119 replies to this topic

[MSwiss]

You run races, half the year, out of a garage that yourself or someone else provides for free.

You are like someone who hosts a nice Sunday backyard barbeque, trying to give advice to a restaurant.

3,000 Facebook followers? How does that equate to success? How many of those 3,000 provide any sort of revenue?

[Cheater]

One big thing that I see hurting tracks across the US is the fact that they won't work together.

Just the tracks? Heck, there's virtually no cooperation anywhere in slot racing at any level as best I can see.

Not happy to see this thread evolve into an "us vs them" discussion, because that benefits no one.

Brent, from my viewpoint, if your track is on residential property, instead of inhabiting retail/commercial space, it would be more properly labeled a club raceway, or perhaps a commercial/club hybrid.

You are like someone who hosts a nice Sunday backyard barbeque, trying to give advice to a restaurant.

Mike, there's many cases of restaurants placing recipes acquired from backyard cooks on their menus. Doubt the Hottles wish to tell you how to run your business or your races, but I am certainly interested in learning how they have grown participation in their chosen genre of slot racing, one that is quite different from the one you promote at Chicagoland.

[Mayberryman]

Mike,

With all due respect I think that you are a little too quick to dismiss the path that another takes to obtain his or her goals. You might reference Outback Speedway as a backyard BBQ chef attempting to give advice to restaurant but consider the following facts. 

I wonder how many "real tracks" go out and take the time to get sponsors for each and every race of a 18 race schedule? 

I wonder how many "real tracks" have payout of from $100 to $500 to win with the purse extending at least to the top eight that is a result of these efforts to get sponsors?  The next time you have a race paying $500 to the winner and paying down to 24th place please post flyers and I am sure that you will have a full house. 

As far as a full-time raceway, no, the people at Outback are too smart for that one. I will bet that every commercial track owner would take a break during the summer if they could. 

Tim and Brent have modeled their racing program more like the 1:1 racetracks in their area and less like the SOP used by every full-time commercial track and this format has worked exceedingly well for them. 

In the Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania areas slot car racing has taken to the basements and garages of these racers and from all appearance seems to be doing well. Tracks like these have proven that great slot car racing does not have to be relegated to the five turn and a doughnut King configuration of most commercial tracks.

[Tom Thumb Hobbies]

Where do you get your resistors?
Do you let them rattle around in the car or attach them to the chassis?
The rating you quoted seems a bit off. I typically use a 10 watt, 1 or 1.5 ohm.

100 watt is what typically hangs down on an old external resistor controller.

A car barely moves with a 5 ohm.

 

Oops. I was wrong on the wattage. Should of said 50 watt. So much for my memory. And I missed a decimal point on the ohms. It is 8.0 ohms. So much for my typing.

 

As far as where I got them I really don't remember. I had them for another project in R/C years ago. Probably Mouser or Newark Elec. I mount them to the center rail either with silicone or lately with R/C servo tape. I don't know why yours barely run with a 5 ohm... must be just a difference in power. I wouldn't think the Difalco controllers would make that much difference. Unless you use them, too.
 
BTW... I wanted the higher wattage to virtually guarantee no heat problems that could burn Little Johnnie's fingers.

[Grant G.]

If someone gets hurt on the premises, whose insurance pays the medical expenses?
 
The owner of the garage, or Outback Motor Speedways business insurance?

 
This seemed like a legit question, no?

[MSwiss]

Oops. I was wrong on the wattage. Should of said 50 watt. So much for my memory. And I missed a decimal point on the ohms. It is 8.0 ohms. So much for my typing.
 
As far as where I got them I really don't remember. I had them for another project in R/C years ago. Probably Mouser or Newark Elec. I mount them to the center rail either with silicone or lately with R/C servo tape. I don't know why yours barely run with a 5 ohm... must be just a difference in power. I wouldn't think the Difalco controllers would make that much difference. Unless you use them, too.
 
BTW... I wanted the higher wattage to virtually guarantee no heat problems that could burn Little Johnnie's fingers.

 

I'm still thinking it might be .8 ohms.

NBD.

I would still like to see a picture.

[Cheater]

This seemed like a legit question, no?

Is is but IMO this is not the best place to ask it.

Best place would probably be the private Industry forum here at Slotblog that gets almost no activity (just six threads this year and no posts in a month).

I'm reminded again just how astute Pogo was regarding his assessment of the enemy...

