The Electric Dream Team is pleased to announce that we will be supporting the LeMay America’s Car Museum Miniature TransAm Challenge, to be held October 18-19, 2013, with a contingency award program in both classes of competition. 

Our contingency program is open to anyone competing in the event.  It does not require a car or parts purchase from ED but does require the car being raced to carry Electric Dreams logo and URL decals as specified below.  Participants are eligible for the following awards in either or both classes (Stock and Modified):

$10.00 for 3rd place.

$20.00 for 2nd place

$30.00 for 1st place

To qualify for the program, cars may not carry logos, URLs or any other text or graphics referring in any way to any other retail slot car dealer.

When any event-eligible car is purchased during the program period the decals will be shipped free of charge with it.  If you have already purchased your event-eligible car during the program period you can request a sheet of decals and we will mail you one free of charge.  Event entrants who have not purchased an event-eligible car from us may purchase a decal sheet on the Electric Dreams web site for $1.99 including shipping (within the US). The decal sheets include enough decals for more than one car so you can do a car for each of the two classes from one sheet.  We also expect to continue our contingency program at selected future events, and leftover decals can be used for those events.

All mail-in entries must arrive at the event site with our decals already in place on them.  On-site In-person entrants have the option of applying our decals (available on site) to their cars at the event itself before their cars are submitted for tech inspection.  An Electric Dreams representative will be at the event and will be glad to assist if needed in selecting and placing our decals on your car to work around any existing livery while meeting our requirements. Note:  Our decals are peel-and-stick.  You probably don’t want to place them over any waterslide decals on your car if you ever intend to take them off, but they should be fine over tampo-printed graphics.  (Added benefit:  If your car happens to have a boo-boo in the paint you may be able to use one of our decals to cover it up.)

To apply for the program send an e-mail to support@electricdreams.com with the following information :

• Your name, mailing address, and phone number.
• For each car being entered:  Manufacturer, make and color of the car you will be racing in the event (ex:  Pioneer 68 Mustang, red)
• If you have purchased an eligible car from us during the program period:  Your Electric Dreams customer number and the date and Electric Dreams order number on which you purchased your eligible car.
• In the subject line of your e-mail, type: Contingency program for (your name)

It will be helpful to us, though not required, if you will attach a JPEG photo of the car(s) you will be racing in the LeMay event.

Race entrants may sign up for the program anytime up to and including the day of the event prior to submitting the entered car(s) to tech inspection.

All contingency awards earned under this program will be paid out following publication of the official entry list and race results by the event organizers. This should be sometime in the week following the event.  We will pay by crediting the credit card or Paypal account the award winner uses to make purchases from us or a credit card or Paypal account designated by the award winner.

Any car or entrant disqualified or excluded from the event by the event organizers for any reason will also be automatically disqualified from this program.

Electric Dreams reserves the right to reject any application for this program without cause.

Here is a photo showing some possible decal locations:

We require, for the purposes of this contingency award program, that our logo and URL show clearly when your car is photographed from the front or from either side.  Any combination of decal placements that accomplishes this will be satisfactory.  If you are in doubt about the decal arrangement you want to use, just e-mail a photo of your car to support@electricdreams.com and we will let you know whether your scheme meets the requirement.   Our decals can be removed and relocated as long as you don’t do it too many times with the same decals.  We just need them to stay in place for the whole event.  As mentioned above, if you are attending the race in person we can offer you on-site help with decal placement.

If you have any questions or concerns about our program please e-mail them to support@electricdreams.com.

The Electric Dream Team wishes the LeMay Museum and all race participants a fun and successful race weekend.

 

Further Information on the LeMay Museum Event As Provided By the Museum

 Incorporating all updates and clarifications as of August 26, 2013

The LeMay America’s Car Museum Miniature TransAm Challenge, October 18-19,2013

Rules and Additional Event Details

Carrera	66 Mustang convertible (if converted to notchback hardtop)
Carrera	69 Camaro
Carrera	70 Hemi Cuda
Monogram/Revell	66 Barracuda ( also Aurora)
Monogram/Revell	69 Camaro snap kit
Monogram/Revell	70 Mustang snap kit
Monogram/Revell	71 Firebird
Revell	67 Camaro
Revell	67 Cougar
Revell	68 Barracuda
Revell	68 Firebird
Revell	68 Javelin (AMX is NOT allowed)
RMS Resins	63 Falcon
RMS Resins	66 Barracuda
RMS Resins	66 Mustang
RMS Resins	67 Cougar
RMS Resins	68 Barracuda
RMS Resins	68 Firebird
RMS Resins	68 Javelin
RMS Resins	70 Barracuda
RMS Resins	70 Camaro
RMS Resins	70 Challenger
RMS Resins	70 Firebird
SCX	70 Barracuda

