Projects HO Fairgrounds slot cars.

Hey guys,

I've been a racing enthusiast for longer than I can remember, and an HO slot car racer since 1966. Growing up in central Texas I spent as much time at my local track in Converse just north of San Antonio as I could, and still have a lot of memories of those days. Earlier this year I started building my 5th HO oval track, based partially on the old Kearney Bowl here in Fresno, which unfortunately I missed by a decade when I relocated in the early 1980's. But the cars I wanted to race were the older style Auroura Thunderjet's that I grew up with, and thankfully are still readily available in NOS and in new release from Auto World.

The body styles were to represent the old Pan American Speedway hobby stockers, '55 and '57 Chevy's, '57 Fords and '58 T-Bird bodies are all still available, and I threw in a few oddballs like a 1957 Studebaker Golden Hawk. Some of the cars needed to be modified to appear like Fairgrounds cars but one company, Road Race Replicas, provides resin cast bodies needing no modifications to them.

Here are some of my cars and my track:









Three Palms HO Raceway is the name of the track, it's roughly a 1/5th mile scale, 4 lane with all lanes powered by a 12 volt transformer that I can turn the voltage down when the kids race (restrictor plate). Right now I have 12 cars that are owned by either my wife who races, my 25 year old daughter, her boyfriend and myself, and with other club members we have a total of 28 cars and more building. Cost for each car is around $30 and replacement parts as well as high performance parts are readily available. We do have a strict rule set to keep things under control, even then these cars can crank out a lap in about two and a half seconds.

We have our own Facebook group page if anyone is interested in our program, we're not holding another series until January but we do race on either Thursday or Saturday nights. The Facebook page is at http://www.facebook.com/?sk=2361831622#!/group.php?gid=150693061630235.

If anyone has 1:1 pics of these types of cars I would love to see them, I'd like to do some real world guys to race with my slot car drivers like Donnie baker (Bob & Tom Show), Big Johnny Johnson and Bubba Brooks. Thanks!

 

Those are WAY cool and make me wish I still had my HO track!!...

 

Looks cool! Maybe you could introduce yourself before pluging your raceway though.

 

Must have been an off night, not too many people in the stands.

 

Very cool, did you bank the track? I have the AFX International 4 lane set that I am thinking about setting up out in my shop for me and my boys this winter. You've given me a killer idea to make it fun for us all.

Could you point me to your source for the wheels as well as the bodies for these cars?

 

You're right! Just a side note though, my track is not a commercial track, it is a club track. We have cars to lend to anyone who wants to show up, down a couple of Corona's and talk about racing. The track is located in my home where my nieces and nephews come over and turn laps along side the grown ups.

Chaos, I've been slowly working on the track since about April, I have close to 300 figures to hand paint still, there are about 70 already in the stands. The problem is my eyesight isn't what it used to be and I can only do a dozen or so a week. The project is still on-going, right now I'm building enough cars to get some racing going and over the winter the track will get more spectators.

My track is flat but the corners are 18" diameter on the outer side, 15" on the inner side and the straights are only about 24" long. It's on a 4' X 6' framed layout, easy to move and stand up in a corner if I need the space for something else. Still, most T-Jets can be run nearly wide open, drifting the entire corner. We only run 12 volts, that's what these cars were originally designed to run on and that's plenty enough juice to make it interesting. I get most of my stuff from a place called JAG's Hobbies ;

http://www.jaghobbies.com/ho_slot_cars/slot_cars.htm

I use the DASH Motorsports '55 Chevy body, either stock or pro stock, Road Race Replica wheels and white letter tires and their #316 axles on a Johnny Lightning Thunderjet rolling chassis. That's the very basic $30 racer. A little dremel time, some decals and a racer is born! Don't forget to order a guide pin or two and body screws, they don't generally come with the body.

If you don't mind the wait (4-6 weeks) Road Race Replica's can do you either these types of fairgrounds car bodies or superb mid to late 1960's NASCAR cars molded in nicely colored resin:

http://www.ho-slotcars.com/index.html

Go to bodies and scroll down a ways. He makes 10 different types of vintage circle racers, we run the hobby stockers just as our preference.

