Home Racing World

That is way cool! Still want to make a car to mount mine onto :)

Now that is pretty awesome news.

I knew that was the case. As much as I hate to say it, it's not the kids that lost interest. It's the parents that have lost patience. Parents are getting lazier and it is easy to hook up a video game and show them how to load games. Problem solved. Kids are entertained and out of our hair for hours on end. Rotting in front of a TV screen for hours if not days on end.

Gone are the days when dads would happily spend hours setting up and maintaining a slot car track for family fun time together. Working with kids teaching them how to maintain the cars.

I know that when given the choice to play Xbox or race with dad my son will usually pick race with dad. If he has a friend over he will go the Xbox direction as he dose not yet have the patience to keep it in the slot for many laps at a time. He is still in the must go as fast as it can go mode of operation. I will keep coaching him and with any luck he will find his way. If not we will have had the time together and have had fun anyway. I will admit that at his age I was much the same. I liked to watch them crash more than I was into the racing. Just don't tell him that.

Keep up the good work Dave.

That is great to see! Thanks for sharing Dave! :D

:text-bravo:

Great video and truth.

Well, I guess I have been a bad boy as I am restricted from watching. Damn those cookies.

Wish that Carrera could have attended the Tokyo Auto Show. All they had was Tomica cars and a free can of 0% beer. :roll:

Dave,
You should come on down to Annapolis and watch the kids race. I have a group who follow me from school to church to school to race.
They know how to race without magnets. There are a couple who can slide the turns.
My next race is at a Boy Scout Jamboree. That should be interesting.

Great work, Dave!

I think what makes slot cars less attractive is the time to set it up and the work needed to keep it going. Once those are taken care of (like on your stand) then the evidence of which is more fun is obvious as you've shown.

Well done for taking slot cars out to the people!

I have 2 grandsons who moved right next door. When they were little they practically lived over here, doing stuff with me in the yard, and racing slot cars. The younger one loved it and couldn't get enough of it so he was better at it, and when his older brother couldn't beat him he lost interest and got involved with other things. Then they got into video games and spent most of their time doing that before getting into skateboards. Now the older one is in college and the younger one is thinking about where he's going to go in another year and a half.

All of the above is normal and to be expected. But where I went wrong was not teaching them basic 'do it yourself' skills. If something broke I'd fix it. If an upgrade on the track or cars was needed I'd do it and they'd be the helpers. Even though things might have needed to be done more than once, or some materials and tools might have been sacrificed, I should have let them do it and me be the guide and helper. Not so they'd be life-long slot car racers, but so they'd have the skills that come from designing, building, and maintaining things. As is, their dad is a city guy, and even though they grew up in the country I doubt they'll ever own their own tools, change the oil in their cars, build a table, solder wires, or any of the myriad of things I do that I learned from my dad and from a lifetime of racing slot cars.

Even if we don't pass on the passion for the hobby, we should pass on the skills we got from it.

Slothead