The Near Death of Slot Cars

The Near Death of Slot Cars

The Near Death of Slot Cars

In 1972, slot cars no longer looked like cars. Bodies were wedge shaped and wild paint jobs were the norm. Slot car raceways dried up by the thousands. The hobby then like today, was dieing and only a few raceways kept slot cars alive. With very little competition, they were barely able to keep the doors open.

The slot cars themselves were uninteresting, the glamorous raceways of the 60's were gone and dirty, plain retail locations with worn tracks were not appealing to the average consumer.

During this time, the original market for slot car racing, the scale crowd as it is known today, continued to race at home. Some would just play and others would form clubs with several home tracks participating in a series complete with trophys.

HO became the most popular scale of slot cars, Companies such as AFX and Tyco sold millions of home sets with the all new concept of "magna-traction". This was of course using magnets to keep the car stuck in the slot. Some of these could go up walls and eve upside down. Because of this capability, HO cars became so fast that today a pro car is just a blur. The cars de-slot so violently that the driver may not know for several laps that his car is no longer on the racing surface. HO racing is at an all time low today because it's speed only format has little appeal.

In 1978, slot car racing looked like it was going to fade into history. The obituaries were written and very few really even cared.

There were a few raceways left and a few distributors of what products were still being offered. Parma International had become the main source of slot cars, controllers and parts. Parme and major west coast distributor Speed & Sport Dist. are to be given most of the credit for saving commercial slot cat racing. Ron Granlee of Speed & Sport organized a beginner series. He determined which motors and format could best be used to be affordable and appealing to new racers. Sponsors were lined up and every existing west coast raceway was enlisted to participate. Such a simple idea was enough to spawn interest once again and more raceways opened. The series, was only a few months in duration, but it was wildly successful. It ushered it the new era in slot cars the wing era.

Forget about the name car in slot car for a moment. Imagine a thin wedge for a body and clear mylar slabs or "dams" glued to either side. Attached to the back of the body sticking up an inch and a half is a clear spoiler and on the front of the wedge is another inch spoiler laying right on the track surface. OK not a car. When running, this thing scoops up air over the body between the air dams and is trapped by the rear spoiler. This trapped, high speed air pushes down with great force and the air spills out over the top edges of the air dams. This escaping air, forces the dams to lay over outwards giving the appearance of wings.

All this down force means, more speed and the car staying in the slot.

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