# I want to start a slotcar club:



## Captain Fred (Feb 19, 2000)

My homeowners association recently offered up the clubhouse to any groups who would want to use it for social events for the neighborhood. They suggested that groups who are residents of the neighborhood could use it free of charge. They suggested things like aerobics, bingo, movie night, ect....

Well, I've been wanting to get a slotcar group together. I've never been a member of a club or to a slotcar event before. I have lots of track and plenty of cars that I would be willing to let others play with, at least for a couple or a few get togethers. I thought I would maybe put some flyers out in the neighborhood for "slotcar racing night" or maybe put an ad in the newsletter for anyone who might be interested. I would want to kinda measure the amount of interest before I actually contact the association and try to make arrangements.

I bet some of you here might know a few dos and don'ts of starting or running a slotcar club. Any suggestions or things I might want to think about before I try this?

I don't have a fancy track or anything. I would pick out some beaters and duplicates to run that I wouldn't mind having abused a little. I was thinking about maybe having an age limit for kids. I don't want to have a buch of unsupervised little kids going nuts on my stuff. No alcohol is allowed in the clubhouse, that's probably a good idea too.

Anyone have any advice?


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## TX Street Racer (May 8, 2004)

I can tell you right now that my wife and parents and I would love to come down for this man....my parents both got bit by the slot bug......

I'd promote the slot car gig as a family event.....perfect for father son-mother daughter relations. When I was in Florida I met a woman who could smoke most of the guys on the track......darn good driver...LOL..... in fact, it's Larry aka "Lyep Motorsports" wife.......she could certainly handle her car well...........so I'd try to include women too. 

I'd try dropping off some flyers at "Larry's Hobbies" on 1960. Thier slot selection was fast growing the last I saw it...which honestly shocked me man. Another thing is, I'd see if the local Hobby Lobby stores will let you put up a flyer in the window about the races.......since they sell slot cars it would encourage people to purchase cars for the race.

I know you probably don't have the digital timing equipment (and I don't either) but it would rock to set up a scale quarter mile track........just to have some HO drags.......maybe have a couple different classes....like a box stock class.....and a modified class......nothing too series really....just something to have fun with....people love drag racing :thumbsup: 

definately promotion of the fun event is the big hurdle.......I don't know alot of people in my area really......but I can tell a couple of my friends and see if they wanna come down.....but they don't own slots........but if they were to race they might just get addicted......and the good thing about the slot hobby is it's CHEAP to have fun in.

You might try posting on the Space City Hotwheel club forum.....some of those guys might be into slots and wanna come out. Also, there is a Houston slot car group......but they're mostly into 1/32 scale ........there is a slot shop off of 290 and 1960 area.....I've been there once.......fun stuff for 1/32.....nothing for HO.....still, it's one more place to toss a flyer up at :thumbsup: 

I'd be game for helping out......I've got alot of Tyco track.........I'm pretty sure I have enough straights to do a scale 1/4 mile track for sure.......

Keep me posted man


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## vaBcHRog (Feb 19, 2003)

First you need a reliable lap counting system so you can hold races. TRAKMATE is what I recommend. You can use any old computer even an old 386. You should be able to pick up a computer and monitor for $50.00 or less.

There are two type of race format timed heats where everyone runs the smae amount of time on each lane. This can be either all racers running together called a Round Robin or bracket racing wher the top two move up. I prefer the round robin. You vcan also Run heats based on laps and use TRAKEMATES championship mode. Points are awarded based on how you finish. Everyone run four heats and the driver with the most points wins. This is a good beginners racing as normally everyone wins at least one heat.

Run IROC races to start with. Build four cars that are equal with colored bodies to match the lane colors.

Keep it cheap and fun. Share all your knowledge and building skills to bring everyone's car up to speed so each driver feels he has a chance to win.

Have short series races 4 - 5 races per series. Race the style body cars everyone Likes, NASCAR, Sports Car GTP F1 etc.

