Home Racing World

Hi guys...many of the old timers here might remember me. For a while, I was pretty active here and owe a lot to Home Racing World for some of the most fun I've had for a few years. In 2004, I built Hootersville Raceway when my son was 7 years old. Over the years the 2 of us had a ton of fun racing cars, building cars, tuning them learning what worked and eventually what didn't.

Hootersville was built on 4 tables that were 6.5 feet X 4 feet bolted together for a 16' X 6.5' racing surface. On it was 130 feet of Carrera track that was landscaped and lighted with power taps every 4 feet fed from a variable power supply using using professor something controllers. Fully landscaped with rolling hills, 3 dozen trees, lots of bushes and rocks with an overpass barely tall enough to allow the high wing of a Daytona Charger to pass under. The coolest part were the racing walls used at the end of the long straight and in the carousel. I wanted the walls to look like they were built into the earth so I shaped styrofoam and molded cheesecloth up to the wall and landscaped it using real dirt mixed with thinned elmer's glue into a mud glue to form the road worn shoulders of the road.

Growing up, my brother and I were road course crazy and spent a lot of time at Summit Point Raceway in West Virginia. Who knew 30 years later it would be my inspiration for a home race course. Maybe the most fun I had was building the track...my roots are modeling and humbly, i never lost that knack for detail.

For many years, my son and I raced on Hootersville but most recently the track has succumbed to dust and a storage both under and carefully placed items on top. My son is 18 now and off to college in August and while he didn't really want me to tear it down and while I understand his reasons...a higher power has signed the demolition papers (my wife).

Enjoy the pictures:

WOW! Being a newer member here - I never saw your previous postings, so I definitely appreciate you sharing the shots of the track before dis-assembly! VERY cool looking set up and the molded in walls are a great touch!
Thanks again for sharing!

Brian,

Long time!!! I was actually talking to Steve Berry about you last year and wondering what happened to you! Glad you are well and congrats on getting the kid through school and off to the next big adventure! Sorry to hear about the track, I would just use it as an excuse to make another ;)

I remember :) Sad to see it go, but good to hear from you again.

Thanks...those racing walls were actually from Home Depot. They are the "male" section of a screen holder. At 1.5" wide, they were perfect. I clipped them to the lip of the track pieces using tiny binder clips. The cool part was they were a matt white finish so as the cars made a high speed run against them...the paint rubbed just enough for what equates to the "Darlington Stripe" (NASCAR fans will understand that reference).

Also, I forgot to say something to someone very special...Harry Wise. Thanks Harry, for the inspiration and stoking the fires in this hobby. I have written for a few hobby magazines over the years and one thing I have learned is that nearly all hobbies are nothing but a shadow of their former selves. Manufactures are really suffering while Video Games have taken the place of so many hobbies like Diecast, Modeling and Slot Cars.

Harry, thanks for the patience in answering questions and the knowledge I was able to suck from your brain. See ya round, buddy.

Lol, years ago!

Sweet! I was always a fan of the BRE team. I was looking at you site David...you've really churned out a ton of fine stuff! Remember when I built the BRE 240Z? Had a CNC'd chassis, aluminum wheels, hot motor and cripes it was FAST!

I never built the routed track that I always wanted to do (another inspiration from Harry and so many others). Who knows, maybe one day I will. Honestly, I think I loved building Hootersville more than I did racing on it. It took me 3 weeks to finish off the storage room that Hootersville was in and about 7 weeks to build.

We had nearly 200 cars (some still new in the box) with enough aftermarket parts, tires and light kits from a guy in Germany to start a small race shop. We even built a Hootersville Police Car combining my modeling background with the slots. It was setup with flashing lights on top via a special made kit before the slot police cars became popular. Also had a Tumbler Batmobile that used a yellow flasher mounted in the exhaust and a clear orange plastic Lego flame that was pirated from of my son's Lego sets. Turn the lights off in the room and use only the track lights and both cars were more fun to watch than they were to race!

Hmmm, maybe I should have gotten a stay of execution from the mayor about the demolition of the track!

Too bad your wife doesn't understand what slot cars are all about or she wouldn't make you tear it down. I just tore down my raceway but as I have no one else to tell me what I can do (only money limitations) it is being rebuilt at my home in a room I had previously just used for stashing junk. Now the junk is at or on the way to the dump and I will be back in operation soon.
That is a very nice looking raceway.

That's a beautiful track and story.
Its memory will live on in the inspiration it gives to other slot racers (like myself).
Bravo.