45 replies to this topic

[Garry S]

There's lot's of talk here about "bringing back the slot car industry", but what would constitute success?   

 

I offer that if the members of this forum were given vast sums of money to spend on a "top-down" revival of the industry, they couldn't even reach a consensus on how to spend it, or what success would look like.

 

I also offer that "top-down" is the only way such a revival would ever be possible. "Grassroots" has been tried, and it created the vast hodge-podge of classes, equipment, rules, and tracks that continues to this day.  

 

So, everyone step up to the imaginary money tree.  How much do you need, and how will you spend it?

[MSwiss]

Garry,

 

From the myriad of brucefl threads;

 

From me:

Like we have both said before, what the commercial raceway really needs is a throwaway slot car.

 

A $30 retail car that doesn't have to look quite as terrific as the 1/32 homeset cars, or 1/24 Carrera, but still pretty nice.

 

If I can buy, at Fry's, a terrific looking R/C Porsche 918 for $15, you would think the $30 slot car, that would run about a 7 or 8 second lap on a King, would be possible.

 

If there is such a thing as rich slot car benefactor, that's what I would like to see them gamble $100K on.

 

From Jim Honeycutt:

 

Showing how much fun can be had playing with the cars would be much more productive... and to get that we would need to be selling a product that hasn't been available since the '60s: cheap toy cars mass-produced for fun instead of organized racing.

[gotboostedvr6]

A $30 car is possible.

FK130 motors can cost as little as .65 cents, FK180 .75 cents.

Cheap gears, plastic chassis and tires can be sourced.

[Justin A. Porter]

A successful revival would result in retail slot car accessibility more closely mirroring golfing. 

 

Anyone can purchase a set of clubs, some tees, and some balls from a large chain department or sporting goods store. There's no mystery as to where the golf course is, and the pro shop at the course - which itself is supported through a combination of memberships and course fees - focuses on selling specialty (read: higher dollar, higher performance, higher margin) items to the more discerning clients.

 

This model would represent not only a revival, but a sustainable future.

[Shooter7mustang]

In my opinion, with todays social media and the opportunities to advertise literally "for pennies" I truly believe that the hobby could be resurrected. There are a lot of youngsters out there that would love to build and race Retro cars. Plenty of would be slot-nerds.

The key is demonstrating to them that it not just a car in a slot and that there is skill involved in both driving, building and setting up a car.

Just my two-cents.

[MattD]

I don't think any kind of revival is possible for 1/24 commercial racing. The economies of that type business just don't work out very good.
 
If... there were some sort of revival, I think a realistic expectation would be that it would be based in 1/32 club/home/commercial racing. I  think friends and families  could provide vastly higher numbers of  casual fans. Great numbers of casual fans could lead to a success industry/revival.  
 
With 1/32, guys  can run down to the basement when they have 20 minutes to spare, Jr can tweak his car when he gets home from school, a couple of buddies can come and play for free, basically. Dad can go down at night and play with his stuff. No more 30-60 minute trips to even get to a track where they may not even have open racing or a guy is too intimidated to  put a car out there with the hot shoes.
 
What would that take? Who knows, I think a four-lane plastic track, not two lanes put together, but a genuine four-lane wide track, with lengths up to 5-6 foot, several corner options including moderate banking.  A combination effort by the whole 1/32 industry.  Maybe it would be possible to spend $200 or so and have a 50 foot or more four-lane track in your basement that you simply take out of a box and put together and plug in controller stations. You don't have to be skilled  to put it together, just like an HO train set, plug and play in 10 minutes.  
 
You can landscape or stay plain as a commercial track. Maybe a similiar track at the local retailer where you can actually pick up a car and see it before you buy it, and you could race on a bigger version of your home track.    Currently there are about 6-8 different 1/32 tracks available, none interchangeable. So we know how the industry can work together, NOT. At least this smaller footprint would help on the footage required for a retail operation. Maybe be small enough to fit into  whatever local train/hobby store that is around. There is still one train/hobby shop in most really big cities.   
 