1.  The museum’s Slotmods track will not be used for racing, but it will be available during Friday evening open practice as a photo backdrop for entrants wishing to photograph their cars on it.
2. All entrants will receive a pass good for admission to the museum for the entire weekend, including Sunday, so they will have the entire day on Sunday to explore and enjoy the museum.
3. It is the intention of the race organizers to have the racing concluded by the museum’s closing time at 5pm on Saturday, but if necessary the race will run past that time so it can be completed on Saturday.
4. Each entrant will be limited to one car in each class. In case of a very high number of entries, the number of entries accepted for each of the two classes may be limited. All entries will be on a first-come, first-served basis. 
5. Because of time constraints there will be no qualifying. In each of the two class races, each entry will rotate across all 8 racing lanes. Starting lanes will be assigned by a random procedure though race officials may place lookalike cars into the rotation to avoid having more than one on the track at a time as much as possible. Lane rotation scheme TBA.
6. Mail-in (proxy) entries will be accepted for this event. Racing of the mail-in entries will be managed by a local club that will receive cars, provide drivers, and return the cars to their owners. All mail-in cars will be inspected and track- tested before the race to ensure that they have arrived in good condition. The mailing address is TBA. Cars must be received no later than October 12, 2013.
7. All entrants in the modified class will be required to fill out a spec sheet listing the components used in building their cars. This information will be published on the Internet, at an official location to be determined, where it will be available to the general public. The form will be provided on line so mail-in entrants can submit their completed spec sheets with their cars and on-site entrants can fill it out in advance.
8. The two Scalextric Sport tracks for this event will be provided by 132 Slotcar (www.132slotcar.us) and by Lighthouse Christian Center of Puyallup, WA. Our thanks go to these two organizations for their participation in this event.
9. Further information on measurement of magnetic downforce: We will have a digital scale and a Magnet Marshal at the event.  They will be calibrated with each other for accuracy.  Each car will first be weighed on the digital scale to get its actual weight.  Then it will be placed onto the Magnet Marshal to get its weight+downforce reading.  The Magnet Marshal reading minus the scale reading will yield the car’s downforce level.  We are using both a digital scale and a Magnet Marshal because we have found that a Magnet Marshal is not consistent when used as a scale by placing the car on its side on the platform.  A minor shift in the location of the car on the platform can change the weight reading significantly.

 

Additional information about LeMay America’s Car Museum Slot Car Events

The mission of America’s Car Museum, and the passion of everyone involved with it, is to celebrate the automobile and its rich history and lore and pass on the love of cars to the public by making ACM fun for all and a rewarding experience for every museum guest.  ACM is a car museum, not a motorsports museum, but we know that speed and competition have always been a colorful and fascinating part of automotive history and a major driver of technical development in the auto industry, as well as a truly fabulous sport.  The museum’s involvement with slot cars is one of many ways we celebrate cars and car racing.

Every one of our events has one goal: to be fun for our museum guests who watch, for the enthusiasts who participate, and even for the volunteers who put in many hours to develop and run the events.  We really like slot cars because they have a unique way of drawing people of all ages into the fun and excitement.  Our Slotmods track has been a great success, proving itself very popular with our guests, and we can’t wait to see what fun our organized slot car races will create.

The organizers of the ACM slot car racing program have been around slot car racing for decades.  We’ve seen it all and done it all.  Also, some of us have been around full-sized racing for a long time, too. As a result, we are well aware of the tension that exists between racers and rulesmakers.  The rulesmakers want to produce the fairest and most competitive racing possible in addition to controlling factors such as cost and complexity.  At ACM we particularly want to make sure our slot car races are fun, affordable, and accessible for as many slot car hobbyists as possible.  Every aspect of our racing has been developed with that goal in mind.  We want to make it possible for the largest number of people to come to ACM and have fun with their slot cars.  That necessarily requires trying to write a set of rules that gives as many as possible, even relative beginners, some reasonable chance to win or at least finish well. 

