How did you get started in Slot Cars

[Dangermouse]

So I was thinking the other day about my slot car journey.

As I was growing up my dad had an old scalextric set which we used to set up around the billiard table. I don't recall the cars much except I think we bought a Polistal F1 car and we had the rather mad light blue sedan which I recall was quick. Trouble was they didn't stay on the track that well and didn't look a lot like real cars. When I was about 11 or 12 I bought a AFX Jackie Stewart Pit Stop Challenge set. (I still have the box and a lot of the cars) This was great and over time I added, trucks, G Plus F1 cars and a P34 - these things really had speed to burn and mostly stayed on the track. Having 3 younger brothers the track kept getting renewed with sets, cars and pieces as one of them showed interest in it even after I had discovered real cars and surfing.

Slot cars largely went on hold as I went to college and started working although I did keep my set. After I got married I started building model railroads and played with N Scale and then ON30 scale trains (still have them as well). I am not sure exactly how but in 2007 my youngest brother who loves RC stuff got me back into slot cars. I think he found some cars on eBay and couldn't get over how detailed they were. We then went looking at the nearest slot car shop and I couldn't believe how great the cars looked and the stayed on the track. (The local shop had a 6 lane Carrera track so magnets were the go). I ended up buying a Carrera GO set because it was close to the AFX I had and a lot less expensive than the 1/32 stuff.

Within a month of buying that I had found a Carrera track set with 4 cars on eBay for $190 and my journey into 1/32 began. These things were great. I won't fess up to how many cars I have now - but it is a few. Cars are a lot cheaper than trains so they often fall into the impulse buying category. I have 1/43, 1/32, 1/28 and 1/24 cars and really enjoy spending time on them. It is a great hobby. I enjoy making up resin kits and repainting and I don't mind racing but really enjoy driving a few cars with some mates the best.

So that is my potted story.

How did you get into slot cars?

cheers
David

[FootScoot]

I never really thought about them until I was about 13-14 and a friend received a K&B Cobra coupe in 1/24 scale. So I went to one of the local commercial raceways, and watched what was going on and I was hooked. The first car I bought was a 1/32 Revell Ferrari 250 GTO from another friend who had no interest in it. That 1/32 was quickly converted to 1/24 scale with a clear Mustang fastback body. I was on my way to fame and no fortune. Then 4-5 years later I was in the Navy and I took a long hiatus from slot racing until about 1995 when I got back into 1/24 road racing, then several years of 1/24 drag racing. Then the tracks closed, and that's when I went to 1/32 and have found myself back where I started. I have no clue as to how many cars I have, but it's in the hundreds. :)

[moparjenny]

I think my dad put a little Tyco controller in my hand as soon as I was born, or something like that.

I pretty much grew up into it, and I remember spending the a ton of time during my childhood at Indoor Motorsports (yes, that one) and attending Slugger's slot car show in Woodbridge, VA, every year.

[Czar]

Back in the early 60's I got a racing set by AC Gilbert as a Christmas present. The track didn't actually have a slot, it was a steel rail that was recessed slightly. The cars (jalopies to fit around the enormous motors) had a magnet on a "tongue" that fit onto the rail. By the middle 60's I had a HO layout on a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood, and I was racing at the local commercial raceway. I built my own 1/24th chassis and rewound and balanced motors for serious racing. I drifted away and came back when I saw a description for Scalextric in a catalog that was randomly delivered. That was sometime back near the turn of the century.

[valie]

I was about 10 when I first “discovered” slotcars, so for my 11th birthday my parents obliged and bought me a battery operated oval with two Formula 1 like blobs for it. From then on I spent many hours, and used up many batteries, on the lounge floor driving, “racing” and watching the cars go round.

When my brother-in-law came around that Christmas, he showed me this “enormous” Scalextric set in his car’s trunk and “allowed” me to set it up and play with it for a while. When I was done, reluctantly, I packed it all up neatly and gave it back to him, when he said “Oh no this one’s for you!”. That’s how I started with the true 1/32 racing.

After an on and off affair with club slot racing, I have now, for the last 2 and a half years, been racing again. I now enjoy racing, because the obsession to win has gone.

[waaytoomuchintothis]

It was a long time ago. In 1962, my folks gave me an Aurora Thunderjet Figure 8 set with a gray Falcon and a red Fairlane in it. We moved all the time, and by 1965, we lived in Canada, the first place we had been where there were long winters and basements- the perfect formula for slot cars! One of the guys at my father's work, an architect, had built an elaborate track in his basement with his brother, and it was amazing. They all ran 1/32 vac bodies, 1930-1943, some with very detailed paint, some just painted one color, and all the chassis were brass, hand crafted, heavy, and completely original. Most of the motors were Pittmans, but there was one huge Kemtron that had come from an HO locomotive.

