Why Kids Don't Play With Slot Cars

[ccobra]

I had to reread this whole string and notice that I must have been the only one to grow up in a small midwestern town where you set your watch back in years, not hours. Anyway that's my last try at a little humor. Growing up in the small town, kids used to look forward to September, and not for school but for the sears, monkey wards, speigel christmas catalogs. This catalogs had close to 10 pages of slot car tracks that as a youngun I would wear those pages out and I'm sure there were others my age that did the same. Then about the time that slot cars died off, so did the christmas catalogs. What I am trying to say is when your from a small town you don't have a hobby store or much of any kind of store that would sell these kind of luxury items. Back then to do any kind of slot car you had to go to the post office, get a money order, and mail off your order after seeing parts for order in Model Car magazine that you might be able to pick up at a grocery store whenever the family decided to go to a big city (Lafayette) and get groceries.

[buspor63]

Where are the kids? We have to teach the ones we know. Every major holiday, the nieces and nephews no that I'll have my track available for them to run on. Not shown in the picture is a four year old, he was so excited about watching the cars run, Santa brought him a Carrera First set.

[MikeyAutobahn]

To give a little perspective from somewhere else [and to echo Dave's statements a bit], here in Bremen, Germany, about an hour south of Hamburg, it's entirely possible to find multiple places to buy Carrera as well as model train stuff.

The local chain toy store here, which is located in a shopping mall, had three AISLES dedicated to Carrera products alone. They seemed to carry pretty much everything on their current catalog, as well as older stuff that hasn't moved off the shelf in awhile. Sets, extension sets, track, cars, parts [yes you could actually buy a set of braids for your car right off the shelf]...seriously, everything. GO sets at 35euro. Evo for 75. Digital I was afraid to look because I would have likely blown my xmas budget on it and not pleased the family.

Across town at another toy store Carrera had a 8x16 table set up running a digital set. On it were the DTM cars. They were regulated, so fun was limited. There was also a guy in a suit who liked to chat with you while you tried it. It was surrounded by sets and an aisle of cars and parts. You could pretty much outfit yourself with any level of Carrera track at any of these toy stores, take it home, wrap it and put it under the tree.

This has been a regular occurrence in the last 10 years I've been living here and most definitely longer than that, as I've made a point to go to these places during the holidays to see what they have to offer. There's as to be expected not much competition with Scalextric here, and I rarely see anything regarding that. Anki Overdrive tried making a splash, but didn't move much.

About the kids: The big kids love it. I have a few musician buddies who come over and absolutely love going up to the attic and hanging out and racing cars. We take breaks from recording projects in my basement and unwind on the track. Guys usually reminisce for awhile, then start with the cost questions.
Actual kids, that's different. If I set up the GO track before the kids come to visit and make sure it's running and the cars are in good shape, then the kids will play on it until either something breaks or someone gets hurt [kids...whaddya do]. This year was a bit different though. We have the same friend's kids visiting every xmas, so I've watched them grow up. One was a Lego fanatic, but it was maddening because whenever he got Lego as a gift he would ask me to make it, then NEVER take it apart. It would take one form and that was it. He would throw a fit when pieces would come off, even if I replaced them right there. He would accept no experimentation. He had no interest in the MASSIVE BOX of Lego pieces that I had. Didn't want to be bothered with having to actually build something, no matter what it was. If it wasn't exactly what it looked like on the box, he didn't want to have anything to do with it. Imagine handing that kid a racing set in a box.

Kids play Fortnite now. And not long from now that won't even be true anymore. Fortnite is a game where you have to fight to be the last person standing on an island. It can be played on many different devices, is free and requires virtually no setup. Games last a short bit of time, and you either win or die. Then you come back to fight again in another match, good as new, without having to do anything to make yourself play-worthy before going again.

How is the hobby of slot cars suppose to compete with that? Sure, we can point to all the great things that slot cars were and are, but we're selling old history. Their grandpa's and dad's history. It's not their's. These kids aren't taken to Laguna Seca for the weekend, or to the drag races on Friday night. They have no curiosity about what the infield at Daytona would be like. Nurburgring? Bor-ring. They don't care about racing cars. They don't even particularly care about riding in normal cars. Ask a kid if they'd rather take a trip in the car with their parents or on a bus with good wifi, they're gonna pick the bus. When you're in the garage at home, working on keeping that sweet 'Cuda road worthy, they're locked in their rooms...playing Fortnite. They won't be spending their 17th birthday pointlessly putting torsion bars on their '69 Plymouth Fury III, which, while having only a lousy 318 motor and being about as big as a pontoon boat, they love it just the same. If they even have a car, they'll likely never even be bothered look under the hood.

