8 replies to this topic

[NSwanberg]

I was explaining 1/32 racing to my sister. She ended up saying, "You mean they are just decorations."

 

[Cheater]

And here is part 2.

 

[Alchemist]

Thanks for sharing the videos, gentlemen - it's appreciated!

 

Ernie

[Bill from NH]

It's an entirely different type of racing than most 1/24 classes. If you really want to know what's going on, talk to someone experienced such as Jim Rose or Pappy. Dave England's podcasts are a good source for learning how 1/32 slot cars are marketed differently than 1/24 ones.

[Cheater]

There's actually marketing of 1/24 slot cars? Point me at some of it, please.

[Bill from NH]

Manufacturers to racers and manufacturers to distributors to raceways to racers. Neither path is very popular in the 1/32 world. 1/32 isn't full of cottage industries either.

[Dave Crevie]

Neither part showed any of the actual manufacturing of the cars. No footage of the injection molding, no footage of the machining of the metal parts. So not really a factory tour.

 

When I started slot racing, the largest sector of slot car manufacturing was guys working out of their basements or garages. Many of those shoestring operations did become larger manufacturers when it looked like slot racing was going to be uber popular. Some are even still around today, having expanded into other sectors of the whole hobby industry.

[Bill from NH]

I thought they might have had proprietary processes for machining parts and for doing the injection molding that they didn't want to make available to the Chinese manufacturers that produced competitive cars. 

[Dave Crevie]

Then a video tour of the factory is somewhat moot, don't you think? Looks more like advertising for their product, and for that, I say kudos. Greg is right. The dissemination of information about the hobby is sadly lacking. It's as if we don't want "outsiders" to know about us. But then we complain that the hobby is shrinking. Once upon a time there was coverage of slot racing in all the major car culture magazines like Rod & Custom, Car Craft, and Hot Rod. The news has to be spread by more than the few slot car publications we have. 

 

I was an editor for a model railroad magazine that focused on O scale models. O scalers are a niche group, only a small part of the model railroading hobby. Yet at our peak, we had a circulation of 95,000 issues globally. Obviously, more than O scalers were buying the mag.