Boy, slot car racing has come a long ways...

Wow, those links to local tracks really take me back. I used to race 1:32 and 1:24 every Friday night and Sunday afternoon a long time ago. It looks like Ballwin International is the only one where the nasty tire treatments are allowed. They outlawed STP and straight oil of wintergreen at the big tracks back in the 70's because they really gave the surface a beating and refinishing is a huge deal. A couple of those guys appear to have old Stombecker tracks in 4 lane versions, commercial tracks were always 8 lanes wide. A couple of the others look like very well done homemade tracks. I still have by best 1:32 (mini Cooper) and 1:24 (McClaren) scale cars in a plastic case with race stickers that go back to the same period like the Daytona Continental (precursor to the 24 hour race), Sox & Martin, etc.. I'll have to bring it to a meeting some time so the rest of the "old guys" can reflect back on those days :D.
 
There was a guy that had a track at Chesterfield Mall, The Mills and I believe Mid Rivers. He worked for the company the runs most of the parking lots at the airport. Does anyone know if he is still around? I know he closed down at the mills. I bought some of his track.

Last time I spoke to him he said Chesterfield was doing pretty well. He had a 6 lane set up for a couple bucks a race.
 
I still have some old stuff somewhere in the basement. I used to race the 1:24's at Lens Hobby shop is St. Charles...just a few years ago....all right a few decades + ago. The good old days. I also have a bunch of the HO track and cars in the basement but they just aren't as neat as the 1:32 and 1:24 cars. This "Car" stuff gets into your veins at an early age!!:D
 
Wow, sounds like there is enough stuff already between you guys to setup a track :) 1:24, those are big cars, how much do they weigh?
 
TBULL said:
Dave just show up and you qualify!;)
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Ouch. That hurt I think. :D BTW Sounds like maybe we should consider holding one of our monthly "meetings" at one of the tracks. Hey Tim how bout forming a committee, go check out possible sites & report here.
 
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Purple Venom said:
Wow, sounds like there is enough stuff already between you guys to setup a track :) 1:24, those are big cars, how much do they weigh?
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They actually weigh very little. I built both of my remaining cars out of 1/16" brass tubing and the motor is the heaviest part. Bodies were polycarbonate and painted from the inside like R/C cars of later years. There were small can and big can motors, stock & modified, rewinds, dewinds, magnet shims, trick armatures, all kinds of neat stuff. My best performers were always small can (guess I've always been a small block guy) dewinds that were carefully balanced and used .003 magnet shims. Both of my cars are also in-line motored with bevel gears instead of being "sidewinders" with straight gears. I'll bet some of this takes you old slot cars guys back a little more since you can relate to it huh.
 
I have no clue what you just said, but I'll bet they were faster than my AMX cars :D
 
Let me know, some day perhaps after the holidays, if ya ya wanna go scope out some tracks. Anybody else interested in tagging along? Mark? Tom?
 
If you guys are interested, I raced with the MGPMRC club that was posted earlier, for over 6 years (in fact, raced with them 2 weeks ago). They race every Sunday night on 5 or 6 local / privately owned tracks around St. Louis.
They race several different types and classes of cars.
1/32 & 1/24 scales, plastic / ready-to-run and scratch / kit-built cars.
They run Road Courses on 4 different tracks (my favorite) and Oval on 2 tracks.
I built a portable oval for the club that measures 15' x 23'.
If we are interested, they'd probably bring it out, set it up, and provide everything to race (controllers & cars).

It was a hoot and I really enjoyed racing with them, but decided to build a real car.

They raced a series at the beginning of the year that was early sports cars, Cobra were dominant! (I have a blue one & a white one)
 
Racing 2 weeks ago, on one of the tracks we rebuilt earlier this year (I think he said it was 25 years old, we did a pretty major renovation). That's me corner marshalling (resting against the fuse box). There's a big banked turn at the end of that 20+ foot straight. A well handling car can take it full bore.

Cool! :cool:

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MPTech said:
I built a portable oval for the club that measures 15' x 23'.
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Mark:

I'd like to hear more about what you built.

I have 3 Scalextric 1/32 scale sets and 18 cars. In the house we had a few years ago I had space to permanently leave up a 96 sq ft layout. In our new house I don't have that much free space. If I could put something temporarily over my pool table and then be able to fold it up and put it away would be great.

Steve
 
Steve, just put is on plywood and suspend it using ropes and pulleys. :D

Mark, that is by far the biggest slot car track I've ever seen. Let us know when the next track event is.
 
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