Roger Corrie


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## Captain Fred (Feb 19, 2000)

I don't own a track that can be hooked up to a real computer, at least not yet. I only have the standard 2 lane Tyco, Tomy & LL tracks with wall warts. What I DO have is a Tyco Race Computer & I have enough stuff to set up a few or more different, out of the box type tracks. This is just an idea right now. Brian, I'm starting to set up the garage track again, so maybe we can get together pretty soon. If you would want to help me plan and set this up, that would be very cool. The help would be appreciated.

The Tyco Race Computer is a digital lap counter. It has a countdown feature, similar to a christmas tree, to start the race. It will not power the track until the go light turns green. It has some different features that will do different kinds of races. You can do a "time" race, you can set it to however many laps you want (up to 99). You can do a fuel race where you set it to however many gallons you want. As you race around the track, your fuel guage goes down. You have to pit stop and hold down the button until your fuel guage comes back up. If you let your car run out of gas, it will slow down and die potentially anywhere on the track.
You can also set it for straight laps and in the event that the drivers are very close, it will electronically determine the winner. It will also give you a measurement of your scale speed in M.P.H. The magnet cars usually top it out at 1250 mph. It only handles two lanes though.

I also have a Tyco Turbo Boost, which I can use to limit the speeds of those who don't know how to keep their cars on the track. 

I thought I could set up at least a couple or few tracks for the different types of cars. This would be a family event. I've never had any experience at planning things like this, so I wouldn't want too many people at once. It would be open mostly just to people from my neighborhood. I would allow those who are interested to contact me via phone or email. I just thought it would be a good opportunity to introduce some of my neighbors to the slotcar hobby and maybe even hook up with at least a few people who may already have some slotcars of their own. I expect that some folks might not know anything about slotcars. Others who attend might know a lot more than me. I figure this might be a one time deal for some. Depending on how things go, maybe a few of us could form a club & start getting together regularly on future dates.

I know little if anything about official race rules and types of races that are held at the slotcar race tracks where the experienced slotcar guys race. I can dissassemble and reassemble a slotcar chassis & motor, but I'm not very experienced as far as being able to fine tune my cars. I own a few slotcar tools, but I don't own any testing equipment or even a wheel press. I'm just an amature enthusiast who would like to take it a step further.

Any additional input would be appreciated.


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## AfxToo (Aug 29, 2003)

That's a really nice thing to do. Roger's right on with the mechanics of running a race program. It would probably help if you could participate in a race event of some sort ahead of time just to get a feel for it. 

I think you have a good idea about where to start. You should try to form the nucleus of your club around a small group of dedicated slot car enthusiasts even before the clubhouse enters into the picture. Maybe just start out with races and get-togethers that rotate between the homes of the core club members. The more people you get interested at this point then the more ideas you'll get and the easier it will be to expand into a more formal club. Trying to do everything yourself will be harder.

One possible ice breaker would be to invite some of your neighbors over to watch a big race (like Daytona or Indy) on TV as a social event and have a "race before the race" on your track with some sort of race related prizes. If you get some slot car/racing enthusiasts hooked you could build it to be a weekly or monthly event during the race season or during the cold weather. 

Don't be afraid to start small and build from there.


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## coach61 (Sep 6, 2004)

Captain Fred said:


> I don't own a track that can be hooked up to a real computer, at least not yet.
> 
> Hi Fred. Try this for your computerized lap counting needs..
> http://www.hoslotcarracing.com/
> ...