Racers, of course, always want to take maximum advantage of what the rules say and don’t say because they all want to win.  That’s the very definition of a racer.  But it can be taken to extremes, especially by a subset of racers who combine a win-at-all costs mindset with a great deal of experience and resources and are determined to find some loophole somewhere in the grey areas of the rules that allows them to use all that to to engineer a decisive but hidden advantage that few, if any competitors can match.  What they are invariably try to do is lead the race organizers to make a decision in ignorance of all its technical ramifications and thereby unknowingly green-light the proverbial “unfair advantage” that, while it may be technically legal, subverts the intent of the rules. 

Now that’s all well and good in, for instance, Formula One, where everybody has vast experience and resources and everybody knows that’s how the game is being played and accepts all the cutthroat maneuvering that follows from it.  But our slot car races are not like that.  Most slot car hobbyists are not interested in going to extremes of cost, time, and rulebook lawyering to win and are actually looking for someplace where they can compete and have fun without having to do all that.  We intend to provide what they want. But we are not going to do it by fighting an endless battle of wits with a small minority of racers.  We’ve tried to do it in the past and found that it quickly becomes a thoroughly miserable experience.

So, here’s how we are going to handle the process of making, clarifying, and enforcing our racing rules.

1.  We have written and published a set of rules that tells racers what they can do and clearly states that anything not specifically permitted is prohibited.  That is, in general, the way the rules for all our events will be written, though this is not to say we will never have a “run what ya brung” class or that the amount of leeway granted for “tuning” will not vary depending upon the desired character of the event.

2.  We think our rules are quite clear enough for most people.  However, we know we don’t always think of everything and there can be points that genuinely do require clarification and errors or omissions that need to be corrected.  When those issues surface we will address them.  As we refine all our procedures from one event to the next there will fewer and fewer of them.

3.  However, we are not going to make decisions blindly.  If we have any doubt about what is really behind an inquiry about a rule we can and will say to the person inquiring, “Tell us in detail what you want to do and we will tell you whether it’s legal.”  We reserve the right to ask for additional information, including photos, if we need to in order to understand the matter fully.

4. At that point the inquirer has choices.  (1) He can give us full information and receive our ruling. We will then publish both the original inquiry, with all information provided, and our reply for the information of all interested parties.  (2) He can decline to provide information and not use his demon tweak, saving it for another time and place.  (3) He can go ahead and try it without seeking a ruling, but if it’s discovered at tech and found to be illegal there will be consequences.  Also, if we do approve a modification and discover at tech that we were not given full and honest information there will be consequences.  We will check.  Racers can seek advantage all they want, but it won’t be hidden advantage. 

The following basic priciples will apply:

1.  We intend for our slot car events to celebrate, in miniature, the history of the automobile, just as our museum exhibits do in life size.  We want the slot cars in our races to look like real race cars and each event to recreate, in some measure, a particular time and place or era in racing history.  We aren’t rivet counters.  We don’t insist that the cars in our events be perfect models of a specific chassis number at a specific race, or anything close to that;  we just want them to look, when running on the track, like a car that could have been entered in the life-sized counterpart to our race.  For that reason we are going to insist that pursuit of on-track performance not compromise the historical character of the cars.

2.  We want entering and competing successfully in our events to be within the reach of as many slot car hobbyists as possible, including those of only moderate skill and resources.  We will not allow anything that has the effect of putting it beyond the reach of all but an experienced and well-equipped few.

3.  If you read the rules and don’t know whether something is legal it probably isn’t.  By all means, ask if you feel the need, but in general assume that if we meant for something to be legal we would have said so.

4.  We will make judgment calls when and as needed to conduct the event.  Not everyone will agree with all of them, but they will be final.  We may review the issue(s) involved afterward and amend the relevant rules for future events, but the calls we make will not be debated or retroactively reversed.

5.  Our rules, once made, will be subject to clarification, but never to debate.  We won’t put up with cheating, politics, or anything else that compromises the character of our events or their enjoyment by participants and museum guests.

6.  We reserve the right to reject any entry without cause. We will use it sparingly but we will use it if we have to when the actions, attitudes or purposes of any individual threaten the successful conduct of any of our events or their enjoyment by others.