Slot cars grow up -- and so do their fans

Pioneer Press

Slot cars have grown up, and so have their fans. The electric fad of the '60s are now computerized and intricately detailed to mirror baby boomers' favorites.

By Richard Chin rchin@pioneerpress.com
Steve Hendrickson, a retired business owner and self-described motor head, has a Shelby Cobra sports car in his Shorewood garage. But on Thursday nights, he usually can be found racing something with a little less power. His slot cars. For those whose memories don't go back to the toy fads of the 1960s, slot cars were little electric-powered cars that raced each other on a plastic track, a must-have Christmas gift for a generation of baby boomers. You controlled the speed with a handheld controller, flooring it on the straightaways but easing up on the curves. Otherwise the guide pin in the bottom of the car would slip out of the slot in the track, and you wiped out. When you got bored with racing your brother on your home set, you could try your skill at one of the thousands of commercial tracks built at hobby shops across the nation. Back in the 1960s, the slot car fad was so big that there were more public tracks than bowling alleys, according to one history of the hobby. The fad crashed in the 1970s, but it hasn't died, thanks to adult racers like Hendrickson. Hendrickson said he rediscovered slot cars a few years ago when he saw a beautifully detailed miniature car in a hobby shop and was surprised to find that it wasn't just a nice 1/32-scale display model. It was a slot car. He bought some cars and invited fellow car nuts — people who own serious real cars like Corvette Sting Rays and Ferraris — to race the little cars on a 20-foot track set up on the floor of his garage. Things grew from there into a still-evolving 130-foot race track surrounded by scratch-built structures — billboards, garages, television camera platforms and about 400 figures — fans, race car drivers, pit crews. "The track kind of got over the top in terms of scenery and hand-painted people," Hendrickson said. "For a home track, this track is huge." It occupies much of one of the rooms in Hendrickson's house, and for the past five years, as many as a dozen guys race there every Thursday night. The track is a lot more sophisticated than the home slot car sets of the 1960s. A computer program times the cars, runs the handicapping system that equalizes competition between drivers of different skills and mandates when cars have to pause to refuel. But it's the cars more than the competition that draw slot car racers. "The addiction of this hobby is the models are so beautiful," said Hendrickson, who has more than 100 cars. Cars cost $25 to $100 each. Slot car racers get a kick out of running finely detailed 1/32nd-scale versions of the cars that have a historical or emotional connection for them, ranging from the 1970 Camaro they owned in college to the race car Henry Ford II made to beat Ferrari. "It's weathered the way it looked when it won Le Mans ," said Brian McCutcheon of his Ford GT40 slot car. Like real cars, the tires, gear ratios, brakes and motors of slot cars can be changed and tweaked to improve performance. "There is a little bit of a skill in keeping them in the slot," said McCutcheon, 48, of St. Louis Park. "It took me three months to get competitive." "After a while your finger gets a memory," said David Belton, a 55-year-old Hopkins resident, of operating the controllers that determine how fast the cars go. "I don't like to crash because I spend a lot of money on my cars and there's a lot of detailed pieces that go flying off."