126 replies to this topic

[Cheater]

Phil,
 
The possible effects of the appeal of video games and other competing leisure-time activities are irrelevant to this discussion.
 
Those involved in the promotion and configuration of the model car racing hobby can really only control the situation in their own 'house' and attempt to make participation in the hobby more attractive as compared to other hobbies and leisure-time activities.

[Cheater]

The idea that the slot car hobby was ruined by racers wanting to go faster is absurd.

I don't think anyone has said anything like that, Fred. My contention is that focusing solely on speed and racing worked to reduce the level of participation in the overall slot car hobby, in all of its scales, genres, and subsets.

And your dictionary definition can refer to relative speed as well as ultimate speed.
 

To most of us in this hobby money is irrelevant.

You must be speaking just for yourself here, as you sure ain't speaking for me, nor, do I suspect, for the majority of the people involved in the slot car hobby. "Many" would have been a better choice of words, I think.

[Phil Beukema]

The possible effects of the appeal of video games and other competing leisure-time activities are irrelevant to this discussion.
 
Those involved in the promotion and configuration of the model car racing hobby can really only control the situation in their own 'house' and attempt to make participation in the hobby more attractive as compared to other hobbies and leisure-time activities.

 

Video Games are $130 billion leisure-time activity targeted at the "next generation" of potential slot car racers. I guess that's sort of it's irrelevant.

[Ecurie Martini]

Could have been, yes, but in 1962 slot cars were considered to be no more than static models converted to run around a track. The realization that a low center of gravity was a key factor in slot car handling had not yet occurred

 
Just a small nit. The following is from the Ecurie Martini web site and references Scalextric tinplate cars in 1958: (allow an old man his memories)
 
THE FIRST "SPECIAL"
I soon discovered that the body, held on by tabs inserted into the raised edge of the base, could be pried off and reattached with the tabs underneath the base. This improved not only the looks of the car (now bearing a little less resemblance to a racing bread van) but also improved the handling. This modified car was taken to the New York Auto Show, where Polk's had a working Scalextric track. It bested all comers for two hours, and then, while cooling down, disappeared, as best we could determine, into the quick hands of one of the spectators. I must add that the Polk's staff was greatly chagrined and replaced it with their best car.
 
EM

[Cheater]

I should have qualified my statement with a 'mostly' or 'largely.' Mea culpa.

Should also have known a physics prof would glom onto that fact almost instantly...

[Ecurie Martini]

Actually, like almost everything else "it depends"

 

One of our local racers is a real expert at tuning RTR cars. (I'm willing to take him on in the scratch-built arena but not in RTR tuning)  He will sometimes add weight high up - e.g. on the top of the motor.  It's the fine line between weight transfer to improve traction and stability to avoid tipping.  Part of the "it depends" qualification here is that these are scale cars with rubber or urethane tires and restricted tread width.

 

EM

[Phil Smith]

I've read more than once on this forum that the whole '60s slot car craze was created by American Model Car Raceways through shady marketing to potential track buyers. So from the beginning it was a fabricated fad that was not sustainable. Most of us participated as youngsters, and like many childhood experiences it was a fond memory burned into our brains that we've carried for the rest of our lives.

 

To say I'm a very sporadic racer is an understatement, but the handful of periods in my life I have raced, most of my fellow racers were very close to my age. I only played as a youngster. I raced in my 30s and most of the racers were in their 30s. I raced again 15 years later and again, most of the racers were close to my age. Raced one race about 12 years ago and the same thing. I never asked but I assume most of them were also introduced to slots in the '60s.

 

Commercial slots is something that was never meant to be popular from the get go. It was a fraud. So there nothing broken. It's a miracle that it's still around at all. We should be thankful for what we have!

[Pappy]

One of our local racers is a real expert at tuning RTR cars. (I'm willing to take him on in the scratch-built arena but not in RTR tuning)  He will sometimes add weight high up - e.g. on the top of the motor.  It's the fine line between weight transfer to improve traction and stability to avoid tipping. 

 

Good handling is the right combination of tip and slide. If your car is sliding to much you need more tip, hence, the weight up high. Or you can narrow the width of the tire track. I've put lead under the roof to get more tip because I couldn't get enough traction.

[Ecurie Martini]

Going to apologize for this - but blame Greg - it was he who called out my pedantic hat!