If you're a parent who doesn't know jack about any of this wonderful hobby, who just happens to be browsing the toy store looking for gifts, I think it's a much better chance you'd buy something like that if it was available to be purchased right there. Makes sense to me. I bought my wife a sweet set of Nerf guns this year because they were there. I'm not a nerf specialist, a gun specialist, or a nerf gun specialist. But if said thing is available to you when you're going through the toy store doing your holiday shopping, then it's a better possibility of you buying it and a better possibility of the hobby growing. So the onus is on the stores and retailers. If they don't feel they can sell it, they probably won't stock it. But I don't think it's an easy thing for a store to dabble in and expect massive profits. Stores pretty much have to expect to get into it pretty heavily in order to move units, and that's not even taking into account how they would compete with online prices. That means dedicating space, time, knowledge and effort to properly stock and represent what's on the shelves.

[mattb]

Good reply Mikey. Minus the stocks of Slot car products in the stores it is much the same here in the US. Probably for every 20 adult enthusiasts in America, there may be one kid. That's just the way it is and not likely to change. All of us should just enjoy it now and not worry where it goes in the future.

[WB2]

Perhaps you folks are thinking of this from the wrong scale perspective.
Every kid has Hot Wheels.
I walk through Target and WalMart and see 1/64 Action (?) diecast NASCAR. These things don’t stick around on the shelf long.
Somehow you need to get these kids to transition from these diecast cars to 1/64 (HO) slot cars. I know the NASCAR Impala fits on an AFX 1.7” chassis. Offer an HO slot car chassis with an adaptable body clip. Said clip would have flat sides and come with a piece of servo tape. Remove diecast body, drill chassis rivets out, remove body post, and slap on HO chassis.
A savvy enterprise could offer a service adapting the body to the chassis. Send in your diecast with $X and in a week you’ll get a running HO car back.
Get the kids into HO and they might stick with it, perhaps moving up in size.
Get the Boy Scouts interested in it and offer it as an addition to Pine Car Derby.

[mattb]

Probably 75% of the guys on this forum have intro'ed kids to slot cars, gave them tracks. Spent time teaching them about the hobby and how to do it successfully. Out of that group probably less than 10%, 7 or 8 guys can say the kids they got into it, stayed into it. There are exceptions and that's just what they are, exceptions. Hot wheels are neat for little kids or men that collect them, but not really much like an electrically powered car.

I hear the same thing from Lionel train collectors and model builders. Very few 70 year old men will admit that 15 year old boys don't really care about trains or model building like we did at that age. Most like to dream that the hobby they enjoy is of interest to young people, too. Not one of those train collectors had a Iphone, cable tv, a computer or video game when they were 15 years old.

Locally the pipefitters local, sheetmetal local, plumbers, all these skilled trades advertise on tv for guys/gals to get into the training and fill those jobs. They cannot find young people that can and want to work with their hands for a good living, 75K and above for a journeyman, and a secure job for the rest of their lives. Most of these young folks want to punch a keyboard or work at McDonalds.

[proxieken]

I told this story many times, but here it is again.



This is the car I got for my son at age 15. It was a basket case for $1500, but I figured we would restore it together. I wound up doing most of the work and he was driving it to school at age 16. Pretty neat? Well, the teachers seemed to love it.............the cops were less amused.

But it really never meant that much to him and I ended up selling it and buying him a Gran Am Pontiac. Nice car also, but much different.

Point is that as a kid I would have been pretty stoked to have a Mustang, even a fake Mach 1 with Shelby side scoops. But younger kids really are growing up in a different world. His passion is guitars. The car is long gone and the guitars I got for him are still much treasured and stilled played. I was trying to get him the things I liked. A guitar holds no interest to me. So we are a little different.

I think in general this hobby is for older folks with time and space to enjoy it. Younger people have other things to do with more instant results. But young people get old and eventually all that button mashing and thumb wiggling gets tiresome. I played PC games about 30 years ago and now lose interest in them quite quickly. We have a playstation 3 and I use it to watch Youtube. I have one game that I can stick with for a couple hours and then I am bored. I mostly played it when I had leg injuries and had to lay about with it elevated.

I have decided to work on some youtube videos featuring slot car racing and try to post them this year. Might be helpful for some people to see things in action. Other than that I am just happy to be able to enjoy the hobby myself. If younger people want to check it out they can. If not that is fine also.

[slothead]

I think it's also worth noting that those of us who've persisted as slot car fans are just a small percentage of those who dabbled in it during the glory days of the '60s. I had a track in our basement as a kid and raced with my brother, cousins, and friends, but I was the only one who stuck with it. I later raced with a bunch of guys at a commercial track and after that at a club track, we were the survivors so to speak. But I don't think many of them had a home track due to cost and space issues. Generally speaking slot cars is a hobby many people will dabble in but not really get in to like the folks around here have.

Our hobby is basically off limits to those living in apartments or trailer homes. Setting up a track on the floor gets old fast, especially if your over 8 - 10 years old. R/C cars and video games don't have this restriction, so they are more accessible and require less of an investment.

