SPEEDTV.com Reviewed: “Slot Car Racing: Tips, Tricks and Track Plans”
Written by: Gregg Leary Charlotte, NC – 5/14/2006

TITLE: “Slot Car Racing: Tips, Tricks and Track Plans”

AUTHOR: Robert Schleicher

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Would you like to own your own race track, but your name isn’t Bruton Smith and you’re not a member of the France family? Perhaps you’d like to have a multi-car race team but you don’t have the financial resources of Penske, Ganassi, Roush or Hendrick. Have no fear … ”Slot Car Racing” is here! Robert Schleicher gives us 232 pages of slot car wisdom with the help of scores of truly spectacular color and black and white photographs.

On page 8, a color photograph of Bobby Isaac’s Dodge Daytona at Riverside Raceway in 1970 is placed above a slot car replica of the same car … and it is almost impossible to tell one from the other. Similar shots of Dan Gurney’s winged Plymouth Superbird are done on pages 186 and 187. Tracks and cars have come a long way from the Strombecker kit with its Jaguar D-types I remember from when I was a kid.

“Slot Car Racing” is divided into 13 lucky chapters.

1.Today’s Model Racing Cars.
2.What’ll She Do? Track Tests of 39 Cars
3.Real Racing Action
4.Race Car Prep and Performance
5.Sixty Car-by-Car Comparison Shoot-Outs
6.Build Your Own Race Car
7.The Snap-Together Home Raceway
8.Racetracks on Tabletops
9.Real Racetracks for Your Home
10.Sedan Racing: NASCAR, Trans-Am, DTM, and WRC
11.Your Racetracks
12.HO Race Car Track Tests
13.HO Tracks and 11 Track Plans

Robert Schleicher is not only an expert on slot car racing but he is a very good writer. He is able to relay technical information in a way that even I can understand it. Some excerpts from his book are in order.

Mini Michael motors at mini Monaco.

“Model car racing is now closer to real car racing than ever. The cars are almost indistinguishable from the real racing machines they replicate. You have a choice of speed, anything from true-scale miles per hour with infinitely controllable power slides to flat-out rail’n it speeds that define the term ‘slot racing.’ There’s no realism in rail’n it, but it is a thrill. At the realistic end of the speed spectrum, improved tires and the ability to run six cars in one lane make 1/32 scale model racing virtually 1/1 racing.”

“The list of available ready-to-race cars grows by about 100 (not counting different paint schemes) each year. Technology has reached tabletop racing in the form of digital cars and controllers that allow you to run up to six cars on a two-lane track. Controller-operated lane-changing tracks allow you to choose either the “fast” or “passing” lane at the flick of a button. No longer must you have a six-lane slot-car track to race six cars-two lanes are enough. You can duplicate the real racetrack of your dreams in a space as small as 5x9 feet or have a full-house experience in as little as 8x16 feet.”

“There are many new pit buildings, grandstands, control towers, and crowds of scale- model people available so you can make the track almost as realistic as the cars. One of the joys of model racing is that you can have a replica of just about any real racing car from almost any time period. You can even have the complete grid of cars from just about any race in history on a replica of any real racing track-and you can have it all in your own home.”

“Slot Car Racing’s” track tests of race cars would make “Consumer Reports” proud. Cars are tested on two identical test tracks made of two different brands of track. Cars are driven for 50 laps on each track and the fastest time is recorded for each lane. Then the cars are driven on five skid pads. The results are tabulated and charted. The cars are ranked numerically. But the coolest ranking is by photographing them on a model race track in the grid order of how they performed. It looks like the pace lap of a major motor race!

Only a half second separates first from last in these 60’s Sports/GT/Le Mans slot cars.

In “Race Car Prep and Performance” Robert gives dozens of step-by-step tips (complete with close up photographs) of how to “tune up” your race car for maximum performance. Perhaps his best piece of advice in the entire book is, “I strongly suggest you invest in a lap counter/timer so you can time how fast the car is going before and after you make each change.” This tip is worth the price of the book and will save hours of “trial and error” and “by guess and by gosh” attempts at tuning up your race car.

Essentially, with slot car racing you can BE Bernie Ecclestone or Brian France. You can do something impossible in the real world of racing … race cars from different decades or even different series on the same track at the same time. It’s a fun-filled automotive time machine. You can build your own custom designed race track, combining the best features of the great circuits from motor racing history. You can stock the infield with your favorite die cast cars. Cannibalize your train set for interesting buildings, trees, shrubs and miniature people. Let your imagination go wild. Share this wonderful hobby with your children and grandchildren, neighbors and friends. It is one of the few hobbies that can be enjoyed by nearly anyone of any age, even those with serious physical and mental challenges. “Slot Car Racing” earns four out of five lug nuts. 

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