Remember Slotcar Places!

[quote="Desert Rat";3129080]"Family Hobby" started off between 'A' street and 'B' street about a block off Mission Blvd.[/quote]

Yes!!! ... that's the one! ... and welcome to the H.A.M.B. "Desert Rat" ... great first post!

 

One of my buddies has one next to his body shop in Santa Maria. Last I was in there, he had about 3 huge tracks set up, a drag strip, and a couple smaller ones for the youngsters. He even has quite a collection of vintage slot car stuff. If there is enough intrest, he would probably open up for the Crusin Nats next year..

 

There used to be one in Fort Wayne, Indiana...my mom would drop Dad and me off there while she was getting the groceries...haven't thought about that in years

 

Yes, I do I spent a lot of time in a number of them over the years. I have a lot of money tided up in my Slotcar box, I should get that out and look through it.


CBB

 

In New York (1960's) they'd convert a huge grocery store/supermarket into slot car places. Most having 5 or more HUGE tracks. I mean HUGE

 

Bob... didn't you get pictures of that track we saw at that Long Beach Grand Prix this year??? The one in the convention center. I could have sworn I saw you taking some shot of that. Totally awesome track!!

 

Broncobilly72, Tom Thumb sold the track. It was for sale for 100.00.
I can't remember the year (80's). I am not sure if the hobby shop is still there.
Tomb Thumb was fun.

 

We had a place in Arlington, Virginia in the Balston Shopping Center (some call the area Clarendon). Had a store front in the Shopping Center.
Long gone, but very cool.

 

I to used to race slot cars was a track called Quick Silver Speedway.
Was in St.Louis MO. Think there was a track called Uncle Jax Trax in OC.
That i raced at a few times.

 

Spent a lot of time in the slot car place. Had a few home sets, too.

 

Don't know how I missed this post but I did! I raced for around 5 years, drag racing mostly was great fun. Now looking to build a shorter strip in my brothers new shed, should be about the right length to make it at least interesting. Will load up some pics tonight of the cars we ran....

 

Thanks HEMI132, I spent most my time at Hobbies Unlimited but when my Mom would go to the doctor I could walk over to the track.

 

30on32, no kiddin! $100 for that tack!!!!!!!!!!!! That was one big ass track Yeah; quite the times at Tom Thumb I remember the dope dealers that use to hang out in front, or inside by the front door. The Evanston PD use to do a lot of busts, in and around TT.

 

Thanks for your service.

 

Ok heres 2 of the cars I ran.

The green Hornet, held street records for a while.



And a 3w flamed by Matt Egan of Extreme Designs before his business took off. these he whipped up freehand in about 10 mins with an airbursh, looked great and ran hard.

 

Great thread!

Here´s a bit of self-promotion and info for all the European Hambers who´d like to try their hand at slot drag racing:
A few buddies of mine and myself have been organizing slot drags in Austria, Switzerland, Germany (there are also tracks in Malta, Finland and the UK) for a few years.
Tons of info, pics, reports, etc. are on http://www.slotdragster.com

Here are a few of our (Hamb related) slot cars:









Most of the slot racers are hot rodders, amongst our local group (Austria-Germany-Switzerland) we own: 1931 Ford Sedan Street Rod & blown 1960-ies VW Bug, 1951 Merc Custom, 1966 Chrysler & 1950 Dodge, 1957 Chevy, VW Beetle Super Gas Dragster, 1973 Cougar Drag Racer.

 

Cool Thread. In Jr. High in San Diego (Clairmont) I used to race with an older guy who raced at Clairmont Hobby all the time. I only knew his name was Dave. Only when he was killed at Indy did I learn his last name was MacDonald. We later moved to Phoenix. There were several huge tracks there then and I spent most of my free time building cars and racing on the weekends. Lot of fun.

 

As a matter of fact....YES!! It's a pretty common track,cause it takes up very little room to set up. Most Slotcar places had them.

 

Kalbos cycle shop in joliet(or is it crest hill) has a 60's track. we went there for a club meeting last winter and had a blast. he even has a build your own car area. wish i took pictures

 

There’s a track in St Paul. SE corner of Lexington and University, in the back room of the hobby shop that’s in the basement. Scale model supplies

 

Wow! thanks for the memories....

I lived in Shell Beach, CA about 1965.
Rode my Stingray bike over to the Pismo track to race 1/24th cars.

Seems like they had 5 or 6 tracks that were designated by colors. I do remember the 'big' track was my favorite and named 'purple'. I did some ass kickin' on Saturday nights at that place.