 

You can place weight high up - increases traction at the cost of stability or, you can add more weight low down increasing both traction and stability BUT at the cost of acceleration and braking - and around and around!

 

This rapidly devolves into something like what physicists call "The Three Body" problem to wit:

 

The attractive force between two bodies (like earth & moon, not he & she) is straightforward:

 

((mass #1 X mass#2)/square of distance between them) X gravitational constant, g 

 

but

 

If you add a 3rd body (the sun, for example or Venus, Mars, Jupiter etc) it is no longer possible to write an explicit equation and the force can only be found by iteration (successive approximation)

 

So, back to slot cars - try and try again - there's no formula

 

EM

[havlicek]

Criticizing one type of slot racing seems very unproductive, especially if the racing of it doesn't interfere with your preferred type.

 

Hellllllloooo!  This is the way slots have evolved.  Instead if everyone racing, you get to race against other people who run the same type cars.  To be sure, there are still those who can, within a specific class, run faster both because they're just better racers...and because they have figured out better tweaks.  If you want to run in a no-holds-barred/money-is-no-object class you can.  If not, you can run at any level you like.

Otherwise, they call it "racing" because it IS fundamentally all about going as fast a you can, and hopefully faster than the other guys.  It is both unproductive and uninclusive to complain about racers who choose to run cars that are different from the ones you happen to prefer.

[MattD]

Lots of good points. Locally back in '65 guys ran kits, RTRs, and a few of us scratchbuilt. A few of us liked scale, wheels inside bodies and drivers. Some guys just wanted to widen the rear tread width, cut the body to pieces, and forget any kind of scale race car appearance in the name of speed. To me that sucked, but I was a kid with moderate building and modeling skills and wanted a scale race car.   As we look back on the fad years today, probably only one in 10 kids had those abilities and a butchered-up car was all the rest  were capable of. Those other nine kids mostly disappeared from slot racing. Guys that could build fast chassis made factory cars obsolete and racing became the whole emphasis, not playing and having fun.   
 
That was all due to faster and faster, but that is what racing is, who can build and drive a faster car because of better abilities.  The whole success and fun comes when everything is pretty equal and  everybody has an equal chance, but that seldom happens in any kind of racing.
 
Probably the main failing when slot racing left the fad stage was the non-skilled guys got left behind and quit as they no longer could have fun. Add in all the other factors with age, jobs, girls, and school and the fad was over and serious racers were left, wanting to go faster and faster.    
 
Faster definitely killed slot racing for a lot of the casual guys racing for fun. Maybe some of those guys would have stayed if slower cars would have been available and those cars would have been popular and had their own racing classes. Then again there may have been no magic bullet for commercial racing to survive and to remove the faster part of the equation is to change what racing is.    
 
The 1/32 club guys will have to carry on this hobby for the future, I think.
 
PS: In regard to Chris' post above, for $40 or so you can buy a lot of great '60s car mags and be back in 1965 again!

[Fast Freddie]

Sorry, guys, I must have been off base. I thought this thread was about the hobby's speed addiction, my mistake.

 

Thanks for correcting me, Greg, I should have used many instead of most, glad I didn't use any.  It just seems to me  most racers these days can afford a box full of sealed motors and high dollar controllers. 

 

As for me I'm not in that group; used to be but not any more.

[Ecurie Martini]

Another history excerpt:  (California 1963)

 

I soon discovered, in a hobby shop in San Diego, the first commercial track I had ever seen. It was a relatively relaxed affair. I think the owner ran it out of enthusiasm and as an adjunct to the sales of supplies. The drill was simple: you showed up with you car(s), paid a very modest entry fee, and raced in a series of heats. At the end of the evening, the owner kept a fraction of the pot to cover his costs and the remainder was distributed to 1st,2nd, and 3rd place drivers. I suppose it was illegal but this was not big money. A 1st place purse would buy coffee and dessert on the way home. After looking over the competition - some early commercial cars, home builts based on newly available commercial parts and some English hybrids (1/32 chassis stretched to fit a 1/24 body), a quick phone call to the "home office" resulted in a package containing some rudimentary tools, the Vanwall and the 300SL and a few spares being dispatched. We shot off to the hobby shop with visions of victory laps in our heads. The cars wouldn't run! My phosphor bronze pick-ups were incompatible with the track. With some misgivings (it looked sloppy) I clipped the springs off and soldered on braid pick-ups like everyone else was using. Success! Ecurie Martini triumphant - coffee and dessert became a regular occasion. The cars were as fast or faster, handled better and were much more reliable. The only downside was that the track was running a 16 volt supply which meant that the 703's had a racing life of about 4 hours. The heat gradually weakened the magnet and performance slipped. All went well until one night, a competitor showed up with a rather rough looking Porsche G.P. car - with two 703's stuffed into the rear and dual wheels at each end of the two rear axles. It was fast. My observation that it bore little resemblance to any know car fell on deaf ears. (the counter argument was" no, but it might have been"). Others were inspired by the success of the "road warrior" and, in the ensuing weeks, more and more bizarre arrangements appeared. This was, I suppose, the beginning of the "thingie" era. I began to build a "super car" based on a Globe industrial 6 volt motor that would turn 20,000+ and still fit in a scale body but it was never finished. In 1963 Ecurie Martini packed its cars, carefully cushioned, in their metal traveling boxes.  As I walked away, I strolled into "The Model Ship Chandler's" and bought a ship model.