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## TX Street Racer (May 8, 2004)

Captain Fred said:


> I don't own a track that can be hooked up to a real computer, at least not yet. I only have the standard 2 lane Tyco, Tomy & LL tracks with wall warts. What I DO have is a Tyco Race Computer & I have enough stuff to set up a few or more different, out of the box type tracks. This is just an idea right now. Brian, I'm starting to set up the garage track again, so maybe we can get together pretty soon. If you would want to help me plan and set this up, that would be very cool. The help would be appreciated.
> 
> The Tyco Race Computer is a digital lap counter. It has a countdown feature, similar to a christmas tree, to start the race. It will not power the track until the go light turns green. It has some different features that will do different kinds of races. You can do a "time" race, you can set it to however many laps you want (up to 99). You can do a fuel race where you set it to however many gallons you want. As you race around the track, your fuel guage goes down. You have to pit stop and hold down the button until your fuel guage comes back up. If you let your car run out of gas, it will slow down and die potentially anywhere on the track.
> You can also set it for straight laps and in the event that the drivers are very close, it will electronically determine the winner. It will also give you a measurement of your scale speed in M.P.H. The magnet cars usually top it out at 1250 mph. It only handles two lanes though.
> ...


Mike, don't feel bad man, I'm still fairly green to a few different aspects of the hobby myself. I'm working on tuning my cars now.....trying to learn the ends and outs of that.

Roger has some damn good ideas.........but like you said, you're new to things......and just want to share the joy of running a slot car with others.......hell, some don't even know what a slot car is....let alone trying to figure out digital track timers.......so I think for us at first it might be a bit overkill.....at least for the first meet or so. I think it'd be awesome to build a small cell group of local slotters........I met a group like this in Daytona,Florida....and man, the comradery was awesome.....everyone helping one another out....and showing off thier creations to each other. I wished like hell I could get in a group like that.....because hanging out with that group and racing was the highlight of my trip I think.

Mike, I do have a digital timer similiar to what you mentioned.....so maybe we can set mine up on another track. As I said and offerred.....I'm here to help man....I love slots...and can't get enough of them......so if starting something like this will help draw in some regular guys and build a quality group of friends to enjoy this hobby with then I'm in......and I'm sure at least my dad will be too.

My dad's enjoying the hobby for the first time. Growing up he never ran slots.....hell, I think he only ran them a couple times in the late 80's with me and my brother...... Dad is enjoying seeing my modeling talents come out in slot car form......and this is what's exciting to him. Dad wants to start building a few slots to run.......and I've been educating him on the various parts and chassis....... I'm having a custom wound drag arm made right now.......and dad wants to build a drag car to compete with me....hehehe......this truely will be a father son hobby for us......

Mike, you've got my number bro.......feel free to give me a call anytime man to chit chat.....or toss ideas back and forth...... :thumbsup:


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## okracer (Mar 11, 2002)

i live in norman okla which is almost in the center or oklahoma close to okc and id love to start a club with ho cars they race 1/24 but the owner isnt insteretsed in putting in another track or stocking parts for ho and for the lap counter thing i saw where u can take calculators and solder into the = button and use them for lap counters on a dead spot on the track i have made them and they work great as for the timer we just do like they did back in the day in rc before lapcounting GENTLEMEN STOP YOUR CARS hehehe another thing i thought about doing was put a foot switch over by one of the drivers stations and useing a cooking timer and when it went off the guy steped on the switch and stoped the power what do u guys thing would that work


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## A/FX Nut (May 28, 2004)

*I Want To Start A Slotcar Club*

Hi Captain Fred, I like AFX TOO's idea, attend a few races, get a feel for it. Talk to the people that run those races. They might offer to help you. I'd build a small 4 lane oval ( 4X12 ) or a small road course. The oval would be easiest. You don't need a computer timing system to start. Just a timer that counts backwards with an alarm. Radio Shack will have it. Set it to countdown 2 minutes and at the sound of the alarm shut the track power off. If you have enough people one person can be standing at the switch. And one person at each end of the track to take care of deslotted cars. Run a crash and burn format with 4 heats per driver. If you deslot 0 points and car is out for that heat, 4th place = 1 point, 3rd place = 2 points, 2nd place = 3 points, and 1st place = 4 points. After the last heat add the points to determine a winner. Ties can happen but were rare for our group. This is just a start. If you build a group of 8 or more dedicated people you can sometimes get them or some of them to help donate track, materials for a table, software and computer for a timing system. I hope this helps. Randy.


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## NTxSlotCars (May 27, 2008)

This is still a great idea...


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