His decals are extremely nice and relatively inexpensive, the resin cars are pretty durable and and the subjects are unique to his stock. His NASCAR cars fetch a pretty good price on E-Bay when he offers completed cars.

Another great HO scale and other scale decal source is Patto's in Australia:

http://members.optusnet.com.au/pattosplace/home.html

He has the absolute best decal selection from vintage all the way up to 2010 NASCAR CoT's and other cars. If you're plastic modeler this guy took over where Blue Ridge and Slixx left off. He offers decals in both waterslide and self-adhesive.

If anyone wants tips on doing their own racing program I'd be glad to help out, there's a few more places to get parts and pieces, track designers and other things like that for miniature hot rodders, I'd be more than happy to point the way to what you may need.

 

Still have this set,also got a later set that the future ex wife got me for a christmas present. Usually have the early set up under the christmas tree for the holidays and it drives the cats nuts....rich

 

Very cool and welcome.

 

Cool track set up you got there!

Here's one I got in the works, I plan on extending it to 2) 4 x 8 sheets. I love this stuff!

Neal

 

Welcome.

I found an Aurora 'Model Motoring' set at a garage sale a couple of years ago for $5. It was complete but a little trashed. It has the full lineup of cars available for 1960, the Vette, Jag, Tbird, and Mercedes. The track and controllers are all there. Not overly exciting, but not bad for five bucks either.

It was apparently the first mass-produced slot car track available in the US and 1960 was its introductory year.

 

A little father / son project in my basement.....

 

Nice track....Now where did I put my old HO track? Oh yeah that was 40 years ago. Wish my mother had the foresight to save it for me.

 

you need a peace tank blasting down a drag strip. I sold 200 cars last year but kept 25 or so just cause.

 

Super cool! I wish I'd kept all of my HO stuff.

 

Good to meet ya Pete! Although I don't mess with them much any more my friends and I raced them a lot back in the day, I still have a couple in the drawer right next to me. Also Kearney Bowl is a subject talked about a lot in our shop as some of the old drivers still come around and tell stories for hours, one fellow in particular talks for hours.

Here's the set up we had some 30 years ago on the floor of my parents garage.

Cheers!

 

Gotgas, that set is probably worth close to $100 even trashed if the box is in good shape. The cars alone can sometimes fetch several hundred dollars if they run and aren't broken.

40pickup, I wish I had room for another motorplex like that, I have a 1,050 square foot 2 bedroom apartment unfortunately. The spare bedroom is shared with boxes of Christmas decorations, camping equipment and other junk, the layout I have has it's own corner and that's about all there is room for.

mctim, I had something similar in the early 1980's when I could afford a garage. For the last 15 years I've had a series of small ovals, layouts from 8' x 3', 6' X 3' and this one, 6' X 4' because of lack of space, I'd love to have anice road course again.

Screwball, how about a Little Red Wagon instead? http://www.traxshobbies.com/shop/wagon-slot-body-resin-scale-p-190.html

 

My buddy Marty paints & decals the built cars for Road Race Replicas. I guess the usually bring a pretty penny like you mentioned. Here are a few of them he's done.

 

come on you guys grow up.........(note to self - get out old HO cars, old track to set up and get old self to play....)

 

Way cool man!!!

 

i don't drink coronas , got busch ?

 

Tiss the season....

 

Way Cool!

 

Why did you have to show this,I still have all my HO stuff and now will have to get it out play with it. Many years ago a few friends had tracks that their houses and would have racing parties,the friends track that was the neatest was the one with the train track crossing the race track and would have to stop when it came around but the more beer we drank the more we tried to knock the train off the track.

 

Man, that ain't racin'!
Name one "real" race track that had train tracks crossing a race coarse...

 

I remember having a AFX set and spent a lot of my paperboy $ on a shitload of cars too. These 3 stood out from my memory as my favs, especially the '55.

 

I got all 3 of those....

 

Here's one of those....

 

I'm envious.
I would probably have mine still if my hellion cousin Stevie didn't come over and destroy them.

 

You could still buy these new on ebay... I bought a bunch of new one's just last year..
I also got a couple with the '70-'73 Z/28 stripes that are really cool...

 

Good, now if I find my cousin Stevie, I'll throw one in his grave (hehe).