Catching Up

[waaytoomuchintothis]

I've been thinking lately about the same phenomenon that has been knocking a few of us off our feet for the last 8 years or so. It all started more than 10 years ago, but it became robust around 2008. In short, we are the luckiest slot car enthusiasts of all time.

Most of you know I have been around this stuff in general since 1962, when I got a Christmas present, the Stirling Moss Thunderjet Figure 8, with a gray 1962 Falcon and a red 1962 Fairlane in it. By the mid-60s, I had expended into 1/32nd, courtesy of a paper route and Monogram slot car kits. I also filched crashed and ruined cars and bodies from trash cans at the hobby shop and brought them home for rebuilding. They weren't pretty, but I got them to run and I learned a lot. Slot cars took a weird turn in the late 60s, and through the 70s they went more and more toward cars that weren't cars, and were completely uninteresting as blurs that you couldn't follow on the track. But I never really left the TJets and kind of went underground, dragging out the TJets once in a while and slowly expanding my track collection until my newlywed wife was told she had to take a year of late shifts at the hospital. So, in 1973, my wife gave me a "baby sitter"- a huge AFX set (the biggest they made), and in the days after Christmas Day, all my friends had bought cars and we assembled a huge track.

Fast forward to when I retired, and stumbled across a slot car guy in my new town. In no time, I was back in slot cars in a big way. I discovered HRW, gained hundreds of new friends, and it has been great. But that's not all.

Guys, in all the years of my own history with slot cars, there has never been anything like what we have now. And its so strong that a world-wide financial crisis only impeded us in a small, however painful, way. But there's more. Now, in addition to the manufacturers who have weathered the financial storm, we have a thriving community of individuals who do serious quality work to fill in gaps that might not be profitable for the big boys. David Reinecke, John Warren, Shotgun Dave, Paul Gage (& son), Smilin' Ray, George Turner, and on and on- so many I almost didn't name the ones I know best because it would be too long a list! Then there are the motors, gears, specialized brass supplies, a huge array of guides, braids, wire types, special tools, chassis kits, real wire wheels!, detail parts, amazing paints, then there are the track bits, like braid, router bits, plastic track types and pieces, power supplies, wiring aids, a huge library of how-to's and such... Sometimes, I just can't believe it. Wow, are we lucky.

[HomeRacingWorld]

I have to agree. Today we have it pretty good.

Not just in parts, pieces, tidbits, etc. But how easy it is to share the ideas/fun with others.

I think we are spoiled a little :)

But that's ok right?

[frank9129]

This is the most full filling of Hobbies.
You really can get out of it what you put in.

[Gameover]

We sure do have it great! All the folks here on hrw are so great. Always raising money for our forum and the charities that pop up. Most of you know im always willing to help out when i can. I cant wait to get Gamover's Garage 2.0 up and running in the next month. I have a few bodies waiting to get dunked in silicone and a few cars that were on the bench before i had to pack it all up! Once the move is done ill be firing on all cylinders again!!

[BARC 1]

Have to agree. Been only back for just over a year, and modeling in 1/43 has presented no real challenge. I can get everything I need. I cast my own shells so the bodies aren't an issue. For me it was just learning where to find the other stuff in 143. The forums and some fine people have helped me immensely.

Just starting to dabble again in 132. I like the proxy activity that seems to be taking place in this scale. So I now have my track wide enough to accomodate 2 132 cars abreast, and am adding Digital to the line up as well.. Would have loved to be in the Pan American proxy, but I think I would be racing against the clock to have something done in time.

[CrockettNZ]

I had my first real introduction to slot cars in the early 8o's when I was a about 12ish I think
it was at a place called the hive which was a video arcade which had a wood track
I ended up moving to Auckland very soon after so that was the end of that
until I brought a AFX set in about 92 that I set up above my work place at the time
it grew into 4 sets plus loads of extras and covered 2 sheets of 8x4 ft with multi levels
I race with a good mate of mine and his son
after a couple of years work closed up and I gave it all to my mates son
slotcars has always been in the back of my mind but never realized there was still a slotcar scene
and at the level that it as today
I kept myself very busy with 1:1 cars for quite a few years after that
and then 3 1/2 years ago I brought some concrete boxing timber of the NZ version of ebay called trademe
when I picked it up I noticed some bits of board leaning against the shed wall that had a series of slots routed in them
I knew what they were straight away but ask the guy anyway
he then proceeded to tell me all about the 1/32 rtr slotcar club he was involved with and offered to to take me along
I jumped at the chance
and after 1 lap I was hooked again and I am sure you all know how that works
after awhile in the club one of the members decided to move over to the states and offered his track for sale
I told him to give me a couple of weeks and I will see what I could do
I put all of my car stuff on trademe and after a week it was all sold and I brought me a wood routed slotcar track
the shed then got the walls lined and carpet on the floor plus some descent lighting
then the track was moved in
I have since done a fair bit of work on the track to make how I like
it is part of the club weekly rotation now
I absolutely love this hobby
it has modeling that I had done for years when I was younger and racing
beats building a model that just gets put on a shelf
if you are going to build it you might as well use it to

[DaveKennedy]

[ccobra]

Talk about spoiled. Way back when I was 9 my parents got my brother and I an Aurora HO track. I wore out those two vibrating cars and got another which I wore out. Then I moved up and got a figure 8 Eldon Indy set. Then after another Eldon Daytona track and some other track pieces I finally ended up with 43 feet of track. Then for real excitement my friend and I would combine our two Eldon tracks for about 75 feet of all-out action. Then fast forward to today I've been modeling up 1/32 slot car chassis on my computer for the past three years. Then once I have the model the way I want the design, I'll then let the printer put it into reality. Watching the printer do a chassis is very similar to watching a CNC transfer a block of material into a part. Every once in a while I wonder what it would have been like to have the computer and 3d printer when I was growing up, especially when my son stops by and asks why I didn't set up the Eldon track or build a wooden track when he was growing up.