Slot Car Racing

Slot Car Racing is the competitive hobby of racing powered miniature cars, or other vehicles, that are guided along a track by grooves or slots cut into its surface. The cars themselves are usually models of real automobiles, and while most participants race commercially available slot cars, often modified for better performance, some motorize static display models instead, and dedicated hobbyists scratch-build entirely original cars and mechanisms from raw parts and materials. The hobby spans a wide range, from casual home-track gatherings using whatever cars the host happens to own, to serious competitions in which racers painstakingly build or modify their own cars and compete through a series of races toward a national championship; some hobbyists, much like model railroaders, build elaborate scenic tracks complete with miniature buildings, trees and figures, while purely competitive racers generally prefer an unobstructed track. Slot car racing was a major fad in the 1960s, with annual sales once reaching around 500 million dollars and roughly 3,000 public slot car courses open across the United States alone, before the fad declined by the early 1970s as amateur racers felt increasingly crowded out of organized events and radio-controlled cars emerged as a competing hobby.