[Difflock]

So people, how did we all get into this monster of a hobby?

I didn't have a Scalextric set until I was in gainful employment and bought my own, together with extra cars and a lot of track a friend gave me. Then, in my late teens I sold it all off and never really bothered with it (slot racing) until last year! As some of you already know, I run a 22 year old 2.8 injection Capri (1:1 scale

) so naturally a source of parts in this day and age is ebay. A search for Ford Capri turned up some slot cars, namely a couple of FLY Zakspeeds. Once I'd got them, I started looking for somewhere to race them (no home track needed - wouldn't upset my missus too much). Another friend (thanks Chris) directed me to Slot Tech and the rest is history!

I now have probably over 2 dozen slot cars and am starting to plan a layout in my loft (attic for our US friends). My wife hasn't divorced me...at the moment!

Mark.

 

[jonny s]

Give her time mate

When I went thru all that nonsense about ten years ago first thing I did was secure away my car collection. I know I`m a sad one but couldn`t bear the idea of her getting her hands on half of them, she`d have picked out the best and rarest too

I started out with a shared set with my brother in the 70`s and on and off been enjoying it even thru my Army service. I arrived at my Regiment with a set and whilst the `bigger boys` laughed at first it didn`t take long to get them racing in the Squadron bar

Kept us going thru a couple of grim tours of duty in very unpleasant places too ,you never know where this hobby will take you! By joining a club you are opening so many doors and the hobby gets more and more interesting. It`s great being here and nattering to like mindeds , even if sometimes we have very different ideas, it`s all just good fun

 

[Fergy]

I think it was '63 or '64. I was 10 or 11. My older brother, John, worked part time at a hardware store as a stock boy, and after Christmas they were clearing out their leftover stock. Oddly enough, they had carried 1/43 slot car sets made by A.C. Gilbert. Anyway, John comes home with not one, but five large sets for less than the price of one! He's one of those guys that could fall into a cesspool and come out smelling like a rose.

There was enough track to completely cover the living room and dining room, and ten cars to thrash around. Wasn't top quality stuff by any means, and the cars were some unrecognizable Indy-style things, but it was great fun if you hadn't ever slot raced before!

John soon lost interest, and I basically inherited the stuff. The cars were pretty much unrepairable items and I soon had only 2 or 3 cars left, and was constantly scrounging parts from dead cars to keep others going. My mom read on the instructions (to this day, she never throws any away!) that replacement cars were available, and despite not being able to afford it, and unknown to me, she sent off an order for two new cars. What arrived was a shock - two boxes of cars with 6 in each!

That set mesmerized me for two years - I had taken over a large room in the basement and the track was always in use, along with my trains. And then... a commercial raceway opened within walking distance from my house. Game over... hooked for life!

 

[tDI_Fahrer]

This is my story...

Here in Belgium people often say there born with "a brick in the stomac", because everybody wants to build a own house as soon as possible... well... I always reply... "I'm born with a car in my stomac... and fuel in my vains"...
So... if it has wheels, a motor, smells like fuel and oil... I love it!!!

So if I was a small boy, I always played with my Matchbox cars... untill my dad brought me a Racing set... with an BMW M1 and a Lancia Stratos... I was the luckiest kid alive... It was't really a "slot-track", because the cars could change lanes... I loved it... I played with it for years... untill I got a little older... and I started tuning 1:1 mopeds... Then I got older and older... and I started racing 1:1 cars... and motorbikes...

Then... last summer... my best friends parents were on their holidays, and his garage was turned into a whole slotrace track... at first I was sceptic about it... but... like i said... I love racing... so I participated in the races... and I loved it...

So... a month or so later I bought my own Ninco M3GTR starting box in a sell out...
And now I have about 15 slotcars... more then 18 meters of track... regulated power supply... and a super "Race-Night" every monday with two friends...

My girlfriend and I are building a house at the moment... with a special room for my permanent slot-track... so... let the party begin!!!

Think I'm hooked for life...

G.

