Remember Slot Cars

[Brooklands]

I went to an HO slot car race at a local slot car show earlier this week. I have been working with the promoter to have a slot car racing weekend at America On Wheels, and we have now set the dates so that we will have a sanctioned HO race on Saturday, July 16 and an open track with possible IROC type racing on Sunday July 17. There will be vendors both days.

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I made the video of the event I attended to share with the exhibits committee of the museum to let them get an idea of what we will have at the museum.
The museum has drag racing cars of the Northeast as our current show (yes, sadly the British cars have left). You can see some photos including the recently arrived dragsters here.

 

[Mickey Richaud]

I was heavy into 1/24 slot cars in the mid-sixties. My favorites were the Cox Ford Gt and the K&B (?) motors. Got into rewinding the motors and playing around with different tires (silastics?).

Frittered away lots of money I earned mowing lawns!

 

[Brooklands]

Cox and K&B (Aurora) were some of the 1/24 leaders along with Monogram, Classic, and Dyno-Charger. My favorite 1/24 cars were my Cox Cheetah and Monogram Scarab II. They got to be too expensive to keep up so I went back to HO slot cars.

 

[JPSmit]

OK, before I comment disclaimer.

1. I am a geek and I think slot cars are very cool.

2. I think the idea of getting them to the museum is fabulous!

still,

I'm chuckling in the video at (once again) the distinct lack of females - girl? I've heard of those (not unlike comic book guy

)

I've never seen HO before - can't say I get it (prefer the larger scales) but then again, that's OK.

thanks for sharing - and awesome dragsters!!!!!

 

[Brooklands]

John-Peter,
I loved the larger slots, but in a basement, I never had room for much of a layout. My layout, Brooklands Speedway, allows me to have more fun with the modeling part by being able to include much more in one room. The cars that were shown in the video were first built in the 1960's and are still based on original Aurora Thunderjet chassis. The group that raced at this event were all male, but I do know of a few women who race in some of the clubs, but they are definitely in the minority. Probably the feel that playing with 50 year old toys is a bit unusual...

 

[JPSmit]

Dave, but, yours is not HO? yours is 1/32 is it not? My first thought in terms of the HO setup was space, but the track seemed the same size. In terms of the women - just being silly though there aren't a whole lot at train shows, etc. etc. My son was cheering for a friend at a "Magic Card game" event - over 1000 there and he said you could count the women on one hand.

 

[Banjo]

Mine are all HO. I love the old "T-jets" without traction magnets. I have more fun wagging those old cars around the corners, than watching the newer ones streak around the track so fast you can't see 'em. They're all cool though. I gotta get some pics of my collection.

 

[Andrew Mace]

Mine are all HO. I love the old "T-jets" without traction magnets. I have more fun wagging those old cars around the corners, than watching the newer ones streak around the track so fast you can't see 'em.

I only had one of those newer type cars amongst dozens of T-jet 500 chassis and even a couple of original "vibrator reed" cars (one of them a '62 Country Squire).

I've been threatening myself for years to dig out and set up my stuff again. I had tons of track, including cobblestone, crossovers, lap counters, whatever that wonderful spiral was called...tons of guard rails and those wonderful yellow "banks" for the outsides of curves (Hey, I was "drifting" before "drifting" was cool)!

This year, I might just have to make good on this promise/threat to myself....

 

[TR6BILL]

Those were the days. Champion slot cars, 507 motors....

I, too, used to rewind, put witch hazel on the tires for traction. Even built a twin motor prototype, too heavy.
Other guys were out chasing babes and playing fraternity, I was a nerd, studying and playing with slot cars.

 

[Banjo]

Latest thing for T-jets and Tuff-ones is silicone tires. They go like stink with a set of those, and still drift through the corners!
When you pull out your old ones, don't get too frustrated with the old dry tires. Go online and get yourself some new ones, and a bottle of oil. they will be lots of fun again.
My mods were a prototype front wheel drive (It was horrible) and my favorite is my "Nitrous button". It's on an old Aurora pistol controller. a little red button hooked to a 9V battery hidden in the handle. Hit it and the car gets a boost of power.
Dave, you can thank Frank for giving me that idea.

 

[Brooklands]

My set up is all HO, mostly Thunderjets. I bought two 100 chassis cases about two years back as Aurora's "overstock" is finally gone. I only use the newer magnet cars for cleaning the rails on the HO track. I actually have a few smaller cars on the layout than HO with the Galoob Micro-machines set up as a go-kart track.

I ended up using the old Aurora Lock and Joiner track, and Atlas track, all from the 1960's, to build Brooklands Speedway.

And I do have my two original "vibe" cars from my first set. The racer in the Aurora shirt with the very intense look on his face, who is one of the trophy winners is Henry Harnish, famous to many as the first winner of the Ford-Aurora National championship racing the Vibe cars. His website is a great scrapbook of his winning a new Ford Thunderbird in the 1962 competition at age 15, and meeting Sir Stirling Moss in the process.

 

[Andrew Mace]

My mods were a prototype front wheel drive (It was horrible)

Similarly, my 12-year-old self, armed with little more than an X-Acto knife, razor saw and glue, tried his best to "engineer" a four-wheel-drive version of a ThunderJet 500 chassis. Never quite got it to work very well....

 

[Brooklands]

I do have a FWD T-jet Olds Toronado, and a 4WD T-jet Corvette, both acquired via eBay. The Toronado conversion is more successful, but not much.

I did some mods to my t-jets with extra cooling and such, but as a kid I was already proving not to be much of a mechanic. This winter I tried to fix my 1946 Lionel 221 locomotive by wiring in a new E-Switch. It ran about 30 minutes before I finally admitted defeat and took it to a local train shop. $40 later it runs much better, has new electrical pick ups, and even the piston rods that move with the drive wheels are straighter and smoother than when I took them in. I have learned that on the old Lionel stuff, my skills do not always work.

But I can get a few good looking slot cars ready to run when I have friends are ready to visit the track...

 

[BIBBER]

Dave...you make me envious...had a commercial 1/24 track in my neighborhood growing up and like you said due to size just a figure 8 1/24 scale in my basement for fun. I was into building customs from model car/truck bodies and getting them to do wheelie stands as my buddy just an off-the-shelf Cox La cucaracha and used it to wipe me up on the track with it...we did HO a little as well....you definitely have some neat collection...