Slot.It SICA18B Ford GT-40 #8
One of the most well known and popular race cars from the 1960’s was the Ford GT-40, made very race worthy by Ford’s Program Manager, Carroll Shelby. With Carroll’s leadership of the program, the GT-40 won Le Mans in 1966 (MK-II), 1967 (MK-IV), 1968 (MK-I) and 1969 (MK-I) - four years in a row! Racing rumor has it that Ford put a lot of money in the development of this car to take the Le Mans races away from Ferrari as there were some hard feelings between the two auto giants due to some cancelled plans between them.
Slot.It has produced several models of this famous car. Their latest release is the #8 car that raced at Le Mans in 1968. How did it finish? Well let’s say not too well. It completed 0 laps due to crash on the first lap as it was speeding down the Mulsanne Straight. The driver at the time was Willy Mairesse who suffered career-ending injuries which are said to have led to his subsequent suicide.
The name came from the category the car was designed to compete in, “GT” and the roof height was 40 inches off the ground, so it was dubbed “GT-40”.
Many years ago during one of my first trips to a commercial slot car raceway, I purchased a GT-40 model by Cox. Magnesium frame, Mabuchi 36D motor and the body was molded in a very nice blue color. Many of my friends bought the Chaparral by Cox, but I wanted something different, so I bought the Ford.
As our club grows, we are always looking for new categories of cars to race. Most of us have a lot of experience with racing many commercial slot cars and we find the Slot.It cars handle quite similar to a well set up ‘flexi’ chassis. It’s just a personal like, but since we’re doing the racing, we do it the way we like it. We do monitor the amount of ‘artificial downforce’ and the club’s limit is set at 3X of car weight.
Look really close at the above photos. Notice the new configuration of the sidewinder motor mount? I missed it at first, but once I think about it, I think it’s quite an improvement. The drive side is now on the can end side which removes the side torque from affecting the brushes in the motor. A small thing. I went back and looked at the Alfa T33/3 with the blue body on the Slot.It site. In their release document, the same items are mentioned. When I looked at an Alfa lately, I noted it too had a motor that had the gear mounted on the endbell side. This change also moves the denser mass of the motor to a point closer to the centerline of the chassis.
I decided to pick up one of the Slot.It GT-40’s to setup and run in this category. When I bought the car, I brought it to the track, moved the magnet from the pocket in front of the motor to the rear most pocket and put a set of Slot.It S1 tires on the rear. When I weighed the car, it totaled out at 62.7 grams. If you take a look at the Slot.It tech sheet:
http://slot.it/immagini/Models_indice/Classic/GT40_I/sk_ca18b_UK.pdf
The ‘features’ of this car are listed:
One of the club members has the ‘Gulf’ GT-40 and the #8 Ford GT-40 is 2 grams lighter. I think Slot.It has accomplished their goal of making their latest cars just a bit lighter.
After the weigh in, I set the ‘artificial downforce so that when the car is put on to the Magnet Marshal, the total weight is about 240 grams. Once I got this set, I used some CA glue to make sure it does not move. Once the glue dried, I put the car on the track, verified the voltage was set to “Slot.It Specs” and started becoming familiar with this car.
Our club track has a set of ‘esses’ on the short chute coming off the bridge. With the short wheelbase of his car, it literally flies through this section. I’m thinking that is due to the layout of this chassis, it is very quick through this section.
From the very beginning of the test session, the car felt fast. At our club, we use TrackMate as our timing system. The sounds that indicate a lap are the defaults of ‘beep’ for a lap, ‘buzz’ for a personal best and what I call ‘pachyderm phlatuence’ for fastest lap run during the session. As the number of laps kept increasing, I kept hearing the later of the 3 sounds coming through the sound system. That told me that this was one very fast car. I kept running laps until no matter how hard I tried; I could not get the signal of fastest lap any more. When I checked the “fastest lap” time on the monitor, I saw it was at a 4.405 second lap. This was the fastest Slot.It Classic car I have ever had right out of the box. It is a keeper without a doubt!
I do believe this is a view that many of the racers in the Classic group at our club will see a lot of.
The front wheel / tire is simply a thing of beauty. I remember that my 1966 Barracuda Formula “S” car came through with a set of Goodyear Blue Streak tires. Back then Uniroyal had their “Tiger Paws” which had a red stripe on them. I know there were others, but I don’t remember them.
The helmet worn by the driver even appears to be ‘period correct’. I don’t remember anyone wearing a full face type helmet back then. Many of the drivers did wear a bandana over their nose and mouth as the sealing on the cockpit was not something other then rudimentary – that is it kept out large gravel and small animals. If I get ambitious, I might make that modification to the driver.
My opinion on this car is that with the new ‘dark orange’ endbell motor, the EVO6 chassis, the lighter weight body and the other improvements made my Maurizio and his development group have made this one of the fastest cars in the Slot.It “Classic” category. I do believe it’s a ‘keeper’.
-Marty