Vintage Slot Racing Newsletter
Ye Olde Editor

This is me painting a Chaparral the traditional Day-Glo Red color....<Grin>

It all started at the age of 4, when my father bought me a 10 cent plastic fighter jet kit, and let me "help" him put it together. I gave the glue tube a good squeeze, and while he was busy cleaning that up, I put the whole decal sheet into the water dish! Surprisingly, my model building "career"
survived...

Within a few years, I was an experienced (but not necessarily good) modeler, having built well over 100 plastic kits, almost all airplanes and military vehicles. In the Fall of 1958, I was introduced to the SMP / AMT 3'n'1 car kits, and immediately fell in love with cars.

In 1959, I built a Strombecker 1/24 D-Jaguar, which came with a 3 volt Mabuchi motor, and was designed to be free running or tethered around a "pylon" which held 2 D size batteries. You could also get an adapter to allow it to run on Strombecker's new "Slot Track".

Before Christmas 1959, I spotted a figure 8 slot set in the window of a toy store, in Winter Park, Florida. It was either a Scalextric or VIP, and cost $79.95 - a literal FORTUNE for the Holland family at that time! The next Christmas, the same set was still there, and I mentioned it again, but I knew that it wasn't going to happen. Then for Christmas 1961, Santa brought me the equivalent Strombecker set ($29.95 list), and my lifelong love for Slot Racing began. Though I had trouble keeping even 1 car running, I was hooked.

In 1962, we moved north, and I discovered an AMT Turnpike Set being demoed at the local hobby shop. Again, I was drooling over it, but it was $79.95 with 1 car and no power pack, and as of this day I still have never owned a set. Do have a couple of cars, though.....

In 1963, I bought a simple figure-8 T-Jet HO set. Had a lot of fun with it, especially when my best friend and I combined our sets and created a  "permanent" layout at his house.

Early '64 brought the first commercial raceway to our area - one visit and I knew that this was what I really wanted to do!
I think I got a Revell Lotus GP kit first, followed by a Monogram '58 T-Bird. Summer of '64, I built a crude 3 lane tri-oval in our basement, and converted my 2 cars to Plymouth stockers using JoHan static kit bodies. Power was from the Strombecker Power Pack for one lane, and a similar train power pack for the other. Controllers were the pushbutton Strombeckers!!!!
I spent almost every waking moment racing, working on the cars or trying to keep the track working.

Summer '65 came around, and I decided to build a better track - 4 lanes, 8'x18' oval, blackboard paint, copper tape, car battery power, & phone plug hookup for "real" controllers. What a blast! I could run commercial track cars without any trouble, and it really made it nice to debug new cars before going to the "big" tracks and having to pay to race.

A few years later, my parents moved, and I gave away my track. The commercial slot car boom also ended so there was nowhere for me to race for a long time.

Fast forward over the Dark Ages until 1986, when I discovered the Monogram Nascar static kits, and was immediately reminded of the slot conversions I did with the JoHan kits back in 1964. I started looking around and discovered that there were still a few places where you could buy new slot parts. My wheels started turning, and to keep an already long story from getting longer, I built another track. A year later, I started the Vintage Slot Racing Newsletter, to spread the word to others with similar interests. Starting with 12 subscribers the first issue, we ultimately had more than 300 different people worldwide who received VSRN at one time or another.