[Phil Hackett]

To see the real slot car world, one only needs to make a living at it. Making enough to pay bills, invest and grow the business will give an entirely different view of the hobby from the average "racer" or "modeler." There's enough room for everyone. If you're chauvanistic, you will fail.

 

The real problem isn't racers or scale enthuiastists it is demographics: Even the automotive industry is seeing a change where the romance of the automobile has been lost; the commercial raceway business model isn't a strong one to invite investment or promotion; very few young people are engaging in hobbies as once was the case; slot cars, racing or otherwise, aren't as "social" (meaning female friendly) as many other activities. Those are very hard realities to fight.

 

Tillting at windmills accomplishes nothing...

[Cheater]

Video Games are $130 billion leisure-time activity targeted at the "next generation" of potential slot car racers. I guess that's sort of it's irrelevant.

 
What I said, Phil, is that video games are irrelevant to this discussion. 

Nothing anyone involved in slot racing at any level can do will affect the situation you accurately describe.
 

To see the real slot car world, one only needs to make a living at it. Making enough to pay bills, invest and grow the business will give an entirely different view of the hobby from the average "racer" or "modeler." There's enough room for everyone. If you're chauvanistic, you will fail.
 
The real problem isn't racers or scale enthuiastists it is demographics. ven the automotive industry is seeing a change where the romance of the automobile has been lost; the commercial raceway business model isn't a strong one to invite investment or promotion; very few young people are engaging in hobbies as once was the case; slot cars, racing or otherwise, aren't as "social" (meaning female friendly) as many other activities. Those are very hard realities to fight.

So many of the opinions expressed at Slotblog over the years have come solely from the viewpoint of already-involved participants, i.e. from racers. Few ever step back to consider the slot car hobby from a business or industry perspective.

My analysis is not indicating what can be done now, but looks back at what could have been a better approach in the past. And what is almost certainly would be a better approach now, even at the hobby's miniscule level of participation.

[Ecurie Martini]

So many of the opinions expressed at Slotblog over the years have come solely from the viewpoint of already-involved participants, i.e. from racers. Few ever step back to consider the slot car hobby from a business or industry perspective.

My analysis is not indicating what can be done now, but looks back at what could have been a better approach in the past. And what is almost certainly would be a better approach now, even at the hobby's miniscule level of participation.

 
You make a good point, Greg. In response, I would offer the following:
 
In the latter days of my corporate career, after leaving the R&D labs, I earned my keep by locating, evaluating and implementing acquisitions, some of which were, for the day, sizable.  After I retired, I set up a consulting practice with a focus on two areas: (1) Assisting start-ups in defining strategy, goals and implementation steps and (2) Evaluating investment opportunities for venture funds and investment funds.  I can read a spreadsheet but I am most definitely not an accountant.
 
My offer?  If any current or prospective slot car businessmen would like an external view of current or planned business and/or opportunities, I would be happy to offer what strategic help I could pro bono.
 
EM

[usadar]

If you go, see, and race at such successful raceways as Port Jeff, Chicagoland, you will find more practical view and “solution.”
 
In Tokyo, I manage to run my Retro racing program for me to keep racing. There is no luxury to talk about slot racing in terms of business. We just race.

[Cheater]

Haruki,

My belief is that virtually every 1/24 retail raceway in the US is run as a hobby, with any profits realized from sideline or associated operations.

