Collector, Racer or Combination of both?

[Mayberryman]

Coming from a life long obsession with 1/24 scale commercial slot car racing I have never thought of slot cars as anything more than something to race. Fast forward to about two years ago and I discovered the fun of plastic based 1/32 slot car racing and have been having fun with it ever since. As you can tell by my first statement collecting and making slot car models into shelf models does not appeal to me but I will respect the views of the Racer/Collector or just collector as what makes him happy. Now for the real meat in the sandwich, I have discovered that many of the best looking cars that are for sale are dogs when compared to the cars being built by other companies. I would think that these unnamed companies would take a hint from the more competitive companies and alter the chassis and tires that they offer to make them somewhat of a joy to drive out of the box. I know that all companies will not be exactly on par with the elite of the competitive companies but I will never understand the concept of the continued building of great models with inferior performance. Why would any company build something very good looking but to a standard that would exclude many who would want to club race them?

[mattb]

I think they know if they target the collector market, it doesn't matter if it's a good runner or not.

I am a collector, for many years. I love the 60's 1/24 stuff and have had about all of it over the years.

I really enjoy racing hard body 1/24 with H&R chassis and drag racing hard bodies using early 60's compnents. Not at all like commercial racing, just a group of guys that get together in the basement and have fun.

[Nor Cal Mike]

I am not a racer. I've got no use for shelf queens so I sure as heck am not a collector. I guess I'd have to call myself a player.

[Audi1]

Would be racer here............ :D

Allan

[HomeRacingWorld]

[Billshea1]

I think most cars can be made to run pretty good with simple tuneing,check wheels for roundness,ad a little weight, true up tires with a little sand paper. So many variables. Wood track,plastic track. Useing cheap components keeps the price down as well I would think. My club only allows silicoln tires and no magnets. Personally half the fun is throwing half the old parts in a box and putting what I like on it then fine tuneing.

[Racie35]

I'm better at collecting then I am at racing,but I do both. I like that nearly every car attains some level of collector status. So anything bought for that holds it value normally. Some cars are just too cool to risk racing though, For me anyway.

[Dundee Denny]

very few of my static / slot car builds, or out of the box cars don't have a good dose of patina on them within minutes of being built or unboxed!!

that being said most of "my action" is solo time trials with the objective to take them to their limits (and beyond = patina) and then organize them by type and speed.

out of the 103 cars I have accumulated only 3 shelf queens.

Dundee Denny

[Modlerbob]

As with Mayberryman up until about four years ago when venues were available I raced exclusively 1/24th scale lexan bodied slot cars that were either fast or very fast. I started in the late 1960's ( not counting Aurora Model Motoring) and quickly abandoned slot cars that were to scale and actually resembled their 1:1 namesakes. Now I rarely get out my 1/24th stuff and go to one of the few remaining commercial raceways. I started my 1/32 adventure with some of the cars from Scalextric and rapidly expanded my horizons to include cars from Fly, Ninco, Slot.It, Carrera and NSR. I still like to go fast so I have stayed mostly with cars from the modern era that satisfy my need for speed. But I also like tinkering and that includes trying to take cars that are less than ideal and make them the best they can be. So like many others I am somewhere in between being a racer and a collector. But every slot car I have bought has some track time on it.

[TsgtRet]

Guess I'm a "player", too. Most of my life I've been a model builder or a 1:1 gear head. Models were nice but what could you do with them but look? And in the 1:1 world your car normally has to be practical as well as fun.... and compromise is seldom ideal. Enter the 1/32 hardbody cars; you can build them like you did the AMTs, Monograms, etc but then you can drive them like you wish you could drive your 1:1 ride. In the process you can own cars you never thought of affording in real life or own, again, a car of your youth that is now out of reach in the collector world. I like all of my cars but I run them all....those that don't get run, I sell. Great hobby, isn't it? :D

[Retro Racer 44]

I raced both 1/24 and 1/32 back in the sixties, and all the cars I owned would fit in my race case (about 8 or 10 depending on size). I built my own cars, so if I finished a new one, to make space I sold one of the old ones, which in turn gave me money to buy parts to build another...

When I got back into it about 4 years ago, I started collecting enough cars to have one for each class we run (about 8). When I realized that some times a car has a problem during the races, I started to add one or two cars for each class. Gifts from friends and family soon got my collection to the point that I could not carry them all in my case.

I now have about 70-80 cars. They are all racers, and I change which cars I take to racing each week. A couple years ago I go back into scratch building, mainly to try to be competitive in proxies. I now have a couple of scratch built cars for each class, and have either sold some plastic chassis cars, or put brass chassis under them. About 1/2 of my collection is now scratch built. The last plastic car I bought was the Sam Posey #77 Challenger. I won a Ford Capri for winning a proxy, and kept it for a while without opening it. Finally I did open it and wished I hadn't. It's going to get one of my next scratch built chassis.

I also won a Carrera Group 5 Kafer VW, but it is a great little car just as it came out of the box.

I own NO shelf queens.

Cheers,

Keith

[K9Havok]

I have so many cars I can't be anything but a collector who occasionally plays on his track in the basement. When I became addicted way back at the turn of the century you either bought em or risked missing out and I've been trying to break myself of that habit ever since. :?

What I need to add to my repertoire is 'seller'. I need to learn to let go of some, to make room for the new stuff if nothing else. :whistle:

Allen

[DHansen]

I have bought or acquired so many slot cars that there is no way I can race all of them. All of them have been run around the track some though, and I regularly race around 20 or so with two different clubs about once a month. I enjoy the building tinkering and fine tuning of slot cars and then racing them to see how competitive my work is to others. But most of my collection just sits on a self collecting dust.

[Kemtronracer]

[strangebrew]

I'm a builder. Haven't bought a "ready to run" since the 60's. I have no commercial track or even any slotters within 50 miles, so I
run on my homebuilt basement track & send cars to proxies where it seems I've got a little way to go to make them faster. I was building
1:24 with mostly paper oval track bodies. I discovered this board & now spend time tearing apart the 1:24 to be reborn & 1/32. I try to
manufacture as much as possible. I've been resin casting bodies, chassis, wheels & tires for a little while now. That's another reason I like the
proxies....I can test my stuff. (not always sucsessfuly)