon Series, G-27 and G-7.
  On Friday morning, before I went down there I was wise enough to put on winter tires on my car most people do that already in November.
  It was totally unnecessary to do that. The weather was fine, the first two hours that is. Then it started to snow and snow and I was happy that I had changed tires. The snow continued for the whole weekend and that snow together with wind made most parts of south Sweden horrible to be driving in.
  They even at one point closed one town so no one could go in our out from there and they used the Army and their vehicles to be able to visit old people etc. Trains were cancelled due to the snow and if Per Persson and his gang came home on Monday, or Tuesday or.. I don't know.
  On Sunday when I drove home it took me almost 8 hours to do 450 Km even that I passed a large amount of vehicles sometimes doing close to twice the speed they had.
  Normally it takes about 4,5 hour. It was so slippery that the wheels were spinning when I was in 5:th gear and my car was sliding every time I meet a truck or the wind was hard.
  It was terrible and so were the races as well for me. Since I had a cold, that extra strain put me to bed the following Monday and Tuesday.
  I hope to get some results from the race.
  Have a merry new Christmas and a Happy New Year

• 23 November
  Last weekend I raced slot drag racing, you can see more about the results here. It didn't work out as well as I had hoped but I do understand why. I need more practise.
  This weekend I went to the west coast of Sweden, to Stenungsund, and raced in the Special Saloon Series. Results from that race will follow soon, thanks to Jan Andersson. Who won the race? I can say that it wasn't Jan Ekman this time, for once. More will follow.
  For you technical insterested people (or computer freaks), I can tell you that I am using my new hardware now. Abit BH6 motherboard and a Celeron 300A processor, overclocked to 450 MHz, tuned with new magnets, gold dust brushes, well balanced you know.

• 13 November
  Tomorrow, Saturday, I will try my best at Scale Drag Racing. A couple of classes will be run. One of them is new, Super Parma/Edge. You have to use a Parma Edge chassie, front wheels and pinion/gear. Motor has to be C-can, armature is free and you can modify the chassie as much as you like.
  I will use one of my motors from the G-7 Worlds for Wing-cars and I have taken away about 18% weight from the chassie so far, but I guess, you can take away as much as 50% if you enjoy a few hours with you Dremel.
  Bye the way, the Worlds I mentioned above were the 1982 Worlds in Uden, Holland, were Paul Pfeiffer dominated. I competed there, my first race abroad, and finished 17:th. Just outside the semis.

• 18 October
  Since last summer I have had some images on my site but I haven´t had any, easy to find, link. Now there is one here.
  For all Finnish surfers with "inside" information, your favourite page is now updated.
  

• 6 October
  So, now this year European Championship has been raced and we all sit with a lot of motors and other things to take apart and clean. There are also all these questions about, what did the winner use, what should I do and why did I do the things I did.
  About the race. Our trip from Sweden worked fine. We did a stop at Conrads in Dresden and bought some unnecessary stuff, found a MacDonald and saw some female hitch-hikers, or whatever, close to the border on the Czech-side.
  Our stay in Plzen was good despite bad weather. Our hotel was good except that I had a room towards the street and across that street was a house and in that house lived gipsies. I didn´t know what that meant but now I know.
  Craaaazy shouting, car horns and other thing starting after midnight. I told the hotell owners about it and they just laughed and said gipsy, crazy people.
  You can read more about the race here
  On our way home something happened, as usual. This time the exhaust system broke down 18 hours from home. Mikael Landrud, the car owner, took a look and said that it´s nothing to worry about. Just try to switch the motor of when we pass police cars and so. They, custom people, gave us a lot of remarks on our way home.
  Next year the G-27 and G-7 sprint races will be run in Seinäjoki, Finland and that will be one week earlier than usual, I guess that means 24-26 September:
  The team race in G-27 will be raced in Plzen, preliminary the 19-20 June.
  All these dates are preliminary
  
• 28 September
  Almost midnight and I just finished packing my slot-stuff before the trip to the Czech Republic, I haven´t packed my clothes yet.
  I just, thanks to Jan Andersson, got some results from a racing serie on the west coast of Sweden, a production Grp.12 flexi type of class, if I am not wrong informed. Here is the results so far.

