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CopterBob
01/08/09

In reply to When Did You Know You Were Carmosexual?
Environment did it. When I was 9 my dad and a couple of his buddies opened a commercial slotcar raceway, at the height of the slotcar boom in the mid 1960s. They scratchbuilt 3 huge 8-lane tracks, replicas of the Sebring road course (125 ft.), the Daytona Continental road course, and the Daytona tri-oval. My car DNA got formed by speed blurred images of Porsche 904s, Lotus 30s, Chapparal IIs, Ferrari 250LMs, Ford GTs, Lolas, Cobras, McClarens, etc. And most of our customers weren't kids, but literally local NASA rocket scientists and engineers who were also real life car guys. I remember our parking lot being frequented with enthusiast's Porsches, Lotuses, Jags, Mercedes, Triumphs, MGs, etc.

However, the Friday night races on the Daytona tri-oval were a different world, with real southern good ol' boys sometimes duking it out in the parking lot over things like getting their 1/24 scale Petty #43 Pontiac nerfed over the high banking wall into the plate glass window.

Factory sponsored slotcar teams, 24-hour endurance races, allen wrenches and tiny gears... Wonderful but strange times for a kid and the biggest factor in making me a car guy for life.
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mytdawg
01/08/09

@CopterBob: I had one of the Revell 1/24 race tracks and my uncles took me to one of the commercial places although I don't think it was as big as the one you describe. I just remember that those 1/24 slot cars carried a LOT of inertia into the corners.
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