Some of the kids exposed to slot cars will return to it when they are older and have disposable income and space to do so. As in all things, there's nothing to be done for those who don't care, but I do hope those who want to return to the hobby in the years to come have ways to do it.

[Czar]

How many of you wanted to grow up to be just like your parents or grandparents? How many of you grew up wanting to change things from the "old way"? How many of you have embraced technology that didn't exist when you were a teen-ager? How many of you caused your parents to shake their heads and say. "I don't get it"? Be honest.
Especially now with so many choices, why should it be any different for today's kids?

[strangebrew]

KIDS all love playing with our tracks & cars today.
They will move on to other things as they get older.
In adulthood they will spend most of their time establishing their lives, families, etc.
The future of slot cars lies with these KIDS returning to the hobby later in life.
...................Just like us.....................
So, get the youngsters playing today, hope they remember the fun & return in the future. :?

[BARC 1]

The lure of the Xbox and PS4 are too strong. Even this old guy has trouble staying away. I have PS4 with Project cars and a force feedback steering wheel. The incredible graphics and physics employed to simulate racing is incredible. Then being able to watch your race, with graphics so real you would think you are watching a live broadcast on TV. This from a guy that grew up in the 60's when slotcars were the thing. Time and technology march on.

I agree with strangebrew. The future lies in the adults who either return or are looking at ways to decompress from their real lives.

[slothead]

I never thought of it this way till now, but the reason I'm a slot car fan today is my father. He grew up during the depression and had a tough life. He dropped out of school after the 6th grade to go to work. He was a laborer who went on to work for himself doing construction. He was all business, and never had anything you'd call a hobby and didn't watch sports (except for boxing). But, he took me to my first race at the local fairgrounds when I was seven, bought me Strombecker sets for Christmas, and built a big table for my track in the basement.

He enabled me to have a hobby and enjoy it. As long as we open the door to things for future generations they'll be able to grow into the things they like.

To the dad who bought his son that beautiful late 60s Mustang - I would have loved to have that car. But, if your son is into guitars and music and gets his enjoyment from them then good for him. It sounds like you did your part making that possible.

[BIG E]

In response to the earlier post in this thread by wiliamg...

The place you speak of was called Darlington Hobbies in Rhode Island, then owned by a good slot car guy named Dan DeLude. If memory serves, the last location he had was just over the state line in Massachusetts. My last visit there was unfortunately the last time I had the pleasure of spending an afternoon with my friend. Dan was a very cool, soft spoken guy who ran a Womp based, spec NASCAR Modified series with participants from New England, New York, and Long Island. The first time I ran there was in the 1980s, five Long Island club racers piled into my old '82 Delta 88 going over on the ferry (somehow lost my front plate on that trip, too). The race was in Dan's garage on a high banked 6 lane routed oval that was very similar to the NASCAR Bristol track - wild and fast! He later moved on to a larger 8 lane track in the basement of the hobby shop.
I still miss Dan, he was a kind and courteous man to all he came in contact with. In the late '80s, I asked his permission to use his chassis set up specs for a similar series we wanted to run on Long Island. In 1988 we had a brand new 8 lane Pocono Tri Oval, custom built for us by the late slot car track building master from Sweden, Hasse Nilsson, for our newest commercial slot car shop here. Dan agreed, but was concerned that we would copy his unique Lexan Chevy Cavalier Modified body mold. I assured him that I would never allow that to happen, so we had a local guy carve us a buck for a new NASCAR Modified womp body that we had made here on the Island. We also brought in three other Womp Modified bodies - the old PARMA Pinto and Gremlin, as well as the very nicely done RHINO "Cobra II" body (my personal favorite), which was actually a Mustang II modified.
The legacy and name of Dan's Darlington Hobbies now belong to a guy named Paul, who told me that as a youngster he was always hanging around the hobby store when Dan was alive. He's not as big on the slot cars as Dan was, but does a good business with R/C stuff as well as being an authorized LIONEL train repair station, too. The store has the usual general hobby shop merchandise, and is still in the same basic geographic area as when Dan operated the business. Paul's business cards say "something for everyone", if I remember. When I visited him a couple of years ago, I bought up just about all of the leftover old slot car inventory he had. I believe he does stock some of the current Auto World HO slot car items in this cool little Rhode Island shop. If anyone is interested further, please PM me and I'll give you the specifics of his contact and location info.

Thanks for helping to get kids interested in this FUN, hands on hobby.
And thanks for bringing up the good memory of an old friend, too. RIP, Dan.
A safe and Happy New Year to all... Ernie :>)

[noddaz]

Kids don't play with slot cars because I have not introduced any kids to the hobby recently.
So it is at least partially my fault that kids do not race.

Scott

[ccobra]