PD2
02-29-2008, 10:08 AM
My first slot car experience was when one Christmas, when I was probably in 5th grade, my parents bought me a Tyco slot car track that was large enough to fit on a 4'x8' sheet of plywood. The thing had the loops and a jump or cross-over jump or something like that, but it was HUGE. My best friend at the time had an AFX track and back then the two track systems could be interconnected and setup to make an even bigger track! We would spend hours building different layouts and having tons of fun throwing more or different magnets on the motors as well as different tires from some of our Hot Wheels and Matchbox cars that had rubber tires. That was my first experience with slot car racing.
Since then, I was digging through my stuff and happened to find three cars that survived those days! One is a chrome 80's body style Corvette that has a red stripe down the middle that is outlined in black. The bottom rock panels are all black and have the word "VETTE" on the doors. The other two cars are Indy style cars - one is black and gold with TYCO, Diehard, and Goodyear tampos in various locations and the other is red with white lettering tamps of Budweiser, Electrolux, Valvoline and Goodyear.
Finding these cars got my curiosity up - do they still run? So I found a small (11 ft) Life-Like Racing Speedway Showdown track that had never been opened, on e-Bay that was inexpensive. It of course came with two Fast Trackers NASCAR/Stock Cars (Exide Batteries and Valvoline NASCARs). In addition, while I was shopping around e-Bay, I snatched a Thunder Jet 500 Bowtie Brigade 1967 Corvette (cause I love the C2 Vettes) and a Life-Like Racing NASCAR Fast Trackers Max-Traxx #38 M&M NASCAR (does not look like the NASCARs that came with the track set at all, but I love M&M's! HA!).
After getting the track setup, sure enough, ALL of the cars run from my childhood! Wow! That was amazing!
So, lets get to today. Last weekend I was at our local track (that runs 1/32 and 1/24 scale races on some very large 1/32 based tracks) and they mentioned they are about to get an HO scale track in the shop for racing on. At this point, I'm not sure of the classes or even the size/spec of the track, but I'd like to get a little more than what I have now to prepare for that day/time when the track arrives.
I said all of that to ask this:
1. With the home track that I have now, should I keep the track and add on additional Life-Like track pieces so that I have something a little bigger to practice on and play with or is Life-Like not that great of a track and I should sell it and use that money to buy AFX, Tomy or something else? And if I should buy something else, what should I buy? Space constraints are about a 3ft by 6ft area, roughly.
2. With the cars I already have and since I'm not familiar with some of the classes that HO runs, what classes do I not have covered? Of the classes I have covered with the cars I have, are any of the cars not worth racing? If so, which cars should I be looking at for what class?
Other than those questions, the only thing else I have to say is if you have any other suggestions for a 1/32 racer that will be doing both 1/32 and HO, please feel free to let me know. I'd greatly appreciate any and all info.
Thank you fellow slot car lovers!
PD2:thumbsup:
Since then, I was digging through my stuff and happened to find three cars that survived those days! One is a chrome 80's body style Corvette that has a red stripe down the middle that is outlined in black. The bottom rock panels are all black and have the word "VETTE" on the doors. The other two cars are Indy style cars - one is black and gold with TYCO, Diehard, and Goodyear tampos in various locations and the other is red with white lettering tamps of Budweiser, Electrolux, Valvoline and Goodyear.
Finding these cars got my curiosity up - do they still run? So I found a small (11 ft) Life-Like Racing Speedway Showdown track that had never been opened, on e-Bay that was inexpensive. It of course came with two Fast Trackers NASCAR/Stock Cars (Exide Batteries and Valvoline NASCARs). In addition, while I was shopping around e-Bay, I snatched a Thunder Jet 500 Bowtie Brigade 1967 Corvette (cause I love the C2 Vettes) and a Life-Like Racing NASCAR Fast Trackers Max-Traxx #38 M&M NASCAR (does not look like the NASCARs that came with the track set at all, but I love M&M's! HA!).
After getting the track setup, sure enough, ALL of the cars run from my childhood! Wow! That was amazing!
So, lets get to today. Last weekend I was at our local track (that runs 1/32 and 1/24 scale races on some very large 1/32 based tracks) and they mentioned they are about to get an HO scale track in the shop for racing on. At this point, I'm not sure of the classes or even the size/spec of the track, but I'd like to get a little more than what I have now to prepare for that day/time when the track arrives.
I said all of that to ask this:
1. With the home track that I have now, should I keep the track and add on additional Life-Like track pieces so that I have something a little bigger to practice on and play with or is Life-Like not that great of a track and I should sell it and use that money to buy AFX, Tomy or something else? And if I should buy something else, what should I buy? Space constraints are about a 3ft by 6ft area, roughly.
2. With the cars I already have and since I'm not familiar with some of the classes that HO runs, what classes do I not have covered? Of the classes I have covered with the cars I have, are any of the cars not worth racing? If so, which cars should I be looking at for what class?
Other than those questions, the only thing else I have to say is if you have any other suggestions for a 1/32 racer that will be doing both 1/32 and HO, please feel free to let me know. I'd greatly appreciate any and all info.
Thank you fellow slot car lovers!
PD2:thumbsup: