Memory Lane
I've been racing slot cars since I was very young. I found a photo of my brother and I trying to figure out how to assemble an HO gauge Revell track on the living room floor, I think when I was maybe 10 years old or so. I probably still have a few pieces of the cars somewhere in a box, but the track is long gone. The track sections went together using two little steel pins and a tiny plastic clip per track section. There were extra clips, but they tended to break so after a while it got difficult to put a track toghther to race on. But we did get enough of a taste of racing with these tiny cars to understand how fun it was. I can't remember if it was my parents or my uncle who bought it for us but I guess that really doesn't matter, although my uncle did give me a little 1/32 scale car and controller later when I was in junior high school or early high school... some where in that time period. HO was fun, but when I (and my brother) discovered the commercial 1/24 scale shops, well, that was it! I really got the bug all the way through high school until I left home for tech school in Phoenix. Below is a photo of the chassis of that first 1/32 scale car which I believe my uncle built. There are more photos showing some of the later chassis I made myself and some I purchased from other racers who were upgrading and didn't want them anymore. I've also included several other items just for nostalgia's sake.
A nostalgic look back at some of (my) slot racing past
Here's a newspaper ad from back in the day of the first commercial slot car shop we used to race at. Brings back lots of great memories! Look at the prices... my, how things have changed. I wish I had one of these old Cox cars now... they're worth a lot more!
Here's the chassis of the first slot car (other than the HO's of my early childhood) I had, given to me by my uncle. It's seen a few changes in its life - the rear axle was originally threaded, with wider tires and had a plastic Cox gear. This was not the original motor either. The front tires and wheels are the originals though and do show their years.
In the side view you can see the original front rims which have corroded over the years. Note that the flag tongue drops... it was always that way, hinged at the back. It was great fun to punch it down the straights and watch it do wheelies! I replaced the body screws with clips I made out of piano wire. I wish I still had the Cheetah body.
This was my First attempt at scratch-building a 1/24 scale slot car chassis to run on the Pit Stop tracks. The engleman style track was a very fast track with a really steep bank off the first straight and could be hit at full speed with most light-weight cars, so I built this chassis with this in mind. Purely by luck, it worked really well! You can see the motor I used, the Road Runner, which was their hottest motor at the time. I think I must have bought a used one from one of the racers there, as these were too expensive for me to buy new. The motor now is non-functional (I burned out the armature eventually) but I saved it fortunately. The original armature stack is still in there but the windings were removed at some point.
A bit later in my early slot car racing period I decided to try my hand at building a 'plummer' style chassis since that's what most of the racers were using at the new track in the basement at Fresno Hobby, a Blue King style track with whoops down the main straight. I purchased the pan parts and a few lengths of piano wire of various sizes and went to work bending and cutting the wire, probably using a picture of a chassis in one of my slot car magazines as a guide. Using some of my electronics solder I had eventually assembled the chassis. The first time I ran the assembled car on the track, the whoops de-slotted me and I hit the wall at high speed. Here's where I found out you don't use electronics solder (standard 60-40) to build a slot car... it's just not strong enough. The car hit the wall and then hit the floor in several pieces. Oh well... back to the pit and to the counter to see what they recommended for solder. I purchased some acid flux and silver solder and did my best to get the chassis back together for another try on this challenging track, this time a little more carefully.
You can see a lot of solder on this chassis... I wasn't very good at soldering back then.
At some point I must have gotten jealous of all those guys who had those really nice 'pit boxes' to store all their cars, controllers, tools and various liquid treatments for lubrication and traction. I got a sheet of 1/4" plywood and some hardware and built this box back when I was in high school. I had gained some woodworking experience in jr. high in a woodshop class, as well as plenty of help from my dad who could do just about anything. I still have it after all these years... this thing's over 50 years old! As you can see, there are the obligatory auto racing graphics and stickers all over it (everyone did that), mine were cut out of a racing magazine and just scotch taped to the wood. The tape is clearly visible around all of the cut-outs. The whole thing was then spray coated with some king of clear coat, and it's been that way ever since. I'm amazed all that stuff is still on the box after all these years!
Since then I've designed and built a much nicer box as well as obtained a few from thrift stores and the like. But I still have a speacial attachment to this old box :) I'm hoping one of my grandkids will inherit this treasure (at least to me) some day.