13 replies to this topic

[Tex]

Looking ahead, I plan to retire in roughly one year and expect to attend two or three fly-away races every year(hopefully). Instead of lugging my box around, I want to ship it to the track ahead of time, so all I have to deal with at the airport is my suitcase. Do you guys have any suggestions regarding a case that would hold my slot car stuff(hand tools, power supply, tire truer, cars, etc) and be rugged enough to withstand being shipped via some carrier(UPS, Fed-Ex, USPS, etc) whether by land or air? I want it to also have wheels and a handle so I can pull it, yet not so big I can't put it up on the table in my pit space. Thanks in advance.

[Pablo]

Glad to hear you will be "racing around", Richard 2 suggestions:

 

-Keep your cars with you; carry them onboard aircraft and cars in a rolling suitcase. If you want to take them back to your hotel with you at night, that makes it easy. If your tools and controllers get broken, lost, misplaced, or stolen they are easy to replace or borrow. But the hours you have in TLC of the cars are priceless. 

 

-For shipping tools, etc. you may want to consider pelican.com

[Phil Hackett]

This is a bit pricy but the kind of thing for regular shipping of expensive and sometimes irreplaceable things:

 

[url=http://www.pelican-case.com/al3018.html] Pelican Products [/url)

 

I know there's less expensive clones of Pelican Products…..

[Rich Goucher]

Jason Holmes and Duran Trujillo are old pros at shipping their stuff cross country. May want to contact them for advise.

[Dennis David]

I'm also a strong believer in Pelican Cases.

[wjtaylor]

try this

 

http://www.packnetlt...dustrial-cases/

[Tim Neja]

I'd get in touch with Haruki San of the Tokyo Retro Racers! He's got traveling down to a science!! He's here on the blog--maybe he'll chime in with his cool cases he uses for traveling!!

[Rob Voska]

Keep your eye on the 50 lb weight limit.

[A. J. Hoyt]

I have flown to a few races recently. You can carefully pack the cars in your carry-on. Beware, though, because that is a lot of metal detected.

 

My grandson tells me that the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles declared that "anything can be used as a weapon" and that episode is probably part of the standard TSA training. Their $9 / hr logic may spark overthinking the situation, that you have been trained in martial arts slot car weaponry.

 

Be sure to carry a recent full color magazine that shows retro cars in an article - on the cover is even better. This may provide a persuasive argument to allow you to not have to mail the cars back to your home address and, just maybe, carry your favorite controller (though one TSA agent insisted that it was a TAZER.) Tools can be carefully packed in your checked bag among the changes of clothes - and many airlines sting you $35 for that one, but shipping the box will cost you something, anyway.

 

While in FL (yes, had my slot car stuff there, too), I saw some very nice aluminum shipping cases at Wal*Mart that qualify as checked luggage. They were large enough to carry a standard Hoffman's box with about 3-4 in of padding on all sides, had wheels, an extending handle and was a reasonable price. If it was stocked on the floor, you should be able to get one online. I know I thought about it; I miss my Hoffman's box when I travel - I've had that box at least since '71.

[Dennis David]

Haruki San uses one of these according to his FB post:

 

 

http://img.pelican.c...st-brochure.pdf 

 

Fully loaded these could easily be over 50 lbs, but some airlines offer higher weight limits for international travel which is what he takes of course. You can custom configure the drawers. One day I'll get one of these where I can switch out the drawers depending on what I am doing.

[Rob Voska]

Zpeedzone just brought back some new cases from the ISRA Worlds.  Ask them how the new box travels.

[FVracer]

Richard,

For Sano I just shipped two wooden slot boxes to Mike Swiss and he shipped them back to me. Fed Ex both ways.  A total of $55 each way. I had everything I normally have at the track. On my recent travel to the Checkpoint I went with a lot less.  Since I'm going to the Caribbean Retro Championship in June I wanted to "practice" going with less.I packed the stuiff in 2 small plastic shoe boxes in my checked suitcase (43 pounds there, 45 pounds back). My cars (5) and controllers (2) went in plastic bags in a small carry-on with a couple of slot car magazines for explanation but I didn't need them. With the exception of a tire truer and power supply I had everything I needed. I made a power supply out of a 3 c cell battery holder and alligator clips to break in motors. It worked fine. I bought the batteries in LA and left them at the raceway along with lighter fluid and acid flux which I bought at BPR. l'm convinced that making my reservations well in advance, 3 months, allowed TSA to check me out and I ended up Pre Checked for both trips. TSA is a lot more relaxed in the Pre Check line. This year I'm going to apply under the TSA Pre Check program rather than leave it to chance. With that approval I'm sure I won't have any issues going forward. Check it out.

[JoB]

Traveled 3 Times to races in the US from Sweden. Just carried on the standard slotcar wooden box with all my cars and parts in to the cabin. Hauled it up in the overheadlocker, perfect fit. Just be careful that the box is within the size for the carryon! The tools and controllers in a case inside the check in luggage.
I remember once in Heathrow in London that one of the security guys looked at my stuff and asked questions about the cars and so on, and said in a typical british expression: "Brilliant!"

[mjsh]

ABSlotsports.biz/  has an excellent option.