181 replies to this topic

[Gil Aubin]

I started racing at Model Car Raceway in Berlin, CT. The April 1969 Car Model magazine I have listed a race announcement for the Fifth New England Car Model race on the "220 Titan track."

I know from Ron's pictures that it was not an AMR track. But who made it and does anyone have any pictures? It had a very steep bank.

Hi Gary,

I believe it was an All-Tech 220, owned by our good friend Burt (Bert?) Smith. Eventually moved to Forestville, then???

There was an All-Tech 220 up and running in Taunton, MA, in the late '90s, maybe the same one? Yankee USRA and NECC ran there several times.

[tonyp]

I remember running a 220, I believe, in Forestville. Track call every lap.

[Ron Hershman]

Did someone say... Titan??? LOL. Ta-daaa...

[TSR]

Massive paperclip...

[Mr. Frank]

That track is awesome!!! Would be fantastic to have one of them bad boys...

Where can I get one???

Mr. Frank

[Ron Hershman]

It's awesome until you come into that flat turn right after the high bank.

Then it sucks. LOL.

[Gil Aubin]

Funny, I remember the deadman turn being much tighter radius.

Is it possible they made variations or is it just a malfunctioning brain cell thing?

[Ron Hershman]

There is the "All-Tech" version and the "Engleman" version.

[Ron Hershman]

Gil,

Like this one??? LOL. You should know it well.

[Jaz]

In the mid to late '80s, the only King left on the East coast area that was raced on regularly was 811 Pittstop in Norristown, PA.

Sully Asko once told me he got the track from New Jersey, but couldn't be specific as to who he got it from. We used to assume it was either Nutley's or BIR's. I used to favor Nutley as the surface was very similar and glass smooth with super-clean power. On the other hand, I thought Tango had taken out the launch ramp, as the pics I have still show it a bit, but there was never any launching with modern wing cars anyway.

It held many WRs during that time.

[tonyp]

I was one of the people who bought the Nutley track. it was stored in garages of Tony Paterno mob guy and also mentioned on the Sopranos. When Anthony the son went away to school we lost track of the King and I am sure it was trashed.

Now the above could be BIR's King, which had blue painted on glue glue zones... But the sides have been repainted. I don't think BIR's was like that...

[tonyp]

I forgot. The reason Bob pulled his track out is because someone stepped on top of the bridge to get a car and fell through. The next day it was completely apart when we came into work and two weeks later he had the first indoor 1/12 track in the area.

So if the top of the bridge was replaced, it is for sure probably BIR's....

[tonyp]

Ron,

It is not fair showing Elmsford as a representation of a 220 Engleman. That track was squeezed to fit in the original building. Hard as hell to learn but once you got it it was OK. Crap, I could even win on it.

[Guy Spaulding]

Just to throw another one in here: Victory Raceway, in Woodland Hills, CA, in the 1990s had a left-handed King (bank to the left of drivers panels) and a left-turn donut. Most of the racers disliked it. I liked it.

Phill-

Could that have been the same "Reverse King" we had in Las Vegas in the early '80s? That track had such an extreme transition from the main bank to the banked deadman, that it became a launch ramp in the outer lanes. We held one SoCal USRA event, and all the SoCal guys had to put away all their new lightweight chassis and break out last year's heavyweights. The L-Isos worked the best.

[Edwardo]

Seeing that picture of the All-Tech sure brought back some memories.

In the late '80s a track opened right down the road from me featuring a 220' All-Tech. Easily the biggest slot car track I had ever seen up to that time. Although I still had my Riggen RTR from my childhood, it wasn't in operating condition, so I had to use a Whisper-Jet rental car with an old 36D motor for my first time on the track.. Needless to say, it took freakin' forever to make a lap around that huge thing with that slug of a car. Regardless, it was still a lot of fun driving a slot car again after so many years.

Last I heard, the owner sold it to some guy who wanted to set it up in his barn. Probably wound up like so many other great tracks from the '60s: a smoldering pile of ashes...

[TSR]

Just to put things in perspective, the first recorded and printed "fast" time on a King track was set by Team Riggen's John Cukras at Tom Thumb Raceway in Panorama City, CA, on their American blue King track, in May 1967.

John was fastest qualifier at the second 1967 Car Model race. Using his "Jail Door" car, the same with which he had competed in the first race won by Tore "John" Anderson, and the sister car to that of team mate Ken Schmidt, he beat Mike Steube to the pole with a time of 6.25". He also won the race by carefully driving through wreckage and de-slotting of faster cars.

