Slot Cars? Go them? Show them!

[Steven Vaccaro]

Its a small world I met my second fe boat guy from the OSE forum on the Slot Car Illustrated Forum today. I'm wondering if any more of you guys have tracks?

[ED66677]

I bought two Carrera Go! set (1/43 Formula 1 and Spiderman) to my daughter for christmas last year, these are small but pretty fast and not too expensive for the Carrera quality, plus they are funny with loops and bank/stall curves, bridges... the Formula 1 is really fast!
The two sets together represent something like 10 meters of track, still need to fix them on a large wood table!!!

[Tech Head]

Hey Steven,

Used to race group 12 and group 20 "Wing" cars.

1/24th scale piano wire and brass plate chassis, balanced armatures, ball bearings on the motor and rear wheels, special winds etc:

G&D Model Raceway at Parramatta, Sydney. 3 tracks, 8 lanes each 1975.

The koford chassis in the second picture is responsible for a 1.5 second lap on 155 foot, five turn track. That's almost 70Mph, true speed! "Average".

The first picture shows two, 1962 Scalextric "Listers", found them in one of our council cleanups!

Love the slot's!

Cheers, Brett.

[Ocean Racer]

that is amazing a 70 mph average

[Tech Head]

Have you watched an open class 1/24th scale Wing car running?
Well now that is something to see!

Ever seen 8 of them doing the same speed & racing each other?

That's Priceless!

Regards, Brett.

[A32Limited]

Those are my slot cars. The Mustang was my racer, the Skyline was a WIP. The mustang, I forget the motor it has, but it's a high RPM one, it's got the Scalextric racing tires, and an extra magnet. On the track I used to race at (place closed down, sadly) the owner of the track got it to run just under 5 seconds per lap.

[Tech Head]

Nice cars, Real nice track.

Is that your track or is it a hire car track?

[A32Limited]

Nice cars, Real nice track.

Is that your track or is it a hire car track?

I wish it were my track...it was at a place called Toy Tech, here in Bellevue, WA. He's closed down now, but I still have all the cars and my Professor Motors controller.

Oh yeah, and the F1, was actually my fastest car, and Ron (the owner) started to build up his F1s the way mine was, because it's actually rather fun now. It handles great. All I did was a medium thickness nose magnet, and stickier rear tires.

[Tech Head]

Hornsby Slot Cars. Sydney, Australia

8 Lanes, 147 foot of track, 8 cars doing up to 120Kph/70Mph.

PRICELESS!

See the picture.

Cheers, Brett.

[Basstronics]

Used to race @ North Coast Performance Hobbies.

www.ncphobbies.com

I mainly raced 1:32 scale Sprint Cars. I used to make and sell jig bent pieces as RAW Racing.

On OWH...

Was going to race last winter but nobody wanted to play. Seems that "hobby" has taken a serious turn for the worse...

I had an all new Spritn Car chassis designed and ready for production. Ditched the project a I could only loose money on each unit. No interest and nobody seems to have $$$.

[Grimracer]

Slot car racing is how I got my nickname.. Grimracer.. Its also the reason I refuse to race anything for money.

I use to race for Ron Herschman and under the Fast Ones name.

Box Stock 15 was my main squeeze.. i was also pres. of the north central USRA for a short time.

Truth is i started hating the people.. always yelling. always bitching.. At the ranks I did this the people were very hard to put up with.. I bailed out and cut my losses after about 6 years of racing.

I have raced every type of hobby toy you can think of.. Table top pulling included but racing 1/24 scale slot cars was the most expensive type of racing I have every done. 1/8 scale on road was close.. but not quite..

I still have a nice collection of HO stuff.. 4 lane track laying around here too.. but.. it will likely never get used..

Keep in the slot..

Grimracer

[Tech Head]

Hey Michael,

Do you have any pics of the HO cars?

Cheers, Brett.

[Basstronics]

Yes it is amazing how much money you can invest into slot cars.

People start out thinking its a cheap way to race.

Then you start adding up your 'slow' cars that run $50-70 race ready. Then about 3 motors per car... lol

Now lets not even talk about the Open Gr 7's... I got a motor off a national racer to use for drag racing...

Sounded like a welder going down the track, lolz.

[Steven Vaccaro]

This is our Family's track. The table is 10' x 6' in size and made out of hollow core doors. Strong, but light. When its done it "should" be hoisted up and down by a 110v winch. I haven't got that far yet. The track itself is a Carrera Digital 132 System. For you guys that are not into slot cars, the digital stuff is a ton of fun. It has electronics lap counting with many stats of track times. The "fuel" can be programmed so at some point you will start to slow down and need a pit stop to "fuel" up. Ghost cars can be set to make more traffic to have to race around. And upto 6 drivers can play at the same time. The Mobil tower is actually the infrared pickup for the wireless controls. Its a great winter hobby while things are frozen around here.

[Tech Head]

Looks like there would be some close racing on that track.

2 lanes and 6 cars running, priceless fun! Bet they go real fast too.

How does the fantom car work?

Cheers, Brett.

[Steven Vaccaro]

Racing 6 cars is a crash fest. I like 3 racing three cars and maybe one ghost car. With the ghost car you program a set speed, than it travels around the track at that speed, randomly switching lanes.