Later that same year, I went to a commercial track, and I was introduced to Mabuchi motors and Monogram kits, as well as the Aurora K&B kits with those Challenger and Super Challenger motor/drive units. I saved up paper route money (you haven't seen cold until you deliver newspapers at 4am in Ontario when you come from Louisiana bayou), to buy a Monogram Ferrari Spyder kit, then a Cooper Ford, and a Ferrari 250LM over the course of a year and a half. Along the way I bought an MRRC controller with the exotic extra- brakes (a third wire that was connected by a hex nut on the top of the thumb controller)!

Over the years, super fast crap that didn't look anything like cars took over, and it wasn't fun anymore, and we moved again to a place where slot car tracks were far across a huge city from our place, and I retired my slot car stuff. I went off to school and college, and when I looked for my slot car stuff years later, my father had done something with them and they were gone. I still have the controller (I suspect he didn't know what that was), but that's all. I found a Cox 1/24 magnesium chassis in a box years later, but I don't know what could have become of it since.

I continued to read the magazines from time to time, but it wasn't until I retired that I regained my slot car mania. I met Jenny and her Father, Eugene in a parking lot and connected to slot cars again. So, from 2002 to the present, I've been an addict with more time to spend on slot cars than I ever dreamed. HRW is a big part of this happy ending. By the time we moved to this site (we is a funny word there- I should say ...by the time Harry moved us), I had thousands of posts, and that's after years of not being a member, just lurking. I remember when so many of us first joined, and I miss people who have left the hobby for one sad reason or another, even though I never met them in person.

[bkrownd]

In grade school I had a 1974 Tyco set. (which very very rarely came out of the closet) In 2011 I bought a 1:32 set in a fit of nostalgia.

[racer6583]

Um, Where to begin my pap was into O gauge trains from when he was a fireman I think that is what they where called back in the steam powered trains.

He was the person that shoveled the coal into the firebox on the steam engines then the depression came and so forth and then he worked at a steel mill I remember a blue Jag and a red Corvette in ho scale the box had Lionel on it. we would play with it once and a while.

Then pap retired and the set went with him, Enter Dad he bought me a 132 set don't remember the brand but I do remember the Chaparral #66 then other things got in the way.
Built some static models enter them in some model shows one day in November I was looking for some detail parts or for someone to machine me the parts I wanted for a model I was doing and came across this sight a couple of times.

Then I decided to check out the site read a whole bunch of post and then I seen the 143 section and I thought hay this is cool.
and so started my passion for slot cars once a again and I figured what was the use to dump my hobby dollars on some thing to just look at when I can have both worlds build models of cars and drive em or wreck em which ever comes first and as much as I spent on a static model for show, I can build one slot car or two or three depending on the scale I choose to do.

But the main reason is I wasn't having fun building static models and Harry's site and you all reminded me that if you aren't having fun anymore then your not doing it right. Now I'm having fun again in my hobby and life seems right when you have some good ol' fashion fun.

Sorry for the essay but that is how I got back into slot cars.

[Florida_Slotter]

I have always been into model cars. I think I built my first AMT 3 in 1 kit that was a 1959 Buick Invicta convertible - yes it was current year production - when I about 10 years old. I just loved building model cars and was building them for many years.

We moved in 1960 into the suburbs. Of course I was out scouting the new neighborhood to find some guys to hang around with. One of the guys I hooked up with got a set of "Vibrator HO cars" for Christmas. Wow! I think I could feel the hook being set in my jaws.

The next Christmas I asked for a set of the A.C. Gilbert "Autorama" cars. They were either 1/32 or 1/43 - I really did not know - and they were configured as an up and over figure 8. I think I wore out the pickup contacts and the tires on a regular basis. But that was fun.

When I got into high school, I found the guys that were into cars of any sort. We had a regular 'touring' series at different homes on a normal basis. Some had AFX, some other kinds of racing sets. Then one day one of the guys' Dad came in and made an announcement, "I found something today that I know all of you will enjoy. I'd like to take you there next week, so come prepared." That meant make sure your parents call me so I know they're on board in this and you can go. So we loaded up into his car and off we went.

Our destination was in Union, NJ. The place was "Tom Thumb Raceways". It was one of the Mega-Centers of slot car racing that was opening up all over the northeastern US. It was located in an old supermarket and there were 4 huge 1/24th scale commercial style tracks. Of course we all had to have rental cars and controllers. The 220 foot per lap track was filled up and no track time would be availalble for almost 2 hours. The 90 foot flat track had almost no one on it, so we all headed over there. We had a blast. On the way out, I think all of us bought one car or another to build up for our next visit. Yep, I had one of those Cox magnesium frames with a 36D motor in it! Zowie!

For the next several years we found more and more local raceways and would head there after school before heading home. Then when we got driver's licenses and our parent's permission to use the family car, we went in search of!

I found out very soon after that if you wanted to be competitive, you have better know how to build a chassis and put a lexan body on it. I think the year was 1963. I've been building my own since then.

