After our teen years and before the age where we really had to knuckle down and become responsible adults (if that time has come yet), my brother Ed and I decided to relive our slot car days of the 60’s by dragging out the old cars and track. We set it up in our old bedroom at our parents’ house, as the 8’ X 9’ room, since we moved out, was only collecting junk. (Pretty much the same as when we lived there.)

It was around the mid 70’s, and with the introduction of the Atari 2600 and such, it was starting to get difficult to find some of the specialty track components as more and more toy stores were concentrating on stocking “virtual games” rather than games that actually use “matter”. So, using our two main tools, (the Dremel® and the wood-burner), we would try to make our own track components. The railroad crossing along with adapter tracks (to adapt the old “clip and peg” to “AFX”) were probably the most challenging to build.

Our first goal was to have a complete circuit so we could race while building. Ed would design the track. I always admired how he could design a complex 97-foot track to have the same number of inside and outside curves for each lane. He would go on to build even more complex tracks at his home where he incorporated a Commodore® C-64 computer coupled with an electric eye that could calculate lap times, scale speed, and average lap times.

The best races were when we were running cars that were about equal in performance. The two closest were our ’67 Cougars. When we installed the “slick” kit and subsequently raced the cars, we noticed that if your opponent stopped on an outside curve and you tried to pass, your rear tires would hit his, and you would fly off the track. We then found it more fun to keep score of how many times you could knock the other car off the track, rather than winning the race. (I have suggested this format to NASCAR but they laughed at me as if I was some kind of an idiot).

So, the contest was on to modify cars designed only to “de-pin” the opponent. I’m assuming I don’t have to explain “de-pin” to the folks that are likely to read this, but that’s how you would gain a point. There were five areas of strategy that we used. They were:

1. Pure strategy.
a. Knowing the track and where to position your car as in the example with the Cougars above.
2. Obstruction strategy.
a. Welding (with the wood-burner) objects to your car like a telephone pole segment to the front of my black Torino. (Yes that is an original black Torino)
3. Chemical.
a. The track cleaning alcohol on a sponge attached to the side of a dump truck will deposit this slippery substance in your opponent’s lane.
4. Weight.
a. Adapting a Matchbox VW bus to run on the track and installing a rear pin making it most dangerous at the intersections.
5. Explosives.


Although contemplated, these are risky at best, and our Mom and Dad also banned explosives and fire from our room after the “Match head rocket/Pontiac flight experiment” of 1969, where we miscalculated the trajectory. So these have not been utilized. (Yet)

It all started out innocently enough, Ed and I had hours of fun not only competing but also secretly devising new vehicles to be more vicious than the last (25 years before and on a much smaller technologic scale than “Battle Bots”).

Things started to get out of hand as they usually did when Ed and I competed. I suppose we lost interest after it became like work to fix or clean the track after the likes of the “gravel truck” or the semi full of dimes designed to short out the opponents lane.

Some may say we wasted cars that are today rare and expensive. But for the chuckle I get whenever I remember those times it was well worth the price.