Slot Car Racing

[Jeff]

Haha.. wonderful. Thanks SPman , I guess you could take away that decimal point these days and add a bit more money to that hourly rate of hire although a Cub is out of the question these days ! aaah tube frame, canvas and wire... Those were the days

"Martins - the mecca for modelers"
I didn't know they had a slot car track - I was a frequent lurker in their store in Customs street though, and think I bought a Cox Cheetah there.
Used to race in the big track up on K Road - along towards where Red Baron is now on the other side of the road - only stopped because I was doing my PPL, and I needed all the cash I could get - well - a Piper Cub, solo at Dairy Flat was $3.50/hr! - expensive!

[SPman]

although a Cub is out of the question these days

Oh dear...still have a soft spot for the Cub...side slipping over the fence and stopping in about 300 ft at the Barrier, then watching the Auckland Aero Club planes try and stop before they ran off the end of the strip - it was an advantage learning on a decent plane on a grass strip (as Dairy Flat was at the time)....

[Jeff]

I was lucky enough as a kid to get a few rides in North Shore's Cub ZK-BKU ( then red and white ).
Stunned by the basic and spartan interior but amazed by the performance and handling.
If you learned in a taildragger at North Shore on grass you knew you could pretty much handle anything !
I recall BKU was damaged by wind in the 80's and written off.... Later to be replaced with another Cub which they may well still have ?...

Oh dear...still have a soft spot for the Cub...side slipping over the fence and stopping in about 300 ft at the Barrier, then watching the Auckland Aero Club planes try and stop before they ran off the end of the strip - it was an advantage learning on a decent plane on a grass strip (as Dairy Flat was at the time)....

[SPman]

I was lucky enough as a kid to get a few rides in North Shore's Cub ZK-BKU ( then red and white ).
.......

Here's BKU, mid 70s....for you.
There were 3 Cubs back in 67 - BQQ, BTV & BSK.
I liked BQQ - a friendly, dependable plane that you felt you could trust, although it flew port wing low. ZK-BSK on the other hand - a right bastard - never trusted it and the only plane I've had a partial engine failure on!
They seemed to disappear when I was overseas in the early 70's and BKU was the only one left.

I did a refresher on BKU in the mid 70's, and scared the instructor shitless when I instinctively kicked it sideways just before the fence to wash off a bit of height, to yells from the back seat - I don't know if he'd ever side slipped the old girl - by the noise, certainly not from the back seat - he was a young guy who was probably used to using as much strip as needed - to us it was anathema - down and stopped before the X wind strip coming from the east, but by then DF was turning into another GA field........

[Jeff]

Superb ! Many thanks

[bry3500]

.. at home with Stirling! This is great..[video=youtube;JRcLPkH3ksY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRcLPkH3ksY[/video]

[Roger Dowding]

.. at home with Stirling! This is great..[video=youtube;JRcLPkH3ksY]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRcLPkH3ksY[/video]

What would that be worth now, wonder if Stirling [ Sir Stirling ] still has it !! Wish I did ..

[Gerard Richards]

I am looking to try and track down any images people may have of early NZ Commercial Slot Car Raceways from around 1967 to 1975. I am planning to write an article on the early days of Commercial slot car raceways in NZ. I know that there were usually tracks in most towns throughout the country and quite a number in the major cities circa 1968-73. Photographs are very rare though, but someone did send me a couple from Dunedin which I now can't locate. Anyone also with photos of home tracks of the era these would also be helpful. If you can help, please can you contact me at: Gerard Richards e-mail mailto:?subject=&body= ph 0273336642 Thanks if you can help.

[Roger Dowding]

From a North Islander - this from the South Island - Nelson Photo News .. putting this here Gerard but had to reduce size - will E-mail a the bigger version to you. Cheers.

[Gerard Richards]

Hi Roger, thanks for that excerpt from Nelson Photo News, that is great and i appreciate receiving a scan of it at higher resolution. It’s a picture that conveys the scene how it was and the enthusiasm, we all had for slot racing in the golden era!

[ERC]

I got RSI from the Wrenn 152 system we had... AC motors, rachet and pawl (would also run on DC, but not as quick) so power either on or freewheel. Cars only lasted about 5 long laps at a time before getting too warm and having to be swapped until they cooled.

Still have our family set of about 60 cars - and heaps of track, but no 12V AC transformer! Later cars were DC only.

[nigel watts]

Still got some of my slot cars that last raced in the mid 60's

[ERC]

One of my favourite layouts. Note that with 1/52, it was more economical on space! The baseboard was on top of what was our model railway layout - which never got used again - and the whole lot on a 1/4 size billiard table in what became known as the Steptoe room....

[CENTER]
Probably about 1964 or could be a lot earlier.

[/CENTER]

The newer Scalextric cars are in many respects, better value than the 1/43 scale models. Check out the detail on this. Never been out of the box except for the photo... (Quite a few more in the collection.)

[Gerard Richards]

Hi ERC, thats a really nice picture of your early 1964 home track layout. Would it be possible if you could send a copy of that image to my e-mail mailto:?subject=&body=, so I could add it to my archive. It could also possibly be used in the magazine article I'm writing next year. Thanks if thats a goer.

[nigel watts]

[John McKechnie]

Nigel...would car 34 be a MK3 Zodiac.nice fats on the back

[khyndart in CA]

Aw Nigel,
if I had known I could have popped in after classes at Morrinsville College.
Ken

[nigel watts]

Nigel...would car 34 be a MK3 Zodiac.nice fats on the back

Sure is, and it was my quickest racer by far.

[Roger Dowding]

Never had Slot Cars as a Kid,had a Hornby OO Model railway and my brother had a Faller set in 1;76 which we set up beside the Railway.
I did buy a Carrera 1;43 set in 2010 - never been assembled and used .. but display the cars.

[Oldfart]

Our family went to Oz for a holiday in 64, when the import duties on lots of things, including slot cars were horrendous. I bought 10 slots in Sydney, some 1/24 and some 1/32, worth quite a bit. When we got to NZ Customs, "anything to declare" I said yes, I have a lot of toy cars, customs dude told me to go away. Duty would have been the value of 5 of them. Selling some paid for the hobby for the next year. Car dealer?