 

[compound_goose]

i decided to start racing again after about a 5yr gap after looking at some 1/24 wing cars on the net, i looked at the specs of them and thought 'crap, thats what a modern slot car can do?' then i went searching for the old track, found it was mostly crapped and got a new set. scince that new set ive been bying as much track/cars as i can afford, ive found that its addidctive too....

glad i got back into it tho.... ive now got something to do apart from gamecube

recently we got a consevatory built, so its pretty much un useable at weekends/ school holidays, due to being full of track

 

[Intergrali]

get a set for my b'day when I was about 7.. never really took it seriously then back in 98 or something I saw an ad in local shop and so I started going to club.. now I run the thing!
other thing is I have met loads of great people along the way and few morons too but thats the way the ball rolls eh?

 

[Fergy]

QUOTE eh?

Good grief!! Inte's Canadian!!

 

[jonny s]

My Grandad Andy was a Canadian mate so can I be part of the `Canuck Slotties Club` ? He landed on Junot on D Day and the old chap , my bro and me are off to the 60th anniversary in Normandy in June.

 

[Intergrali]

canadian?

 

[Fergy]

QUOTE so can I be part of the `Canuck Slotties Club`

No problem, Jonny, you're in!

That's unusual, though... it's usually we Canucks that are descended from Brits who emigrated here... not the other way around. Ah well, good to know you've got some good genes in you, mate!

 

[Fergy]

Inte, you finished a sentence with "eh?"... it's a thing all of us Canadians do, eh? And the rest of the world hits on us for it, eh? But, no problem, eh?

 

[davidtq]

I blame my hobby on my parents, for my first birthday they bought the biggest slot set they could and then raced for years before I ever got to see it (and they even managed to destroy one of the cars before I saw it) The set was a Matchobx Powertrack one, Cars were relatively well detailed, good build quality, instant speed lock assembly, power balanced lanes, and you could set up a 40' track in no space because of the scale.

For many years I my slot racing set sat in the attic as I raced \ rallied 1:1 until the Foot and mouth outbreak scuppered the 2001 British Rally championship, and the motor club started running "scalextric" evenings instead, and so I got into the slot thing again (being as we were all 1:1 car modifiers there were few standard cars on the track

), , then I got married and the permanent track at work (my boss was my navigator, and also enjoyed slot racing) gathered dust, Foot and mouth passed so the motor club stopped the scalextric evenings I made do with microscalextric at home against my wife, I heard about the new sport stuff that was coming out from scalextric, and my son is now old enough to play with the sets, so he inherited the micro sets, and my wife bought me a circuit 4 "sport" set, the difference between this set and the ones we had made the permanent track out of 3 years previous is incredible. At last the cars are decently moulded and liveried, at last the track has a decent assembly method, at last the cars have headlights of course all that was standard on the matchbox set 25 years ago

David

PS Ive never heard of the "EH" thing about canadians before, The stereotypes I had in mind were bizarre Mounties, and err some not so pleasant french speakers who refer to everyone else as "Anglophones". The only actual canadians I know were most definetely quite mad, 6' tall and would have looked just right in the uniform

, and prone to guitar playing and singing. Definetely didnt help dissuade the stereotype

 

[Difflock]

I've heard about the "eh?" mannerism, but not from Canadians. It was by that Aussie comedian - I forget his name, but he always used to wear a badly done blonde wig and a shell suit. He said that in a certain area of Australia, they always finish a sentence with "eh?" , Eh?

So maybe it's becoming a worldwide thing, along with finishing every sentence so that it sounds like a question, and dodgy cockney english, innit?

Mark. I live in Lancashire, me. Oop 'ere we know 'ow to talk proper. So that want's to brush up on thi' Queen's English ya buggers!

 

[dgersh]

Let's see, in 1962 or 1963, my dad took us to the Chicago Auto Show, as he did every year. And there was a huge AMT Turnpike layout, with cars being run only by AMT personnel (probably Budd "The Kat" Anderson, but didn't know it at the time). I probably spent most of my time at the show with eyes riveted on the layout, hoping they'd call on volunteers from the audience...

So, that December, I received an Eldon Gold Cup set, starting the whole thing off. The Eldon broke pretty quickly, but I got an Aurora T-Jet set sometime in next year or so; and in 65 or so began to find commercial raceways in my neighborhood in Chicago, downtown, etc. Did both HO and some 1/24 and 1/32 for awhile, until getting much more heavily in 1/24 with first scratch-built car in 1967.

Started up again after college (that's university, for you UK guys) in 74 in Portland, then Seattle, where there a couple tracks at the time. Traveled to Europe for the first time in 75 and gave away all my equipment before leaving...