[Cheater]

The real problem isn't racers or scale enthuiastists it is demographics...

 
My vote for the biggest problem for raceways today is the cost of space, more so than the demographics.
 
From the LA Times:

One of Southlands last model and hobby shops will close because of rising rent
 

 
Yvonne Evett, Evett's Model Shop owner, is closing the Santa Monica store after 71 years of operation. (Dania Maxwell / Los Angeles Times)
 
Click the link above to read the full article, but here's an excerpt.
 

On top of the toll from e-commerce, Evetts has been hit hard by the increasing cost of Westside real estate. As Santa Monica home prices have soared, so has commercial rent. The average monthly retail rent in Santa Monica is $6.58 a square foot, up 75% from $3.77 a square foot in 2006, according to research by CBRE.

Evetts pays $4,200 monthly for its 1,100-square-foot space, up from $1,200 a month in 2012, Evett said. The last increase was too much for the shop to handle, and Evett couldnt find anything affordable, even for a downsized store.

There were over 100 vacant stores in Santa Monica that we looked at, she said. The rent everywhere in Santa Monica was too high.

I wish someone could explain to me why owners of rentable space overwhelmingly prefer to let a building sit empty and pay the property taxes, in some cases for many years, rather than accept less than the so-called "market rate." Where's the profit in that approach?

[MattD]

I've never understood that either, Greg. I figure there must be some accountants trick that lets them use empty buildings to write off any money they make so they can avoid taxes.   

Our economy doesn't seem as simple as supply and demand determining prices, does it?

[Dave Crevie]

I don't get the willingness to leave property dormant for extended lengths of time either.

 

A new mini-mall opened in 2004 near where I live. It has 17 units, of varying square footage. The city spent multiple millions of dollars to upgrade the infrastructure (water, sewer, land gradient) for the developer. The city council never considered that  the location was not good for a retail complex. They just wanted the area developed. Once finished, only three of the units rented out. The owner, Lee Frey, was not able to rent any other units until 2015. There are still several units vacant.

 

Several years ago I became curious why the units had not rented, and thought that the rent was way too high. Plus, as I said, the location wasn't great. You could only enter the plaza if you were westbound on Rt. 64, or northbound on Rt. 83. If you were eastbound on Rt 64, you had to travel east on 64 to West Avenue (1/4 mile), and make a U-turn (illegal) to westbound 64. If you were southbound on 83, you had to go 1/2 mile to the entrance to the stone quarry and make a U-turn there.

 

Finally, the city made the location a TIF district so the owner would drop the rent. Most of the remaining units rented out over the next couple of years, but there are still some empty.

 

So, is there some huge tax break for property owners that we bottom feeders don't know about, that makes it just as

profitable to leave a property vacant as it is to rent it out? I have to wonder.

 

Whatever the reason, we peons pay higher taxes to cover it. And that's a fact.  

[Fast Freddie]

When I was looking for a building for my raceway in the early 90s the $ per square foot was very non-negotiable. Most of the buildings I looked at had $10-15 per square foot price tags and the owners would not come down in price.  I ended up with a building with a very good price, but it was still too much. 

 

I closed down after only two years but had I known then what I know now I would have kept it open. In this area there were, at one time, seven tracks including mine. Within three years most were closed, including mine.

[Phil Hackett]

Santa Monica (SM) at one time was a middle to upper middle-class city. This was when Parker Pen and Douglas Aircraft were major employers in the city... both of those went away (Parker in the '90s) and so did lots of supporting companies and SM became a target for "redevelopment." Major media moved in (Fox Studios for example) and because SM and Culver City (Sony Pictures FKA MGM, and other major media) is nearby, lots of supporting companies moved in and real estate became very valuable very suddenly (SM was always desirable, now more so).
 
I didn't read the article closely but I would guess several factors are reasons for the hobby store closing, some of them mentioned in my demographics post. But this biggest is that the property has become so desirable that the rent has increased dramatically. Sad but true. The age of the woman is another factor, I'm sure.
 
What is driving this desirability? Silicon Beach... never heard of it? It started back in the late '00s when Google, Yahoo, YouTube, Disney, Snap, Twitter moved in and have been buying up properties all over SM, Venice, Culver City, and Playa Vista. This has affected everybody nearby. Sometimes good and sometimes bad. My house is probably 30% more valuable since 2010 than it otherwise would be... but the traffic is awful and the old neighorhood stores are dying because the high-dollar chains are moving in and out-marketing them. Near my house, there are two Starbucks shops within 120 yards of each other as a crazy example.
 
