23 replies to this topic

[ravajack]

[Ecurie Martini]

I endured about 4 minutes of ungrammatical and ill-informed rambling replete with vocalized pauses and turned it off.

 

EM

[MattD]

Alan, you have to remember this guy had no experience with the old days of slot racing.   His old cars were flexi's.   

 

 Many times we have bemoaned the fact that no correct video exists of  the real history of slot racing and it's importance, to us.   We get Jay Leno with a Stanley Steamer, some guys buying a Cox Chap kit and thinking it is worth  $400 or more.   Pickers go to Bernard's and buy Eldon and think they got treasure.     

 

A really good  and mostly complete video would need to be 1-2 hours long just to show the  evolution of motorized race cars the last 100 years.   Lionel in the 20's , diesel, rail, finally slots.

 

The evolution  of slot racing from early Scalex and Playcraft stuff to the T Jets and Strom-Revell home sets of the 60's.   The commercial boom and evolution of those cars from scratchbuilt with train engines to dedicated slot car motors tires and parts.   Then the decline and eventual small resurrection of 1/24 commercial racing and the tremendous growth of the home 1/32  market where it is today.    I'm not sure the full story can be told in 2 hours.   

[slotbaker]

I can understand why you might turn it off after a few minutes, if you have a good history and been around slot cars for many years, as he misses out on a few things, and not totally correct on some.

But, for less experienced younger kids who might be interested in slot cars, it is interesting and could spark their imagination.

 

I was a mid-packer in the mid 60s playing with my mates, having heaps of fun building and racing, stopped when I got my driver's license and girls distracted me, so I'm not a hard core slot car guy like a lot of members here, and I enjoyed that video.

 

He followed that one with another showing his vintage collection, where he gets a few more things wrong, but who cares, its covering slot cars.

Something that all of us here enjoy;

 

 

[MSwiss]

I endured about 4 minutes of ungrammatical and ill-informed rambling replete with vocalized pauses and turned it off.
 
EM

Huh?

This guy's video is absolutely fine.

Ungrammatical?

Please explain.

[Ecurie Martini]

It's really more of an "old man" thing than a reaction to errors.  Fortunately (or, perhaps, in some cases unfortunately) I had the advantage of attending elementary school in the 40's.  Grammar, vocabulary and diction were taught as distinct subjects.  A discourse filled with "err", "um", "it's, like, you know" etc.etc.  causes immediate mind closure*.  If you ask someone to spend 45 minutes listening to you, you owe them an organized presentation, not "Valley Girl" speak.

 

EM

 

*At the risk of calling down upon myself the wrath of the Political Correctness Police,  I believe that Shaw, in Pygmalion, later re-invented as My Fair  Lady, was correct.  The manner of speech, more than anything else, characterizes a person, their origin, intended audience and believability. (Note, this can work two ways.  A number of southern politicians have used exaggerated regional accents to lead opponents to underestimate them)

[elvis44102]

i think the video is aimed at people who know nothing of slot cars and if it can generate interest in a few of them its all good...

 

i am a WW2 history buff and can pick out errors in many documentaries...but who in this world believes everything they hear

[Rotorranch]

To me,  ANY promotion/exposure to slots s a good thng! I thnk the guy did good.

 

 

But I've only watched half of it right now. 

 

Rotor

[MSwiss]

It's really more of an "old man" thing than a reaction to errors.  Fortunately (or, perhaps, in some cases unfortunately) I had the advantage of attending elementary school in the 40's.  Grammar, vocabulary and diction were taught as distinct subjects.  A discourse filled with "err", "um", "it's, like, you know" etc.etc.  causes immediate mind closure*.  If you ask someone to spend 45 minutes listening to you, you owe them an organized presentation, not "Valley Girl" speak.

 

EM

 

*At the risk of calling down upon myself the wrath of the Political Correctness Police,  I believe that Shaw, in Pygmalion, later re-invented as My Fair  Lady, was correct.  The manner of speech, more than anything else, characterizes a person, their origin, intended audience and believability. (Note, this can work two ways.  A number of southern politicians have used exaggerated regional accents to lead opponents to underestimate them)

I think you did a disservice on this guys video, based on your narrow,narrow, narrow preferences.

 

More people, and more potential slot racers can identify with him, than "My Fair Lady".

[MSwiss]

Something about Casey Putsch, the guy in the video.

 

https://www.thedrive...otive-engineers

[idare2bdul]

I kind of refer to our hobby as the Rodney Dangerfield of hobbies. Be honest we get no respect. We got no respect when we were building our own motors and a 1 or 2 thou difference in airgap made a huge difference in performance or longevity or both. We were a 60's fad like the Hula Hoop with more slot racers than skiers. To be fair RC Car racing, flying radio control aircraft fell into the same black hole of public indifference. Yeah I know Drone Racing has hit television and a degree of recognition. I may point out that Cornhole competitions, the type that can be shown on television get on ESPN along with Bowling even Golf is on television for God's sake.(sorry Noose)

Unless somebody puts up major bucks and figures out how to make us more interesting slot cars will be mostly HO sets at Christmas run till Mom gets annoyed by having the track on the floor or until the cars need repairs that will never happen. 