• 24 September
  Soon it´s time to travel to the Czech Republic. From Sweden there will be 7 people and from Finland even more. Add that to all Czechs that will start on homefield plus all the usual people and I beleive it will be a really strong startfield.
  About my job situation. It´s seems that I will have a work to go to a in a few weeks after the race. More about that then.
  From Sweden we will travel in two cars. Stefan Törnfeldt and Jan Andersson will go through Denmark and Germany, taking the long, but faster way. The rest of us, Mikael Silén, Mikael Landrud, Anders Gustafson and Lasse Åberg will go by night ferry from Sweden to Rostock in Germany and then through Berlin and old "east" Germany. On the way back from the race, however, we will also use the longer but maybe faster route.
  
  Do anyone of you know about any hotells 1-2 hours north of Nürnberg along A7?

• 16 September
  New opening days and hours for scale drag racing.
  Kimmo mailed me the results from the race in Vaasa,Finland.
   

• 10 September
  I heard the rumor and now I saw it, I guess it's true. What you may think. Well, old Outisight is now part of the Hersman Enterprises.
  Since I started slotracing in the 70ies Outisight has been around making bodies in California. Now it's over and moved I guess.
  If you take a look at Fastones you will se the Outisight logo.

• 3 September
  This weekend the Finnish guys races in Vaasa. I hope to get the results from that race.
  The scale dragstrip in Stockholm is open on Mondays and Thursday evenings. Used to be Tuesday. I will come back when I know more about opening hours.
   
• 25 August
  I added a link to the World & European Championship results for scale cars 1998 in Riga , Latvia. (thank you Thorkild Hjorth).
   
• 24 August
  I have done some changes to the layout. The reason is that I used to add all new information at the top so You would find new race report etc.  before You would find old things, right.
  Since I had some features like race calendars that I added in the list a long time ago, those things came further and further down the list. I will continue to put new things at the top but things like race calendar and other things that gets updated will be in the index list.
  If you want to go to The Czech Republic for the European Championship G-27 and G-7 here is a link to their invitation.

• 10 August
  Well, this summer is over before it even started. The only burn I got get is from my Ungar unless I can find a ozon-hole.
  I came back to work just to find out that the owners of the company, for which I have worked 9 years, have sent in a petition in bankruptcy. I have never, in my whole life, needed to search for a work since I have always been lucky knowing people that know someone etc.. Now I need to start to write a C.V. and look through job adds.
  Maybe I will get more time over for slotracing :-)
  Updates on this site is in the Swedish race calendar and to the Swedish Champions list.
   
• 30 June
  Just a few days left to work and then I will be off for holiday. No more work, no more slotracing, no more.., well, some slotracing.
  Besides thinking about cleaning all stuff after the Worlds, I will try not to think to much about slotracing this summer.

  Today I received the invitation from Plzen in the Czech Republic. They will make a Warm-Up race for the European Championship that they will host later this year. I can't go there I have already planned what to do that weekend but I will of course go to the European Championships and so will, I hope, a lot of other fellow countrymen. The is on Saturday 18 and Sunday 19 of July.
  Have a nice summer.
   

• 14 June
  Well, I am back from the Worlds in the U.S.A. Most of the things worked fine except for flying with Air France. All of my suspicions about France and French people seem to stay, I will not say if they are negative or bad. Even before Air France went on strike they were not good. Luckily, we were in the U.S. went the strike were on and Air France personnel stationed at O'Hare have probably picked up some good things from their staying there so even that it took an hour or so to find other air lines to fly with they did a super job. If it had been in France we would probably still been sitting at the airport eating frogs.
  We came home thanks to Kuwait Air to Amsterdam and KLM to Stockholm.
  Due to the strike and the extra work we had to do we couldn't do all that we wanted which included visit Kofords one extra time and some other things.
  Even now, being home a few days I haven't yet recovered from jet lag. I went to bed at 8 on friday evening and woke up thanks to the phone at 11 the next day. On Sunday morning, thanks to the phone I woke up at 12, but went to sleep again?!!
  That means, as you guess, that I haven't yet unpacked all stuff.

