Any slot car racers?

Ted_Zeppelin

I’ll agree with you so that both of us are wrong.
I have not had a slot car track since I was a kid. This video just popped up on my YouTube feed. Apparently the slot car technology has taken a few steps forward since I last raced them:whistle:. I was not prepared for this.

 

ChrisGSP

Blues Journeyman
Yeah Ted, I had both slot cars and railways as a kid. My dad set up my train set on an old ping-pong table and it was great. Had to go to the local bowling alley to race slot-cars - they had a good track, with a cambered back corner, but nothing like this video - those cars are doing a lap in about 4 seconds.... too fast to enjoy.
 

Ted_Zeppelin

I’ll agree with you so that both of us are wrong.
Yeah Ted, I had both slot cars and railways as a kid. My dad set up my train set on an old ping-pong table and it was great. Had to go to the local bowling alley to race slot-cars - they had a good track, with a cambered back corner, but nothing like this video - those cars are doing a lap in about 4 seconds.... too fast to enjoy.

I did relive my model train midlife crisis a few years back. Took me a couple of years to put this one together although it started out as just some track on a piece of plywood:whistle:. I got a little carried away.

Train
 

Grateful_Ed

Student Of The Blues
We used to do something, but it didn't look quite like that. :eek:
I still have parts and cars from the 60s and from the 90s when I got involved again with my kids....will trade for guitar lessons..:LOL:
 

Silicon Valley Tom

It makes me happpy to play The Blues!
I am a model train nut, and have been since I was 10. I have Z, N, HO, (American and German), S, 027, G and 1 gauges. I was never into slot cars.

When I was 14, our local toy and train store (Edna and Jerry's) on 18th Street near Castro in San Francisco, removed the great Lionel and American Flyer layout they had, and replaced it with a huge slot car track. Fathers and sons would spend Saturday afternoons lined up enjoying racing each other. My dad deserted the family in 1950 when I was 8, and although I truly missed my trains at Edna and Jerry's, it made me feel good to see fathers and sons together.

Tom
 

JPsuff

Blackstar Artist
I dunno...

Seems like the slot car version of "Flight of the Bumblebee" at 900 bpm.

I mean the technology is impressive I guess, but I don't see the satisfaction of watching a bunch of blurs whip around a track. And if they added some chicanes and crossovers like more "sane" layouts have (and what makes them more challenging) then all they'd be doing is picking little cars up off the floor.

I suppose it's somewhat badass that they can make them go that fast but to me it's more of an example of: "Just because you CAN do something doesn't necessarily mean you OUGHT to".

Jus'sayin'. :whistle:
 

MarkRobbins

Blues Junior
I got into it pretty heavily in the late '60s; had a custom-built tube frame with a Versitec 101 motor. My car and controller were among the many things that my younger brother sold while I was away in the Army. He vigorously denies selling my stuff that disappeared while I was gone, but the youngest brother ratted him out. :LOL:
 

MikeS

Student Of The Blues
Staff member
Who are they kidding? The guys with the controllers have them dimed.:whistle::rolleyes:

Right?
I guess I don't really see the point of the drivers at all (I barely see the point of the race except to "demonstrate" your car building ability. You can't see the cars let alone control them,. So if you can't see it is it really a demonstration?
 

John-G

The Long and Winding Road
I had a Scalextric set in my childhood days in Australia. Could set up a figure 8 track, or an over/under track. Had 2 cars, so I raced with a friend. Had many enjoyable hours. Don't remember what happened to the set...it just disappeared.
 

WilliamEnright

Blues Junior
Best big toys we have are the sims machines we use for training, they are very realistic these days. Trains, Planes and Automobiles, even have a full size ship's bridge simulator where looking out the 'windows' looks like the ocean.
 
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