I moved to Paris in 1982 and had pretty much forgot about slot racing, but... at the Paris Hobby Show in 1992 I saw a demo slot racing track, run by the Fédération Française du Slot Racing, and that started the whole thing again... they explained what had happened in the meantime, introduced me to the slot club and the Circuits Routiers association, the fact that slot cars had become collectible and other amazing facts.

I always figured I'm a pretty typical boomer slot racer: born in 1952, tried about every form of the hobby, was neither a great nor a bad driver/builder, had my first job in the local hobby shop....
Don

 

[astro]

Had an Aurora HO set as a kid, smallish layout and a few cars and a truck. Don't remember how much I used it, but I must have liked it to spend my pocket money on extra cars. The cars were fabulously detailed, many had lights. I remember someone at school bringing in a scalex car of the time, and being totally uninpressed - seemed less to scale and a lot less detailed than my cars despite being a larger scale and a lot more expensive.

That set got given away when I left home and has little to do with my current attraction to the hobby. I started collecting die-casts, and am particularly partial to GT40s. When I saw scalextric's offering I was very drawn, the detail was superb (as a model) and my main reservation was whether I would get board of the slot aspect. My partner assured me I wouldn't, so a scaley GT40 set along with the 1966 goodwood set started me off.... she was right and has been kicking herself ever since!

 

[taxi]

Familiar story here. My brother and I were given a set one christmas and spent the entire holiday taking turns racing against our dad. Lots more track and several more cars followed. That all got sold when when I got married.
But the bug had bitten deep. A few years ago my wife bought me a Scaley Le Mans set as something to do while I was recovering after an op. Went to the local model shop to get a few extra bits of track and spotted a Fly GT1 98. Wow! For performance and detail it made the Scaley cars look crude and I was hooked.
The track is now a 15metre 4-lane taking up half our attic space and my collection is 60+ cars and growing. Recently my 3yr old daughter has joined in too.
Life is good!

Rob

 

[Bob]

Phil Hill and the 1961 F1 season is my answer. I was 11 and early that summer I saw an Aurora Model Motoring set (A/C vibrators to be exact) at the local toy store, which I passed every day, and clearly remember wondering what exactly was that toy about. I also read the NY Times sports page every day that year for baseball stuff but at least a few times on a Monday there would be a big story on Mr. Hill and Mr. Von Trips and the F1 championship that I thought was really cool. Well by the time school started again I decided I liked racing, bought a Road&Track instead of a Batman comic, and decided I wanted that racing toy. We didn't even have a screwdriver in the apartment but on Sept. 27, 1961 I had enough to buy that set which was still in the window...
And ? Well, 42 years and thousands of slot cars later I've never lost my racing focus or had a better time: I raced for real for 20 straight years, still collect 1/32, race sims, buy old racing books and( ta da) didn't end up in jail. I'm pretty sure I have racing to thank and that goofy old Model Motoring set

Bob

 

[Fergy]

Bob, thanks! Made me remember the vibrators. What a concept! Never had them, but a couple of older kids in the neighbourhood did. In fact, I didn't get into HO until the "big fad" ended.

Liked the part about staying out of jail... it was real cars that almost got me there when I was 18 (story for another time...

) ... but maybe that MM set wasn't so goofy after all!

Hmmmm.... slot racing - positive cure for delinquents!

 

[Difflock]

What are these vibrators you guys are on about? I know A/C alternates and I know about the "other" vibrators thanks to the likes of Ann Summers shops..ahem.

But in the context of slot cars, could I have an explanation?

Mark.

 

[Bob]

More than you want to know: Well since I was just coming off wind up stuff anything that plugged into the wall was great. I knew not of AC or DC. Aurora Model Motoring was just that: Model motoring. Nice highway, a little steering wheel for a controller (pretty much an off/on switch) and street cars (I had two hot rods but there were some other choices as well). Well these guys had a little A/C gizmo that vibrated a reed that turned a ratchet that was part of the rear axle. And gawd it was a racket. They were slower than some of my static car models. It was only a year a two later when Stirling Moss was featured on new Aurora sets that the DC Thunderjet line appeared and racing became possible. I actually bought a $2.00 rectifier to convert the AC into DC so I could buy ($3.00 each) an XKE and 63 Corvette to run on my 10.5 foot oval (This little guy was my first conversion or at least I thought it was a Grand Sport). Yikes, Bob