  Our staying in the U.S. was nice. We found time to make a visit to Jerry Kulich's Raceworld on the Friday we arrived and paid a visit to Koford and tried their track on Saturday before we went up to Fond du Lac. On Sunday we went to Milwaukee and watched the IndyCar race (I know it's not called IndyCar nowadays).
  From then on we shopped, practiced and raced.
  For the Swedish racers, you may read more about the race in the next issue of Slotracing.
  The track was one of the fastest I ever have driven on, if not the fastest. Before we went there we had heard, from several sources, that the track was under powered and difficult to drive. Even the organizer called this a drivers track.
  Looking at it I must say it didn't look fast but it didn't look extremely difficult either.
  It wasn't anything I was used to. Finding traction out from the turns at the same time I had good speed in the turns was something I struggled from day one.

  From now on and until late August or early September I won't do any racing at all. so it will be pretty quiet here unless I get some results from other races
   
   

• 26 May
  I have updated the page with some results from RL-Nats in Mönsterås. I do not have access to all results. If ill get them I will update the page with the G-15, G-7 WU and G-27.

• 7 May
  I am busy know preparing for RL Nats and for the Worlds in Fond du Lac. In my hand i have two invitations to races which I don't have any time to attend. In Partille Jan Ekman is organizing a scale race, could have been fun and in Uden, Holland they race this years European Championship in Teamrace G-27. I haven't raced teamraces for a long time and it seems it wont be this year it will happened.
   
• 20 April
  Today Monday I received the official results from the Saturday race in Falköping. I have been racing for 24 years now but I cannot remember any club or organizer that has been so good in sending results so fast after the race. I haven't figured out any scale or points system for organizers but they are sure worth 5 guide flags. Good job by the Falkemyr brothers.
   
• 19 April
  I went to Falköping yesterday. To be there when practice started I had to leave home at 4 o'clock in the morning and came back home just before midnight. Since I am not that happy to leave bed before 10 on weekends it took a few hours until I was fully awake. Fortunately there isn't that much traffic on a Saturday morning.
  The race format with only 2 minute heats in the semis and main gave some close racing where you couldn't relax.
  In the second race Jan Ekman took the lead followed by me but he fell off once and then I had the lead until the fifth heat when I hit a car that just fell out in front of me. I did fall off once more, this time all by myself. Jan Ekman won and have slipped once and I came home second and have fallen off twice. The distance was less than half a lap between us.
  I have been racing for 24 years now and started with wing cars. Now to adapt to non-wing racing takes some time but gives some extra sensation in that type of close racing that it can give.
  A downside, however, is the motors. We are using 16-D motors and there reliability isn't that great. We have seen armatures where the wires are neither soldered to the comm. nor the insulation are taken off. Commutators that spin round the axle isn't uncommon either.
  This year the 16-D will be used, for next year they may be replaced.
   
   
• 6 April
  There isn't much racing news to talk about. The race in Mönsterås at the end of March was canceled due to a lack of interest maybe because of to many races in March. The second round, 3:rd and 4:th races of the Saloon Series will be held in Falköping 18 April.
  What we can talk about is the Elmia Custom Motor Show this easter. Elmia in Jönköping, Sweden, hosts a motor show and there will be a scale dragrace track with racing during the whole fair.
  The track will be in the Nordic Pro Street 200+ square meter stand. Wow.
  I believe the track will be equipped with the Zenzor-system which will give you a lot of results.
  People will be racing there when the motor show is open. Do you have a car? Take it there and race it. (positive voltage on the right side on the car).
   
   
• 18 March
  We, Stefan Törnfeldt, Janne Andersson and me have talked about making some lists of championships and we have started with Swedish Champions. It's not ready yet but I hope that a few of You could help out with the parts that's missing on this list.
   
