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A Little About My Addiction to Slot Cars!

"This page is for my personal items pertaining to my racing career(?)-The people that I met and raced with, the tracks, the way the hobby changed over the years. I hope you will find something of interest that you can relate to.

NEWS FLASH!....Date: March 20, 2004


Captain Hammer returns to USRA racing!!

Yes, boys and girls, Grandpa Ray, Also known as Captain Hammer went slot racing. I decided that I needed to return to slot racing and blow off a little steam, have some fun and see some old aquaintances.

Fun...well, I had fun. A lot of fun!! The only thing is I haven't yanked a trigger to compete in 8 years. Yes, I said 8 (eight) years. Just to set the record straight, I didn't fall off the planet, I just wasn't running wing cars with NorCal USRA. You know there are other forms of racing besides Wing Cars on a Blue King track with glue! Yeah, and the stuff that I ran was 8 years old, too. Did I have fun? You Bet! Was I slow? You Bet! The regulars beat up on me pretty good. I still had a ton of fun and got to talk with some old friends. As a note-The Cobalt 12 car came through in a still-raceable condition, same with the flexi-12.

Here are some pictures of my (somewhat antique) race cars that I used that fateful day in March.....8-)

ANOTHER BIG NEWS FLASH!....Date: August 21, 2004


Captain Hammer returns to USRA GLUE racing!!

OK boys and girls,you heard it here first..... Captain Hammer went glue racing @ Citrus Heights, CA on their pinched King track-and ended up spanking all the amateurs, placing right behind the pro's! How do you like me now?!?

Here's a picture of my box 12 car, complete with Bonesy the driver. Yes, that is a Camen Corvette....I was hooked up big time!!
And Here's the Slick-7 Vampire III Classis, and No, I didn't run them big balonies, just there to keep the axle in place. That's an all-ProSlot mill with a M2 38 degree arm, Bubba! BTW, for my Daughter, that is a STEEL chassis! Yup, it's legal now. Note the HUGE amount of lead needed to get the car to 72 grams legal racing weight!! "Hey Rudy...Could you make the chassis weights a little bigger?"

And here's a few shots of the Dodge Flexicar that Doug Marchese and myself wrecked during a 2 hour enduro @ Downtown's Slot Car Warehouse in Concord, CA. It was a brutal affair held on his (short) Kingleman.
Just click HERE to see the battered remains
Another picture HERE, the front got a little re-sculpted! Can you say "destruction Derby"? I knew you could!

This one's for those that wanted to know....

Here are a few shot of the famous (infamous?) Zapper that I have. It's an Indiana General Model 90 that will reverse cobalts, so I know that it can do the job-just ask anybody that has used my services.

Click HERE for a front view-that's my box 12 for size reference
Click HERE for a top view to see the overall size of it

If you wonder why I don't take it with me to the races, here's the answer: It weighs approx. 138 pounds and takes 2 men and a boy to move!! Just ask Doug Marchese!!

I gotta tell this: when I got it, it was making a wierd sound-seems the bridge inside was shot and it had been half-waving for the previous owners!! That possibly includes a rather famous parts manufacturer if I have my information right!! It was pretty strong before the repairs were done but it's got real horsepower now!!

The one thing that I do not like to do is zapping cobalts. It seems that if your magnets have 'flaws' in them, the ol' zapper likes to turn them into cobalt dust-must be too much for them or something like that. Anyway, just don't ask for cobalts to be zapped unless you really want to take a chance! Just don't say I didn't warn you.........8-(

Here's a LINK to a downloadable PDF file concerning Pro-Zap magnet services. I realize the date is a little old but it is still relevant as of November 2007.

Here's A Gear Chart!
Yippee Skippee!!!


Here is a LINK for a downloadable gear chart in PDF format that covers most of the useable gear ratios that you may be using. I know that a lot of people have been asking for a chart, so here it is! Either print it out or just save it to your hard drive for later reference.

A little about the People...

As I have said before, I have been around slot car racing for a long time. I can remember a time when the San Francisco bay area had quite a number of tracks to run at. Oops-giving away my age again. I raced in the east bay with quite a collection of characters. A few of note:

A little about the Cars...

When you have been around as long as I have (maybe too long?), you really do see things change. The cars have changed so dramatically that it is hard to believe where we have come from. Here is a little bit of history on the cars I have raced.

I can remember when cars were weighed in ounces, not grams, and we piled lead weight on them as a matter of practice. We had practically no air controls on them (the NCC legal variety) and there were classes that no longer exist. Our cars were more scale-appearing than now, not the flattened wing car look today. The power was not as hot as today, mostly power packs back then. We had some of the most outrageous winds, how about a triple 31? (that one was bullet on low power!) How about a "Nylon" chassis? This one came out of England and was the M & M Jet chassis. I ran one of these in NCC Group 12 for a few years-it was very competitive against the brass & piano wire cars of the time.

Here's something to wrap your head around-in 1969, Group 12 meant that the car couldn't retail for more than $12.00, had no tag and wasn't balanced. It was a pretty rude car, with a few of the manufacturers putting 16D size motors in their RTR cars. The group 15 car usually had the same motor but had a better chassis. The short stack armature didn't appear until about 1970, if I remember right.

The Group 20 car was the first step that had a balanced armature with a tag on it and was usually found in a stamped brass chassis with floating bat pans and a droparm. Also there was a Group 7, not to be confused with open class, that was a machine wound open armature with a tag that said NCC GR7 on it. I think this may have been a 25 turn 25, as it had a lot of wire on it!

There were some real pioneers out there that helped to shape the sport, including a few in the late 60's that ran inline(!) cars in NCC Open competition. Care to try that with a wing car today? Our cars mostly resembled the scale cars of today, but they sure didn't handle that good. If you could do it, you could take a Parma© Flexi X-12 back to 1969 and probably win the NCC Nationals. I remember in the late 60's, John Cukras going 5.49 sec. lap time on a de-bumped American Red! Is that slow or what? At the time, that was Real Fast!! Nobody though you would ever go faster than a 5.50 on an American Red. I am just sorry that I can't remember where this took place. Any help here? I think that possibly this happened at Monaco Speedway, Buena Park(?), CA??

I will have to post some pictures of this old stuff so you can see and appreciate them. Come back soon as the links will be on this page. I plan to work on the pictures soon, so expect to see them in early 2005. I am currently rebuilding several to vintage specs, so please be patient, please.