[Grant G.]

Oh, I see. Just figured with the amount of people that may be interested in opening club tracks it may have been something others were interested in learning about as well.

 

Just another elephant in the corner that no one wants to talk about. Carry on...

[Cheater]

You wanna discuss the subject, Grant, feel free to start a thread in one of the open forums.

 

If you choose to do that, it will be interesting to see just how much discussion the topic generates.

[MSwiss]

Spencer,

You're contradicting yourself.

This thread, that you started, is about commercial raceways. As both you and Greg seem to agree, OMS is not a commercial raceway. Running 16 events a year on a residential property is not a commercial raceway.

That clubs like OMS exist is fine, but the minutiae of their race format, their rules, or the type of car they race, has little to do with their survival.

The survival of OMS and clubs like them, is dependent on convincing your wife her Honda CRV will be fine sitting in the driveway vs in the garage, and not overstepping the good will of your neighbors, that your illegal business isn't inconveniencing them to the point that they report you to the local authorities.

PS: As far as cash payouts, raceways have had them forever, and it had very little to do with the long term success of the raceway.

I won $5-6,000 in 1988 and 1990, and all those tracks that paid me $200-$1,000 didn't stay in business, or go out, based on it.

Realistically, only a small percentage of the the entrants have a chance to win the top prizes.

[Tom Thumb Hobbies]

The JK rentals generally draw just under 1 amp. With an 8 ohm resistor you have a calculated voltage drop of just under 8 volts leaving, in my case, 6 volts to run little Johnnie's car. Just perfect for no-damage collisions.

[MSwiss]

McM,

I've only put resistors on much faster motors, like Deathstars, so maybe that's the difference.

Like Greg said, in a earlier post, bad rental cars is a bad idea.

Using Whisperjets, you might as well stamp on the roof "I never want to see you again". LOL.

Do you Shoe Goo just the nose, or around the spoiler also?

[Cheater]

This thread, that you started, is about commercial raceways.

And I am the culprit who brought up the subject of small-footprint ovals and the growth of racing in that genre.
 

That clubs like OMS exist is fine, but the minutiae of their race format, their rules, or the type of car they race, has little to do with their survival.

But I believe it does have an impact of the level of participation they seemingly enjoy. How many raceways of any kind are seeing an average of over 23 racers per event?

[MSwiss]

Club racing in Chicago, has turn-outs like that, with zero payouts and zero sponsors.

[MSwiss]

If someone had a big enough garage or basement, there could be 50 racers a night racing plastic cars.

The lure of free racing or a minimal donation for snacks and beer/pop, is all that is needed.

No $500 purses required.

[Dennis David]

I agree. I'm going to convert my home into a raceway and live in the garage. 

[PCH Parts Express]

When we opened the raceway back in 1995, we very soon felt like the raceway was home.

[Tom Thumb Hobbies]

I Shoe Goo nose and spoiler. Kind of a pain actually. I have a couple of old bodies I'm going to try spray PlastiDip and maybe spray bed liner. Of course masking off the proper areas first.

[MSwiss]

Kind of a pain actually.

 

Thanks for confirming that.

I deal with it a bit with hardbody racing and I think I've developed "Shoegoophobia".

[Mayberryman]

Mike, with all due respect perhaps you should go to the Outback Motor Speedway before making judgments.  This club is not a plastic based slot car club.  They race three different classes on a regular or semi regular basis.  The Dirt Late Models are hand build brass offset chassis with an inline drive with the motor being right at the left rear tire.  The Big Block Mods are based on the 4" Parma FCR chassis and the Street Stock class is based on the Parma 4.5" FCR chassis and uses model bodies.  Mike I can direct you to the web site where this track gets an average of over 23 cars for a regular series race, can you direct me to a web site where all of these Chicago based clubs get the same or more for an average race?

[Outback]

This is Tim Hottle owner of the Outback Motor Speedway. I'm not sure why this Mike Swiss needs to know any of our personal business as what are you to gain from that?

 

If you must know, yes my garage is a commercial space. I built it originally to run my sign shop out of, and since have used it for my construction business as well as this slot car hobby shop deal. 

 

What happens if someone falls? They get up! If they want to try and sue me, yes, I have insurance. I learned a long time ago not to assume things as you never really know what's going on until you get the facts.

 

To be honest this thing is growing so fast that I'm thinking about moving it into a bigger building and running a hobby/sign shop out of it. But again what is that any business of yours?