• 16 March
  I got some corrected results from the Special Saloon race. Jan Ekman and Mikael Landrud hadn't the correct points and that is corrected. I also got some results from Serie Väst from Mullsjö and the total results after the first two round in that series thanks to Gunnar Åmell in Mullsjö..
  I have paid my airfare now for the trip to the Worlds in Wisconsin, U.S.A. so there can be now excuses now for not going there.
  Some people have asked me about the track in Stockholm, when it will ready etc. The story is that the track stands there but we would like to have it approx. 30 cm higher from the floor so before we do anything else we need to add about 55*2 legs to the track. After that is done we will sand the track and repaint it. Somewhere after that I will be able to do more work by myself on the track, wiring it, connecting laptimer and so on.
  We will also at that time move the batteries to the final position and connect them to the track.
  If you have looked at the racing schedule you will know that there are races in Mönsterås and the end of Mars (will be added), RL-Nats in May and then the Worlds in June. Between these bigger races there will be other local races, Serie Väst and of course, the Special Saloon series.
  Do not forget about the M.R.T.U 1000 race in Uden at the 27-29:th of March

• 8 March
  Just came home from Finland after racing in their Finnish Championship.
  I went to the race with the objects to try some new things that I had made. Some things worked good and other also worked good, but to no use. What happened was that I lost  magnets in two good motors and in one of them, being a quad, I lost three magnets and the only one left was the lower rear magnet, the one you always solder at, hmm. So in the end I missed the main.
  Instead I became a mechanic to Kimmo and since I am not that used to be a mechanic in the main, I normally race there, I felt a little uneasy first. But after changing a few motors I really enjoyed it and, don't laugh, if I would stop racing I could actually consider to help someone at races.
  Normally when I go to Finland and travel by ferry but this time I didn't have time to do that so a took a flight instead.
  Isn't it a nice feeling to go to a race far away and then be home just a few hours after the race is over. Since there is a time-zone between Finland and Sweden I could move my watch one hour back and by that the flight took only 10 minutes.
  I got good food, beer and a whisky so the noise from the plane, it was a small Saab 340, didn't bother me.
  You can read about the race here.
   
• 4 March
  The first and second round of the Special Saloon Series was run in Mullsjö, close to Jönköping in Sweden.
  I was quite interesting since no one knew which sort of motors, tires, bodies, gear-ratios etc. to race with and everything was seen.
  Race one was won with a Opel Calibra and race two with a Ferrari F50 (Saloon!?)
  28 racers turned up which was a big but nice surprise to the organizers who probably expected something less than that.
  The next round will probably be raced in Mönsterås at the end of Mars together with a G-27 and G-7 race.
   
• 26 February
  I received the results today from GO-69 and Partille MRC's 6-hour G-12 Production race. The race was won by the fabulous "Sven Uslings Trio" team. You can read the results here.
  The coming weekend Mullsjö will run the 1:st and 2:nd round of the Special Saloon series. It hasn't been any non wing class series run in Sweden in the last 20-25 years so there are hopes that this serie will make a good base to stand on for both newcomers and the more professional racers.
   
• 18 February
  I did talk today with Jocke Spångberg and he confirmed that he will organize a scale-dragrace on Saturday 28:th of February in Bromma, Stockholm. The address is Ranhammarsvägen 20.
  (En parallellgata till vägen som går vid Bromma flygplats. Det är ett gult hus och uppgång D2 gäller. Det finns folk där från 9-tiden och kval och race startar vid 12-tiden).
   
• 16 February
  The results from 1/32 Nats in Stenungsund was posted on Saturday nights evening after a lovely dinner with some nice red wine.
  On Sunday we raced at Partille's King-Track. The 6-hour race hosted by GO69 and Partille MRC had 12 starting teams. That meant that the race was run with round-robin system.
  The winners were Sven Uslings Trio, followed by Rodellpojkarna and Stures Pojkar.
  Who they are, the teams and the rest of the teams, laps and other results will follow pretty soon.
  When I were in Orlando, I guess it must have been in February 1990 or 1991 Gary Puetz were pretty good in qualifying and had been that for some time but his race results didn't always match up to his abilities in the qualifying.
  I haven't been in the States since then and I haven't followed the races or racers that closely so it came as a nice surprise when I heard that Gary Puetz had, at a USRA race in Texas, set a new world record with 1011 laps in the main.
   
   
• 12 February
  I'll be off to Gothenburg during the weekend visiting the Ekman family  and do some racing on Saturday in Stenungsund with scale cars and on Sunday in Partille with Production G-12 cars, a 6-hours teamrace.
  I haven't prepared anything for the scale race and I will only enter in one of the four classes, 1/32 Production with the same cars I have used for the last two years.
  In Sunday's 6-hour race I have build a car around the Champion Turbo-Flex chassi and I also have one of the Parma Flexi2 chassis.
  At the end I expect I will race one of Ekman's cars since I will team up with him and the Partille track is, or will be his hometrack and a therefore his cars would be better than mine.