In 1967, I was sponsored by one of the local shops to travel down to Atlanta for the Nationals that year. Then a few months later, I went to work for the U.S. Government as a member of the Air Force. I was out of the U.S. for over 3 years and when I returned stateside in 1971, you could not find a commercial slot racing center anywhere. I tried.

After moving to Florida in 1974, I was a Customer Service Engineer and traveled extensively throughout the southeastern US from town to town. I did not see nor hear of any slot car racing taking place. Then in 2006 I had my grandson and we were on our way to Home Depot to get parts for a project my grandson was building. I saw a sign on my way into the parking lot that said, "Slot Car Racing" and I checked it out. I came back later that night and found a real commercial slot car center. I bought some RTR cars and been actively slot car racing ever since.

Yep, it is addictive!

[TsgtRet]

I guess you could say I've been "in & out" over the years. First real slot set was an AC Gilbert "Which Lane Chicane?" set with the go karts my younger Brother and I got for Christmas in the early 60s. By "coincidence" we got exactly the same set for Christmas at my Grandparents in Columbus, Ohio :think: Those sets took a bunch of abuse over the years until nothing ran anymore.
Late 60s and the commercial thing was going. My Dad was stationed at NAS Glenview, Ill. My first car was a used 1/24 K&B with a clear Can Am body and I had an Atlas controller. Well I bugged my folks to take me into the track in town on a regular basis. My first new car was a Cox Lotus (30?), same as the Chappy but no one wanted the Lotus so it was marked down. My final car, during this period, was a brass chassis Monogram....the Marine wife that lived in the apartment below us worked at the Morton Grove Monogram factory and got special deals (needless to say most my static models during this time were Monograms). Anyway, being different appealed to me so I got the 1/24 Duesenberg SJ Phaeton slot car! It was the biggest thing on the track!
Shortly after this my Dad retired from the Navy and we moved back to Columbus and I got interested in 1:1 cars. Fast forward to 75, I've been in the AF for 2 1/2 years and on a whim I buy a Tyco HO set. Kind of used it to pass the time over the next several years, took it to England and Germany and bought G-Pluses and 440s along the way then it got stored away and forgotten.
I retired from the AF in 92 and divorced in 97. I was looking for something to do with my excess "single" free time so I picked up a Ninco Golf GTI set from the Hobby Shop in Dayton and I've been more or less active ever since.

PS: Passed the old Tyco set along to my Great Nephew about a year and a half ago and it seems to be holding his interest.

[Florida_Slotter]

[dreinecke]

[DAVE]

Long ago and far, far away.......When I was 9 or 10 years old, the local Western Auto store had an
Eldon slot race set at a price I could afford. I saved the money I made doing "chores" and bought it.
I was born a gearhead, into a family of gearheads. So during a visit to relatives in California at the
time slot racing was getting started there, an older cousin took me to a commercial slot track. That
was the real start. Soon after, a slot track opened near my home, and it blossomed from there. By the
time I turned 16, I was starting to get into real cars, and the slot racing took a back seat. I have been
in and out of slot racing many times since, an affliction I just can't seem to shake.

[jmsh54]

Greetings, my grandparents lived in Ferndale Michigan. In the summer time when I would go to visit, my grandfather and I would catch a bus on Woodward Ave. and go to a place called the Groove. I think that was what it was called. It was in Royal Oak I believe. One of the trips home we stopped at a hobby shop and purchased two model cars. Grandfather was a train guy so we built the cars up using train motors and gears. If I remember right the fella next door gave us some model airplane wheels and rubber tires to use. The cars never went very fast, but it was one of the many great adventures I had with my grandparents. And I think that is the reason why to this day that I would rather build a slot car than buy one. On one of our trips to the Groove there were some guys there from the Russkit Company. Now those boys could build a fast car. Regards, John

[sidedraft]

My journey into slot cars started when my parents would drop me off downtown when I was 9 or 10 yrs old that was back in the late 60's. It was a pay to rent large 10 lane 1.24 scale oval track called Tom Thumb raceway. I was amazed at how the cars looked & hauled arse around that large high bank track. I saved up & lawn mowing money & bought my first used 1.24 car it was a cherry red ac cobra sidewinder, I think it was a stromeberg? it was .25 cents for 15 min of track time. Fast forward to today, a buddy of mine called last winter & said he needed a driver & said come on out & check out this 1.24 scale track running 1.32 cars that you can switch lanes its called a Carrea track. We run 1.1 dirt track oval cars in the summer so we needed something to do in the long cold winter months. Anyway 6 of us that have 1.1 cars got involved in todays modern slots & its been a blast, we are all hooked again & each of us now have around 5 cars & controlers & we are building an addition on the race shop just for slotting. Its a addiction of mine that never really went away!.Heard about this site from Hot Slots so here we are. We have chipped slot it, scalextric, fly & carrea cars too & want to add more lanes as soon as race season is over, any suggestions for adding more lanes to our big oval track? hint hint,,,thanks for hearing me out.