Guys like us would probably still want to scratchbuild and tinker, but stock box plastic cars would be there for anybody that wants to race them.  
 
Bottom line this will never happen with a hobby that is 60 years old and time has passed by for the most part. If there was some type of big revival, I think this would be the pathway.

[MSwiss]

Matt,

I like your idea of a four-lane, bigger piece, modular track.
 
I sort of doubt that $200 is realistic for a four-lane, 50 foot track.
 
Maybe if someone gambled big $$$ on tooling.

[MSwiss]

A $30 car is possible.

Fk130 motors can cost as little as .65c, fk180 .75c

Cheap gears, plastic chassis and tires can be sourced.

Of course it is possible.
 
It's getting someone to gamble on it.
 
Getting 1,000 motors is easy, because they are an existing item, and tooling is paid for.
 
But I doubt you could talk some Chinese company to tool up, and put together/supply 1,000 complete cars, for $12,000.
 
Here is a cool item.
 
154 parts, for $39.95.
 


But I bet you they had to have at least 50-100K, of these made, and probably more.

[Ramcatlarry]

One element is the franchised location and storefronts. With the decline of the rental video stores, all of those properties are up for grabs. Locations are right and the sizes are good. If the property owners would pass on reasonable $5/sq ft rents, then creating a package might work.

[Garry S]

A successful revival would result in retail slot car accessibility more closely mirroring golfing. 

 

Anyone can purchase a set of clubs, some tees, and some balls from a large chain department or sporting goods store. There's no mystery as to where the golf course is, and the pro shop at the course - which itself is supported through a combination of memberships and course fees - focuses on selling specialty (read: higher dollar, higher performance, higher margin) items to the more discerning clients.

 

This model would represent not only a revival, but a sustainable future.

 

This is my point. In this light, slot cars have never been successful. There has never been any truly wide-spread standardization of cars, classes, rules, power supplies, controllers etc. Industries have promoted the latest-greatest tracks/cars/parts, but the use of those resources has always been governed by a divisive network of regional (at best) grassroots organizations. And today, these classes/rules/equipment may apply only to a single location!

 

You can take your golf clubs to any course in the world and play, but I'm not sure this has ever been true for slot cars. Variables such as track power, controller hookup, and tires have often varied widely between tracks, and even if you could just hook up and go, chances are you wouldn't be competitive without some major changes to the car itself.

 

I'm not saying that specialization isn't desirable, but I do think that standardization is the key to mass popularity.

[MSwiss]

You can take your golf clubs to any course in the world and play, but I'm not sure this has ever been true for slot cars.  Variables such as track power, controller hookup, and tires have often varied widely between tracks, and even if you could just hook up and go, chances are you wouldn't be competitive without some major changes to the car itself.

Controller hook up is really the same.

 

Red is red/brake.

 

White is positive.

 

Black is negative.

 

The only fly in the controller ointment is the rare track wired for negative gate.

 

While that didn't matter before electronic controllers, it did after.

 

12V? 14V?  It's still DC,

 

That might require a gear change, but probably not.

 

Regardless, none of that is holding up slot racing.

 

I doubt any existing racer ever quit racing because, the once a year he was out of town, on business, or vacation, he couldn't walk into X track and immediately dominate without changes.

[MattD]

Mike, it is too late for anything to actually happen, but if the engineering and production costs for a four-lane plastic track could have  been shared by all the companies that make the 1/32 cars, the cost might be low enough to make the track pretty cheap. The companies would all make money on cars and parts.  

 

Instead we have SCX track, Scalextric track, two kinds, Ninco track, Carrera track, Artin track. If the track was all the same and a shared endeavor, the costs would have been much cheaper for each company. Just a lot of what ifs.     

[Justin A. Porter]

I'm afraid you missed my point, Gary. The point was not the universality of equipment. When the hobby was at its last peak, there was little to no commonality between the most popular cars from a retail standpoint. What mechanical similarity beyond a guide flag do a Classic Stinger and a Cox Cheetah have?