  It is confirmed that it will be a scale dragrace in Bromma, Stockholm at the end of this month. I will talk with the organizer in the beginning of next week for further details.
   

• 8 February
  I have added some information about scale dragracing and where the track is located and when it's opened (in Swedish).
  Our slotracing track is located at the same place.
  Today and yesterday we were there and worked on the slotracing track, fixing and gluing braid. I think that we have found cables to connect the batteries to the track but what we need is cables for wiring under the track. How much we need we do not know yet but the cable area should be something around 6 mm2. A nice battery charger would not be bad to have. All possible favours, sponsors and/or discounts are interesting. Any idéas, please mail me.
   
• 6 February
  Last Saturday the Jerzees Open, scale dragracing was run. Results and a race report will be here soon.
  Koford Engineering has a new 1998 catalogue on the web.
  The work on the new (well the old Eskilstuna) track will restart now since we all have some time off from building cars for scale dragracing. It might, however, be interrupted on my part if I decide to go to the Gothenburg area and race scale cars in Stenungsund on the 11:th of Feb. and GO-69's 6-hour race in Partille the day after. Info can be found in the race calendar.

• 27 January
  I believe there will be a scale dragrace in Ulvsunda, Stockholm at the 28:th of February but I haven't got that confirmed yet.
  Asker ?000 in Akser, Norway and the Finnish championship, SM, in Seinäjoki, Finland, will take place the 7-8:th of Feb.
  Micke Silén, Anders Bengtsson and Mikael Landrud will attend the race in Norway as they have for many years now and of course the other Swedes living in the west part of Sweden will also go to Asker.
  Kimmo Rautama is the defending champion. Let's see how he can handle "newboy" Sauli Hjerppe, running Camen stuff!
  For those that haven't been in Seinäjoki should know that they have a sauna just a few meters from "muunki", the donut. It's really nice to go there after the race is over in the evening.
   
• 24 January
  A race calendar, mainly for Sweden, in Swedish,  is added. For those who want to read the U.S.R.A rules now has a link for that.
  I should have worked on my slot-stuff but, since we have Jerzees Open, a drag race, I took a look at those things and just finished building myself a Street, or maybe SuperStreet chassi. I put it on my scale and saw it was underweight for Street and lighter than my SuperStreet car which runs in a non weight limited class.
  Last week I also finished building a Koford aluminum Funny Car. It looks good, was easy to build and light. Now comes the tricky part which is to learn how to gear, glue and adjust the car since I don't have any experience of any similar car
   
• 18 January
  Swedish rules for skala dragracing (slot dragracing) is now on Lasse's SlotPage.
  I didn't have access to the original files so I had to scan the rule book and run it through OCR to get some text.
  As far as I have seen I was able to get the text as it should be.
  I have heard that there are changes for the Parma/Edge class concerning bodies. A soon as they are ready they will be posted here so keep your eyes open and check this site often.
  31:th of January there will be the Jerzees Open run on the half strip. Invitation, classed etc. can be found on this site.
   
   
• 6 January
  I added some information text in the beginning for two reasons.
  • 1. To tell what there is and will be on the pages and
    2. To make it easier to find the pages with AltaVista and other search engines.
• 5 January
  The old Eskilstuna track that was moved to Stockholm during December last year is now in place and is worked on. The track did not fit the room so it had to be changed. We had to move around the turns and straights so the bank isn't any more where it used to be and there is now two (2) straights under the bridge!
  The track length is also increased.
  Pictures will, probably follow soon.

  There will be a Parma Edge drag-race on the 10:th of January so the work on the slot track will be a little low during that period. That race will be run without the computerized timing system from Nitroz, Nordic Pro Street Cup system.

  At the end of January there will be the Jerzees Open. A drag-race at the Bilsports swop meet in Stockholm.
  Classes: B/Stock, Street, Super Street, Parma/Edge and Funny Car.

  Information from past races can be found at Nitroz home page for slot dragracing  Nitroz .
   

Send any comments to
Lasse
1998 Lasse Åberg