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[Jay Mendoza]

What a great custom eight-laner by Dave and his crew, expertly handcrafted. This is a true driver's track; it starts after turn one with a climb into turn two followed by an off-cambered downhill left handed turn three, a short chute, then a great pull out of turn four down a long straight into the high banked sections of five, six, and turn one, which create a rhythm section to complete the lap.

It reminds me of the smaller of the three tracks the Shenks had in the middle the Rolling Hills Slot Car Raceway, but in addition their raceway also has a new twist: a drag strip, with a full Xmas tree, plus a computerized display of your ET and MPH readout and instant winner lights as you go through the traps. Jump the gun and you red light... DQ! The road race track has a full computerized display as well, welcome to the new millennium!

The staffed full-service shop can supply you with beginner, Womp-Womp, scale, and wedge/wing type chassis ranging from $35-$90. Parma and custom controllers are available and an impressive MOSFET PWM prototype by Miles was displayed to me at the track. Repairs, service, and custom builds are available; "hot" wound, epoxied, diamond-trued comm, 16 double armature motors are a hand full for sure.

I recently chanced upon this raceway on a family visit to Santa Barbara. The opportunity to share the slot car experience of the 1960s with my twin seven-year-old boys was priceless. We became track rats for two days, and would have remained so, but alas, we live in Mission Viejo.

Anyway, this is just like the old days because everyone is just showing up and practicing, most of the activity is concession cars, and the first real official race is still a week away... wow! The rental cars are much better than I remember: foam rear tires, O-ring front tires on alloy rims, stamped brass pan chassis with an O-ring belt drive from motor to axle, .015" heavy Lexan NASCAR bodies color-coded to the lanes, and the Parma trigger controllers were far superior to the old thumb type "palm burners". The owners and track employees had an impressive array of old vintage slot cars including Russkits, and other period handmade customs that they let me drive. What a swell bunch of guys!

Additionally, they had a couple of pinball machines; Star Trek, and Evel Knievel, and table top dual version of Ms. Pacman. My twins had a ball playing all three and got a couple matches and replays. This real time stuff is far more fun for dad and boys than any X-Box or Wii or whatever computer game, and a real hoot as well.

Thank you, Hobby Central Raceway, for the great time, we will be back soon!

Jay, Ben, and Bud.

Hobby Central Raceway
4 Anapamu St,
Santa Barbara, CA 93101
(805) 965-2972

[Cheater]

I recently chanced upon this raceway on a family visit to Santa Barbara...

I guess that makes you very lucky, for no one INCLUDING THE RACEWAY OWNER seems to have felt it important to get the raceway listed in Slotblog's Raceway List. I guess free advertising to a highly-targeted market doesn't mean as much as it used to.

Sometimes I feel like Sisyphus... sigh.