 

My point was the ready availability of the purchase point of entry into the hobby. The only place to purchase a commercial 1/24th scale slot car is at a commercial raceway, setting aside the obvious internet option.

 

Not to toss the manufacturers under the bus, but the burden of selling their products to the mass public falls upon the track owners and their ability to market locally. There is no regional or national product awareness for commercial racing that comes from any brand. 

 

Using my golf analogy again, the layman has an awareness of brands like Titleist and knows to purchase them even if he hasn't stepped onto a golf course or visited a pro shop. There is NO SUCH correlative product in 1/24th scale commercial racing.

[Phil Hackett]

There'd be a lot of Chinese names replacing the ones you know.

[Dave Crevie]

The difference between R/C cars and slot cars is that slot cars need a track, R/C cars can go anywhere. They can be run outside, with no set-up or special preparation.

 

And if cheap slot racing was the savior of the hobby, Artin should have solved that ten years ago when you could buy a set with an eleven-foot figure eight track, two cars,two controllers and a wall wart power supply, for $9.95. You could buy them at Jewel  and Dominick's food stores. They were 1/43 scale, but if anything was going to bring young kids into the hobby, that should have. (Actually, it did bring a couple of new guys into the basement group I was racing 1/32 cars with).

 

So, obviously it is possible to market cheap slot cars. The thing about people who buy cheap slot cars is that they are unlikely to get more deeply into the hobby. They are not going to pay for track time. That is why the basement groups got started. These people want only to race for free. I wish I had a nickle for everyone who complained to me that the commercial tracks charge to use their tracks.

 

I know damned well that these people are going to buy their crap off the internet and not from the track. So how do they think the track owner is going to pay his bills?

[Tom Thumb Hobbies]

IMO one of the reasons raceways closed so quickly in the early years is because of the availability of cars etc in the mass market stores. The "Big Box" stores didnt have hundreds of square feet of floor space taken up with tracks. The raceways did and needed to profit from equipment sales to help pay for it. Was it the biggest reason? No. But it designedly contributed.

[MattD]

Over the years, I have been surprised a lot of times to get a kit box with a Kmart or other discount store price label on it that was really cheap.      At the little track I went to in 1965, a Cox Ford GT was either $9.99 or $10.99. I had one kit with a Kmart sticker that was priced $2.99!   Obviously that hurt the economies of the local track. Maybe a small factor, but discounters were a factor.    

 

That is a touchy subject, though. Should free trade have been regulated???

[jimht]

With the demise of Parma and the death of the cheap RTR we've reached a point where the future for more commercial raceways is bleak.

 

It's all about profitability, revenue per square foot, and the model that sells a race car and the tools to support it at a weekly or monthly race doesn't generate enough money to justify an eight-lane monster of a track... a drag strip maybe but not much else.

 

Regardless, a revival? Sure, but not for King track racing, just for profitability.

 

Just go with a single flat track in a high traffic location, incorporate Scorpius and lane changing so as many as 24 people can play on it at the same time.

Have fun.

Races to follow after the fun dies down.

I know it's not what we've been doing for the last 50 years since the fad ended, but it might be more profitable.

[airhead]

 In 1965 you had to call ahead to reserve a lane on Saturday night, for you and your date.

By 1967 you could have any lane you wanted,

The cars  were terrible and you spent most of your track time putting the car back on the track,

On your next Saturday date, you asked your date, if she wanted to go back to the slot car track, she would say , no we did that already, lets try putt-putt .

 After 1967 the only people that showed up at the track were boys that really liked slots or didn't have a date.

 The future of slot racing is home or club tracks, Large commercial tracks will only last a very few years each before they have to close .

I would like to see a commercial race way in every town, but that's not going to happen, I don't see slot racing getting any bigger than it is right now.

 Sorry ,I wish it didn't have to be that way, but that's the way I see it.

[Phil Hackett]

Critical mass is lacking on every front.