So Cage Match slotcar racing anyone?

[MSwiss]

Mike,
I think this video is going to help slot racing's exposure quite a bit.

He apparently has a strong following in the 1/1 crowd.

This video has only been up since Oct.14th, and it already has 155 comments, 99% positive.

One guy even commented this video inspired him and his brother to buy a 50 ft., 6 lane track.

[Martin]

Thanks for sharing these videos.

I had watched some of Casey's videos in the past and was happy to hear him connect the training we get from slot cars with 1/1 life and work. 

For me I started with slot cars when I was 14 and now I am still designing electric full scale vehicles 51 years later.

I owe it all to those formative years. When you have a passion to understand why you are not as fast as the guy next to you.

I was average at school, hated most of it. But at the track I leaned math,craftsmanship, engineering and sportsmanship.

You guys get it.

 

Good lesson here on how to pass on this experience to the computer generation.

[MSwiss]

After watching the 2nd video, in between heats, while race directing Saturday night, I had time to watch a good portion of the first video, Sunday afternoon.

This guy is awesome.

While he did make a few minor mistakes, like identifying a ceramic magnet motor having cobalt mags, and couldn't quite recall the exact name of the pretty rare Marcos Mantis.

Getting an Ogilvie Hillclimb and setting it up in his Genius Garage, for his students to run on.

Buying chassis jigs, so they could scratch build chassis.

His video really flys the flag for slot racing.

I'm surprised that anybody made the effort to give this video a thumbs down on You Tube.

What's not to like?

[Dave Crevie]

I watched it. I think it did a good job for what it was intended, a primer for someone curious about the hobby.

[MSwiss]

Here's an earlier, much shorter video, that has surfaced, that was made in February.

 

Some of the shots indicate he had his students racing at Race 'O Rama, in North Baltimore, which is 20 minutes away from his Genius Garage.

 

I think it's a good video, and like the other 2, do a nice job promoting slot racing.

 

[Dave Crevie]

Agreed. I wonder if anyone else caught the insignia on the sleeve of his bomber jacket, from the Granville Brothers Gee Bee

air racer from many years ago. 

[Tom Thumb Hobbies]

I just now stumbled across this thread. That guy stopped in my store several years ago. We talked for a couple of hours then I got too busy to continue. He is pretty “switched on” about slots and their connection to almost anything electronic or mechanical. Very nice guy to talk to. I haven’t seen him since but he has a ton of ideas and goals. I’m glad to see he is continuing his passion. Now if we could find a few thousand more just like him.........



Mike McMasters
Tom Thumb Hobbies

[elvis44102]

when you learn how to use a soldering iron, calipers and dremel tools by the age of 13 or so it gives you a form of confidence if nothing else...it seems as if i was born knowing how to solder lol....

 

i went back to school for retraining with computers when i was 45....my class was about 25 people who are told to get in pairs or groups...each assignment was done by one person with the others copying results...the clincher was when they had PC issues with their personal computers..all but a few were afraid to "take apart" a $600 machine lol...i would estimate the few (3-4) that actually work in the field were the ones who picked up PCs off the front lawn and tore into them...

 

afraid to actually take one apart..lol

[Bill from NH]

I've viewed all three videos & don't see anything negative about any of them. I thought his 44 minutes of 1/24 scale history was particularily concise. He didn't attempt to get into scratch building in any depth, but that wasn't his purpose. I will agree with others that he did a nice job with the videos & I'll look at some of his other video topics.

[MSwiss]

I came across this on Petrolicious.

Near the end, it explains a little more about Casey P and his Genius Garage.

I dig the Sopwith Camel.

[Howie Ursaner]

A video on Slot Car racing  by a You Tube internet influencer with many followers is a great thing ! 

[Bob Kolenda]

I often think about slot cars and the huge impact it made on me as a kid.I received a Revell 1/32 home set for Christmas in 1965.One car from the set was slower than the other and I wondered why.In trying to make it run better I actually made it slower so I learned from that.I then began to acquire tools for scratch building and started to read all the magazine articles .After building my own 1/24th cars for our local raceways I started to get faster with each new build.My soldering got better and my frames and motors got faster.All the hands on work kept my brain engaged. The skills needed to build slot cars lead up to what I currently do.I  think that a slot car program thru the school tech programs could be a great teaching tool .What if you  were to give the kids a set of design specs and set up a race between teams using their own designs .How about powering each lane with its own expendable power source like a matched  8 cell NiCad pack.The packs could be mostly matched using a digital discharger like I used in R/C racing .Give each team 2 packs to run the entire race. The students could compare the effects of gear ratios ,set up and how hard you run it to how fast you deplete the batteries. (amp draw).I believe todays kids could learn a lot thru building and engineering a slot car.

[slotbaker]

Another Casey Putsch video.