RACE SKILLS: EASY IN CURVES, THROTTLE IN STRETCH
On Christmas morning 1962, Bob Weichbrodt found a set of slot cars under the tree. The electric cars, which were designed on a slotted, 1/32 or HO scale track, were different from the popular Hot Wheels, which ran on gravity or Matchbox cars, which required children to push them.
“You could get a lot more track and you could get more racing realism in a smaller space,” Weichbrodt said.
Racing the slot cars demanded hand-to-eye coordination, dexterity and an understanding of the laws of physics, as well as some mechanical skill, he said.
He went on to collect about 100 of the cars, but gave them up around 1973 when he discovered girls and real cars, he said.
In the 1980s, he got hooked on the cars all over again when he bought a few of them at a hobby shop in Illinois that was going out of business.
These days, Weichbrodt, who lives in Winston-Salem and works as a service manager at Paul’s Schwinn Cycling & Fitness, has 3,000 of the cars and regularly hosts slot-car events in his basement for area enthusiasts.
Yesterday he and about 10 slot-car fans from around the area and state gathered for fellowship and the opening of the winter racing season.
Weichbrodt ran races on two tracks that measure 50 and 108 feet. The fastest cars can go 25 feet per second, he said. A computer keeps track of the number of laps each car makes in a set amount of time. Whoever goes the farthest wins — mostly bragging rights. The skill comes in knowing how slow to go on the curves and how much to push a car on the straightaway.
The camaraderie brings people together, as does the fun of recalling past accidents on the track. The agile cars can become airborne fairly easily and have been known to fly through open windows or land on basement pipes, the men said.
The car’s appeal is mostly limited to men in the 45 to 65 age group, Weichbordt said, although there was a 12 and 19-year-old in yesterday’s group.
Teens usually have an edge in their reaction times, he said, although the hobby has less appeal for the computer generation.
“With today’s kids, they want that instant gratification, like computer games. You plug it in and you play,” he said.
Donnie Dunovant, who lives in Winston-Salem, said that when he cleaned out his mother’s house recently, he found a photo of himself on Christmas morning in 1971 holding his first slot cars.
He likes slot-car racing for the challenge, but he said there is something else going on when a group of men gather to play with cars.
“The appeal is the ability to morph back to being 10 years old,” he said, “and not to have the worries of life.”
mgiunca@wsjournal.com
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