[MSwiss]

With the demise of Parma

 

Jim,

 

You brought up the subject, not me. LOL.

 

But now that you did, I had commented in a previous thread on this subject, I'm just glad when I can get a high end controller whenever I want.

 

Well, I just got one in yesterday, and I'm 98% sure the manufacturer put a used Parma handle on it.

 

And I'm not even mad at them.

 

I'm mad that Parma can't seem to get bread and butter stuff, like spare handles, out to the high end controller guys.

[Bobby Page]

As I am writing this little tidbit, most members will say the same or almost the same thing.  Yes if you are rich or comfortably well off, rent a commercial building,  insure it, set up the track and all the things needed to get a real good start, least we not forget a little advertising.  Well I say home club tracks or a COOP of hardliners that are willing to bring some money back to the hobby is the best way to go.  This can all be done as a group where everybody is involved with one part or another of the aspects of the track or building, parts, power, water.  Try and have as many regular driver meetings as possible, that way everyone can find out what they want or don't want.   

[jimht]

 

 

Rent a large storage unit. Then put a porta-jon in the storage unit. Then a track and some tables. Use the local electric and maybe a small generator. Bring a cooler.

Yeah, do that Scott and let me know how it works out in the middle of summer or winter.

How about you just rent a shipping container and put it in your yard?

[Willbloke]

I'm pleasantly surprised slot cars are still going what with RC and X-Box/Playstation.

 

The user has to go to a custom built commercial facility or have the time/space/money to build their own 

 

Here in the UK most people simply don't have enough space for a four lane 1/32 of decent length let alone 1/24 .

 

I'm considering building an HO Rally Stage /Hill Climb because I simply don't have the space.

 

I'm lucky in having a couple of good tracks within 10 miles or so .

[blue&orange]

If my math is correct, a slot car that sold for $10.00 in 1965, adjusted for inflation, should cost $78.05 in 2017.  I can walk into my local slot shop today and buy a base RTR JK21 w/ hawk 7 and painted body for $79.99 -- and you know this car is light years past a 1965 Cox car -- or a whole outfit with plastic box, controller and oiler included for $114.00  A self-built retro car can easily come in at a little over $100.  My simple point is that trying to source a $30 doesn't seem to be the issue in a "revival."

 

Going between tracks?  I've just started racing with Retro East, which races at five different tracks -- plus most of those tracks have home series, too.  Since these series follow IRRA rules, there is no problem with interchange,  Next year's Penn-Jersey flexi series will race at six different tracks, up from four this year.  Go to any of these races, and plenty of friendly racers will give you tips on tire choice, guide depth, some set-up hints.  I was blown away that John Gorski gave me a lot of his time on a practice night last month.  In addition, most of the tracks I have searched on the "net" have their local rules posted for their home-grown series, which means you can maybe adapt an existing car or, what the heck, build one!  It is a hobby, right?  What's that?  They mainly race fairgrounds cars on their oval?  Well, do you want to race and meet friends or not?

 

So I'm not sure what kind of a revival is being sought, other than trying to re-create the boom before the bust of the 1960's.  Agreed, there aren't as many tracks.  At least on the east coast there seems to be a very gradual upward trend.  As you know, I came to the defense of Trains and Lanes in Easton, Pa recently.  This year racing came back with Group F.  Next fall we will add LMP racing which, with a body switch, can race in the Penn-Jersey Nastruck class.  Plus, we will host that series twice.  From what I see here on the blog as well as in my late-night surfing, I think this is a country-wide trend.  Slow and steady wins this race.  

 

You want to see more kids involved?  Then the next time you are doing your serious thing and there are some kids on the rental track, or kids with their old flexis on the track, take the time to show an interest in them.  There are many times when a family stopped to watch the cars go around that I have invited a kid over, put a slow (or expendable) car on the track, put my hand on his on the controller, and after a few laps he goes away beaming, and the parents are more than grateful.  That's how a new racer is born.

 

Thanks for reading.