[Basstronics]

Ahhh into the plastic "slot cars" which is a different beast that what Grim & I are talking about.

In comparison that fastest plastic slot car would be slower that any of our "slow" slot cars (cheetah powered).

Heres a quick vid I found. Its of Grp 12 cars, which are way slower than a 24 or 7...

Be surprised:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck9cJuM34e4

I guess this is a vid of Grp 7's Looks to bein slow motion... :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XPU3...eature=related

[Steven Vaccaro]

Ahhh into the plastic "slot cars" which is a different beast that what Grim & I are talking about.

In comparison that fastest plastic slot car would be slower that any of our "slow" slot cars (cheetah powered).

Heres a quick vid I found. Its of Grp 12 cars, which are way slower than a 24 or 7...

Be surprised:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ck9cJuM34e4

I guess this is a vid of Grp 7's Looks to bein slow motion... :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XPU3...eature=related

Ya, I'm not into the race stuff. Although I enjoy watching the high speed cars. I really enjoy the scale apperance to the toy stuff. We have our ralley car race nights, than our street car race nights. And sometimes mix in the go karts. They are still plenty fast for the small track we race on. Plus they can be drifted like real cars.

[Tech Head]

See post #3.

Love all slots, each type have there merits and are totally different experiences.
Though i totaly enjoyed myself racing my group12 Koford.

There is another slot car track opening in Sydney soon. It's called King Raceway, at Farfeild.

Cheers, Brett.

[racer66]

I too was into slot cars back in the late 90's. I think this is when slot cars really picked up, big boom in the industry then. Started with HO. There was a MAX Trax in Oxford MA owned by a great guy named Bob. He had a large collection of T Jets and AFX cars.

Then I found another place to race in Cambridge MA, Catfish Speedway. Great guys there. Real serious HO racers. These guys liked speed! They raced mod Tomy cars and super strong magnets in them. These little cars screamed!

My interests went to 1/24 which I really miss. I found a great 1/24 track in Manchester NH, Queencity Spreed Way run by a awsome guy named Matt K. Here I ran group 16 motors on Champion chassis. Did real well with them, I loved to build these cars! Also did 1/32 IRL cars, man these were sweet slot cars. Also did 1/32 with $5.00 motors, if mod right they would scream!

I had a Huddy tire turner, Huddy comm lathe, Ruddock DR 40 controller and a Difalco. I spen lots of time building chassis. Painting bodies was fun.

There were tracks in NY, Maine, and Conn. Also a track in Ashland, MA. The owner there was great too!

I did not enjoy racing at all. Seems these guys take it way too serious, like Grimm said. Unplesant to race with, these guys were rude and loved to yell at you. I lasted 3 years and did 4x's a week, bad addiction! I do not have any cars, as I sold them.

Only wish I could go back to the 1960's when this was born, a great hobby.

[NitroVal]

Holy thread resurrection, Batman!!

[NativePaul]

No idea if it is fast or not but while looking at basstronics links I found This one with good camera work so you can actually see the car.

I admire the speed but like Steve I'd rather have 4 wheels on my wagon.

[AlanN]

Got alot of old HO and some scale electrix and fly cars. Too many to count right now. Many were from my older brothers and neighbors collection. There are some pretty vintage rides there. When the wife and I first bought our house I set up (2) 4'x8' tables and setup a 4 lane HO track. The back straight was pretty much 13-14 ft and each lane had it's own power supply. We would run 5 laps per lane. If you wrecked you were out. 4x per type of car and add up the points. One point for 1st 2 points for second and so on. The least points was the circuit winner. Maybe if I get the chance to post some pics I will.

[damfurst]

All I had to start with a figure 8 two lane track that was battery powered made by Aurora. That was the late 60's and a few xmas's and birthdays expanded a little with pieces of track and a few cars and even a transformer. I think I still have a batman car Thunderjet car. When I was in High School I ran into an older student who said he wanted to sell all his track and cars and stuff that he had. I looked at it and asked him how much and he said $45. I had $43 with and he said that was enough. There were 3 cardboard boxes of track, 6 transformers, 30-40 cars in various states of repair, controllers of all descriptions, etc.. I was a regular customer of Autoworld and HO center of the world. I still have all of this stuff along with a few other newer cars, but I sadly have not done much with them over the years. Maybe they'll get used with grandchildren when not running boats with grandpa down on the creek.

[BHChieftain]

Here's my outdoor setup-- it is Carerra track, built into a 6'x12' table which I cover with a tarp-- it is waterproof. Been running great for the past 7 years. The elevated corner is trying to simulate the Corkscrew at Laguna Seca (about 1.5hrs from my house).

-Chief

[bigwaveohs]

Jim,
That's awesome...Chris can't wait to see it (hint, hint)
P

[bwells]

Tech head post #9 reminds me of my slot car days, mid 60's and a very large track. Pay 1 buck for an hour of time and plug your controller in and run. Pitman motors were the choice and Castor Oil on the rears was the trick!

[Ken Haines]

This is my small 1/32nd home track.
Just thought I would share the pics when I saw this thread.
Ken

[Ken Haines]

Anyone else have any interesting tracks ?