So, yeah, hobby shops have been struggling for a while... and where is Evett's shop? Right in the center of all this! Besides being in a desirable area to begin with, it's in the center of all this Silicon Beach activity. Note that it's across the street from a middle-school (junior high school) where there should be a lot of business from the students! I'm guessing very few of those students even know what's 100 feet away from their school.
 
As for the rent increases: landlords are very aware of the market for their properties and if you go to Google and check out the building Evett's is in you'll note that row of buildings are probably 1950s commercial construction and the land value exceeds the building value. I'll bet the property owners are in discussion in tearing down and putting up newer, higher density commercial buildings. It's happening all over, even in the "less desirable" areas. That store will not be empty for long. I'd bet the landlord has a list of potential renters before any rent increase was made.
 
Sad but true.
 

[MattD]

This is an interesting discussion. I'll add a local news item from last month. I didn't even believe it when I first read it.

 

Like a lot of cities, the trend seems to build new retail farther out these main roads in and out of the city. That leaves the retail stores closer to the city a bunch of empty buildings as the stores move farther out to the suburbs. We have a 10-acre shopping center that was anchored by a Kroger grocery, which moved about five miles farther out. Now what is left is a flea market, a dollar store, and a tattoo place. It is 3/4 unoccupied. The owner (investment group) wants to sell it.   Someone in the local gov't had the bright idea of buying it for $2.6 mill and then selling it to a local developer for $600K, the appraised value. You might read this again. I didn't believe it when I first read it, but it was true. Thankfully enough citizens wrote and called the city council and  the idea was forgotten. Obviously there was monkey business going on and somebody was gonna get a hell of a kickback. I'm not sure this kind of BS and cronyism isn't half the problem we have with local commercial real estate.

 

Many times we have had this discussion and generally agree a slot track cannot stand on its own two feet. It pretty much needs to be part of a bigger business that can cater to many interests.   

[axman]

My vote for the biggest problem for raceways today is the cost of space, more so than the demographics.
 
I wish someone could explain to me why owners of rentable space overwhelmingly prefer to let a building sit empty and pay the property taxes, in some cases for many years, rather than accept less than the so-called "market rate." Where's the profit in that approach?

I agree, Cheater. Trouble is the value of a commercial building is based on rental return. If the owner accepts lower rent it straight away lowers value of the property for re-sale purposes. 
 
On another subject I have been reading a whole lot of rubbish how this is an old man's hobby. Guys, you dont get it. If you place a raceway in some low rent location the only customers you will get are old guys that know about slot cars. Anyone else born in the last 40 or 50 years dont know to even go looking for it!
 
I have owned and operated at least seven raceways over the years and the one thing I have learned is you have to take the track to the people, not rely on people coming to the track. New customers don't even know they want to race slot cars so they dont go looking for it.. simple.

The highest rent I ever paid had the most business success but for most hard core racers it would not satisfy their needs. The track was located at Grundy's on the Gold Coast in an indoor theme park of sorts that had thousands of tourists coming through the place... a day. It was a good track, stadium style, eight lane, and in holidays customers would line up all day.

 

Like the other operators in the complex I negotiated a rent deal that was based on turnover. It worked well as it included all utilities and I only paid minimal rent in quiet times.  

The location was ideal as it was in the food court area that had entertainment and a bar. Located right next to the escalator people literally couldn't avoid seeing the track and the more action racing on the track the more customers came, especially young teenage customers. What also set the track aside from the norm was the 10 lap race button rental customers could activate at the start line... so all day total strangers came together on the track and would line up for race after race. (It was pretty funny seeing a guy run out of track time while leading a race.)

 

Another incentive was a "Pro Rental Licence" staff would hand out as soon as a driver achieved a certain 10-lap race time, offering a faster hire car next time. Of course once one of a group got the faster car the rest would try even harder to do the same. We had a club night for Flexis and Womps but the real bonus was we had now introduced new racers of all ages who actually went looking to see if there was a local race track, club or commercial when they went home.

So, bottom line. Slot cars have to be visible so new people can try... not invisible because they don't know to even look.
 
Pic below: Shop was only about 15 x 25 feet... the place was all track! Patrons sat outside the shop in the food court... and you could have a beer!