 

Also why does a track have to be a club or commercial? Maybe we run ours as a true race track? Do you consider your local dirt or asphalt tracks as race tracks, or club racing? It's the same thing that we do. Those tracks make a schedule, open up and run a complete racing season. They have mainly the same racers showing up weekly, so now are they club racing to you?

 

I personally run OMS just like a race track. We run time trials, heat races, C-Mains, B-Mains, and then our A-Main. Every one of our "Crown Jewel" events have at least one Non-Qualifier's Main Event, and some events have two Non-Qualifier Main Events. We are always trying to think of ways to create new events, and different ways for everyone to race and have a good time! We are in VA and pull in racers from upper PA, MD, NC, GA, and even have had a racer come from New Mexico. 

 

I can tell you right now if you don't think having over 3,000 facebook followers as a positive thing, then I'm not sure what you think is a good thing?

 

It has helped us create a lot of interest in our slot car track as well as help promote our sponsors. 

 

How many commercial raceways have taken their track to a "televised Event?" OMS has. We were featured on MAV TV, NBS Sports, and the old SPEED TV. You can cut us down all you want but I'm pretty sure we have a pretty good thing going on here.

 

I was asked by Greg to maybe give a little insight to what we are doing and how we are growing, and helping to promote slot car racing which in turn should help all of us, but instead it seems like I'm just going to create a lot of conflict because a few want to "assume" we aren't legit.

 

I asked my son to post a few details about our track and how we run, so that it might be an idea that some of you would want to try, but instead it has turned into a "bash" about our track.

 

If you, Mike, don't like what we are doing and you are pleased with your way, more power to you. I'm not saying Here at OMS we are the know-it-alls, or the leader, or anything to that effect. We were just going to simply explain what is working for us, that's all!

 

This in my opinion is why slot car racing has never really been big, as this happens all the time. Nobody wants to seem to work with each other, and worse they want to degrade anything that seems to not benefit them personally.

 

I told my son, we will not get on here and argue with anyone, and create controversy. If that is all we can contribute to this forum then we will choose to just not post anymore.

 

Hope this post at least clears up a lot of things that was really no one's business but OMS, and I wish all of you nothing but success and good times!

[jimht]

It's fun to do stuff for people that gives them enjoyment.

It's also neat not to charge them for their joy.

It's even better if they get paid for playing.

 

However, the neatest thing is if one can earn a living doing the above.

Something tells me that's unlikely in the slot car world.   

 

Don't misunderstand, though, the questions are being asked because all us Raceway owners are more than willing to start doing whatever will make our businesses better...

[MSwiss]

Mike, with all due respect perhaps you should go to the Outback Motor Speedway before making judgments.  This club is not a plastic based slot car club.  They race three different classes on a regular or semi regular basis.  The Dirt Late Models are hand build brass offset chassis with an inline drive with the motor being right at the left rear tire.  The Big Block Mods are based on the 4" Parma FCR chassis and the Street Stock class is based on the Parma 4.5" FCR chassis and uses model bodies.  Mike I can direct you to the web site where this track gets an average of over 23 cars for a regular series race, can you direct me to a web site where all of these Chicago based clubs get the same or more for an average race?

 

Spencer,

 

I'll try one more time.

You started this thread to address the business models of legitimate commercial raceways.

If you want to start a new thread on "Free Space Raceways" go ahead, and I'll chime in on the most successful one, Ken O Racing.

No cash pay-outs, no racing, maximum profit.

I assure you, the only limiting factor for the turn-outs at Chicago area club racing is the host's wife tolerance for having strangers use her bathroom(s) and her taco dip production capacities.

[Pappy]

If you want to start a new thread on "Free Space Raceways" go ahead, and I'll chime in on the most successful one, Ken O Racing.       

 

There is no such thing as "Free Space Raceways". I have mine in my pole barn behind the house. I don't pay rent, I make payments on it, I heat and cool it, insure it and maintain it. 

[MSwiss]

Sorry, Butch.

I raced at one last Summer with Sano Dave, Meadowdale Raceway.

We had about 15 guys on a beautiful summer night.

He doesn't turn off the heat or A/C in the house when the racers aren't there, nor uninsure it.

His extra expense to hold races are the extra flushes of the toilet.

Maybe a bit more A/C with more doors opening.

Regardless, nothing like a commercial raceway which this thread is suppose to be about.