My uncle was a civilian electrician at Vandenberg AFB, he'd take my motors to work and hop 'em up for me.

Side note on the Stingray...

Special ordered it from Snider's Bike Shop in Bakersfield CA. Bought with newspaper route money. I made payments but when making the 2nd to last payment, he let me take the bike home early. Couple years later found out George Snider was an Indy racer.

Left the bike and slot car stuff when I moved away from home.
Mom probably sold 'em in a garage sale.

 

I'm gonna find a local track that's still open and try to put together a HAMB night! I think that would be cool!!! I'll keep you guys posted...

 

My wife and I owned a slot car facility from 1994-1999. 4 massive tracks including a king and 93' of dragstrip. 2' of staging, 55' of racing and 36 feet of shutdown. we even had a return lane for the slower cars. Somebody would stand at the end, and after a pass, pop it on the return lane and you'd drive it back. Some of the best fun we ever had was dragging and building old gassers with hard plastic model bodys. Or scratch building any of the drag stuff.

I remember we'd close at 9pm... That's when my buddies would show up and we'd build and drag and have a blast until sometimes 3-4am.

we had 16 volts, 8d batts, top notch stuff. Although I didn't spend as much time with the high zoot stuff, (we kinda held back at group 20 to keep the racing cheap), I managed to get a car to 98.89 actual mph. never did get anything past 100mph. you gotta be fricken dedicated and know lane and tire prep like you can't imagine. It's probably the biggest challenge to learn when you start going over 70mph. If you get to a good slot drag strip ask when the fastest guys are there. It's freaking AMAZING. They can go by where you are and come to a complete stop in the shutdown, faster than you can turn your head. It's kinda scary. Most people jump when they whip by.

One Christmas I whipped up this bad-ass willys gasser pickup for a guy that worked for me. It was sweet. He puts it on the track, makes a pass at close to 63mph, hits the shutdown it hops outa the slot tumbles the last 30 feet at 60mph and SMASHES into the wall. Put a big twist in the chassis and it was over for that car... Man, was he bummed. turns out when he glued the shutdown he only did like the left side of the slot and FORGOT the right. Car hit the glue, jumped and that was that... Boy, did we tease him.

I found pics a few frames I whipped up. we had a full tree, digital displays all over the building, it was as top notch as it got. Town was to small and we finally had to close it down. I miss it. I did most of the chassis builds for guys that lacked the talent, or felt I had a better eye. I bet I knocked out 250-300 cars for other people. I still have about 30 drag cars of my own. Dragster builds were the best. Ahhhh....*memories*...

 

didnt amf buy all the tracks and shut them down after slot car racing become more popular than bowling.
we have all scales, mainly HO these days, afx, patriot, tyco, lifelike etc, i got into slot cars when i was 9, my son has a landscaped ho track with parma controllers, i still dont have a pc set up for it yet, i had problems trying to set up trackmate 2000 with a serial cable and ifra reds on a old 486, i also need a better power supply, at the moment it just has 1 afx power pack per lane and they keep burning out, i also have 1/24, brass car, flexi and womp. i have a pro womp that i went all out on a super 16d, its not real quick on the track but it beats most drag cars on the strip wich recently closed down, we still have a 1/24 track here in sydney about 40 minutes away thats been going strong since i was a kid, i also have scalectrix and a few oldies like speedmarx from the 60's, i have a complete speedmarx set in the box i still havent used.
we dont have so many t jets here,i think aroura didnt really come here till tyhe afx magnatraction cars came out and every one chucked them for g plus cars.

 

What track is still open, I used to race at the one in Ingleburn.
Doc.

 

hornsby, i think ingleburn is still there too

 

I went and checked it out, its open now. Looks cool, I gotta get my set up going now. This might get me through Winter this year. We gotta get a HAMB night out there. I used to race at the track in Garden City in the early 80's and over in Royal Oak area in the late 70's

 

A Hobby shop near us had a big one in the back ,like huge 8 lanes,,took up most of that huge room..it was the bigger cars. Course only the adults and big kids got to use it but was fun to watch.

 

We had one on 95th street in Oak Lawn that was next to the Army recruiter's in the 60's. We used to go in to the recruiter's and pretend that we wanted to enlist and go to 'Nam and kill commies. We were only 17 and it drove the recruiters nuts.
Here's a shot of an unused 1/25th Amt slot car I still have..........

 

in 69' i was stationed at ft dix new jersey and we raced at an upstairs big ass track in cherry hill............had a hell of a time..