The motor had been built by Tom Taber from a Russkit "23" motor,a Mabuchi FT16D tin can with rewound armature, Hemi magnets, and Weldun gears. John used a Shark Ferrari 330 P3 coupe that was originally a Spyder, but on which the Shark mold maker had added a roof specially for that race, in which most qualifiers simply painted the roof portion.

While it is difficult to assess if this was the fastest lap at the time, it is the first that is recorded from an actual race.

There was no such series yet in the East (that was a few months away) and NAMRA or MINRA rules did not allow running the 7/8" diameter tires of the Car Model series, so it is likely that this was effectively the first "world record" on a genuine American blue King track, bumps and all.

[tonyp]

I forgot one of the most famous and possibly worse King track on the East coast. Glen Oaks, home track of Big Jim, was know as Cape Oaks because there was absolutely no way to get down the straight without launching. You knew you were going to so you just had to build your car stronger and hope it just got bent and did not roll down the banking in pieces. They were stupid enough to try and run a Car Model F1 series race on that track. Duh...

[Jaz]

Now the above could be BIR's King, which had blue painted on glue glue zones... But the sides have been repainted. I don't think BIR's was like that...

Yeah, I know we've discussed this before, but I never really knew what happened to Nutley's track. Sure was a bummer that track got lost, it was amazing. Then the story of it coming from Jersey must be that it might have been BIR's. The sides were original Formica, in pretty good condition.

Here's a close-up of the bridge and surface.



I never knew that story of how it got broken. Being a poor college student on LI, I didn't get out to NJ too much; raced mostly at Buzzy's and Elmsford.

[Jaz]

I forgot one of the most famous and possibly worse King track on the East coast... Glen Oaks.

Ha-ha !! You are soooo right.

Glen Oaks was possibly the worst King I ever ran on. We tried everything to get the car to work. More weight to keep the nose down slowed you down everywhere else. I had Ed Sohl build me a plumber on the main rails in hopes the drop arm would help with 1/2" drop! Tony Porcelli had a multi-panned and hinged something in hopes of punching the straight. I think I held my breath every time I came on to the straight. And that sickening noise of hitting the catch fence - "WHACK!" - I still remember. And then Greenaway's laugh as you picked up the pieces and Mrs. Jones yelling not to get parts all over her carpet!

What a place - "No battery power before 5 PM, boys."

[tonyp]

Jeff,

I am pretty certain that's Bob's track. In the other pictures the sides looked darker like they were painted but in this picture it looks the right color.

I can't see anyone else painting blue glue zones just like Bob's track had.

[tonyp]

I won my first Car Model amateur race at Cape Oaks on that track. I just lucked out and had a car that launched but would not hit the top of the bank.

[Ron Hershman]

It is not fair showing Elmsford as a representation of a 220 Engleman. That track was squeezed to fit in the original building.

Ahhhhh, but the question is... is Elmsford's track an All-Tech or an Engleman???

I am sure Jim Honeycutt will know the story for sure... I was told (but never confirmed) that Stan Engleman worked at/for All-Tech in Florida and at some point left and started building tracks on his own out of Texas.

So did Stan design the "Engleman" while at All-Tech and it was called the Titan and then when Stan left All-Tech made the same or close design and simply call it an Engleman??

[Ron Hershman]

I just lucked out and had a car that launched but would not hit the top of the bank.

LOL. No, your car was just slow. LOL.

[Ron Hershman]

A few more for ya...

The All-Tech "Big Ben" 150. Looks a lot like a American red except for the donut.



The Revell "Gran Prix". Looks similar to the American Emperor.



And Tony's FAVORITE sections of any slot track... rock-n-roll and dip and roll... more like dip and launch... LOL.

[Ron Hershman]

PdL was right about the condition of SoCal's tracks at the time. In some ways it was an advantage to be used to lumpy, bumpy, badly-powered tracks because when we (SoCal racers) went elsewhere, it was like "What's the problem with you guys? The track's just fine!" no matter how bad the locals said it was.

Look at it this way... while we got to races on some s****y tracks, at least we got to race on tracks and most of them had some character to them.

It made us all better drivers, we learned how to set-up and build better cars to overcome the crap tracks, humps, etc... Hell, it gave all of us character. LOL

These new guys today have no idea how lucky they are with the new tracks of the past 20 or so years... they would be so lost if they had to race on some of the stuff we did.