Slot Cars vs. F1 Cars

I can see how the skirts work, none of the air flowing over the vehicle is lost because it flows off the side of the model.

Similar effects would be found on an F1 car, cross winds would be very interesting indeed.

I like the front rudder idea however I think it would lead to more side spill of the down force when cornering. More thought is required, I can't tell you how hard this is going to be to JUST think about, and not diagram...

It has been a long time (long before the massive side panels).

The steering in slot cars do not rely on grip of the tires but on a solid follower in a track. The side panels was apparently introduced to prevent the back from breaking away.

To fully test the models should be subjected to cross winds which is not present at a track.

I don't think a F1 would perform better.

As others have said I don't think a full-scale version fitted to a F1 car would work because to make the panels rigid enough to survive cross winds and vehicle turning they would need to be very strong and therefore very heavy.

It's not just about power and aerodynamics, every bit of weight counts and even if the panels were made of carbon fibre (the lightest, strongest material I can think of for this application) I am fairly sure the extra weight would slow the car more then it would help. As for panels made of polycarbonate, forget it (FAR to heavy).

Also be aware that standard slot cars are not aerodynamically equivalent to F1 cars, so what works for them is unlikely to work for F1 cars. Also, in such a multi-million dollar competitive sport like F1 you KNOW someone has already thought of this and tried it on paper or in a wind tunnel (probably not as extreme as the full sized panels being mentioned).

As for the front-mounted rudder, not sure if it would help.

did you know that the barcodes on the Ferrari cars are apparently code for 'Marlboro', one of their sponsors? Some tracks don't allow advertising for tobacco products, so Ferrari fooled them by spelling it out in barcode...

Ahhh advertising, brilliant. Perhaps people would subliminally get the message in barcode format (no wait, that doesn't work either). Why not just legally change the drivers name to "Mr Mobil Marlboro" or something.

Take most of the body off a Can-Am racer (McClaren type), and you have an F1 or FA, (close enough any way).

Some Can-Am sports racers of around 1970 did use an approximation to the shape of what slot racers call a 'wing car'.

Do a Google image search for Ti 22 car and you get more hits on photos of slot cars than of the real thing. But this link gives several views that clearly show built-in side fences augmented by add-ons.

McLaren then used the idea on the 1972 M20

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Please note that the fences on the slot car are intentionally not rigid. The faster the car goes the more they bend out sideways, effectively increasing the area the pressure acts on, and reducing the drag by spilling excess pressure when it is not needed on the straights. That is probably why they are so high.

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My slot-racing friends have been discussing the effectiveness of more conventional aerodynamics on more scale-like slot cars since the 1960s. We have generally concluded that the situation is so different that no comparison with full size cars is relevant. For a start, the vibration levels in the slot car will be relatively huge, so how does that affect the airflow?

Slot car ground clearance is negligible or zero, which might do great things for under-car effects, but then there is a big leaky slot running underneath, and a guide pushing much of the air away from that!

I suspect the primary aerodynamic effect of near scale slot car bodies is to act as a damper on chassis movements.

I am not a theoretical modeler but I took one semester in theroetical modeling such as this at and admit that I was focused on water fluid dynamics (I'm a Hydraulics Engineer). However, I live near NASA Langley Research Center and am friends with several of the Engineers (modelers) there. These guys are the mathamatical whiz guys who are the professional scale modelers working the NASA Wind tunnels.

Something folks do not realize is that changes in scale size have to be accounted for in this type of testing. A reduction in size of the model alters how the molecules of air react around it (you cannot arbitrarily change air moliclues or gravity). Therefore, they often must replace the regular atmospheric 'air' in a wind tunnel test with another gas or mix of gasses that create the appropriate adjustments in the test to give valid results, i.e.: reflecting realistic scale friction and dynamic physical responses such as vortices. Your observation on a 6" long car most likely cannot be applied to a life sized car at the relative speeds that the two cars travel.

Look into "dimentionless numbers" on the web: here is one example website that will help begin to explain the concept of this specialize field of engineering:

http://everything2.com/title/Dimensionless%2520Numbers.

I can only say that you are taking a huge leap in making the direct connection without correcting the impacts for scale. I can pretty much gurantee that if it would make the Formula 1 faster, or handle better, you would most likely see it on the track or the salt flats... it is a fun thought excercise..

Bill H -

Very well said, and very instructional. I have a degree in Math myself, but as I've said before, there is a difference between mathematical and computer calculations, and real world calculations. In the real world, there is no such thing as a 2 by 4, it's always + or - some tiny fraction of an inch. There are too many variables in the real world to rely entirely on math and science. In math, there are actually 'imaginary numbers' such as the square root of -1, that are used for theoretical calculations even though they don't exist. And 'transcendental numbers' like Pi, that are used all the time even though they will never be calculated exactly. By the way, did you know that someone actually recited Pi, from memory, to 22,514 decimal points? 'Brain Man' The point is, mathematics is a necessary and useful tool, but it is not always the best way to solve a problem, and certainly not the cheapest or fastest. When I started building model airplanes, I spent many hours calculating Reynolds numbers, CG, etc. and they are certainly necessary, but many times I could find out what I needed to know by just gluing a piece of balsa wood to my airplane and throwing it off the roof. Burt Rutan did not know, with absolute certainty, that 'Spaceship One' would succeed. He built a bunch of models, studied them as much as he could, and then just did it. The points you make about scaling down the air molecules to match the scale of the model are fascinating - I had no idea they actually adjusted the gases used in wind tunnels to match the scale of the model. In the end, science and math are wonderful, but unfortunately in the real world we have to deal with reality. I would love to put a couple of our slot cars, and my airplane design, in a wind tunnel for 5 minutes to test these ideas, but it seems like there's always another facet of the real world that overrides all others - money.

Daniel Tammet

Kim Peek

Sorry, my link in the post above to Daniel Tammet doesn't work. Here's the correct link, I hope: Daniel Tammet. It's a truly amazing video.

The wings are intended to develop downward force to increase in traction while cornering. Specifically for the slot car, rear traction considering the front is fixed in the track. The speed of the slot car is much less than the speed of a F1 car, so the slot car needs much more surface area to produce measurable down force.

The tradeoff to down force is drag, it requires much horsepower to push a large wing through the air at high speeds. Increasing the wing area will make the F1 car faster in the turns but slower on the straights.

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