Home ] History ] Galleries ] Tracks ] Projects ] [ IHSR ] Links ] Future ] About ]

I.H.S.R.

Interstate Home Slot Racers

 

In addition to being included in the links, this topic gets its own page because its origins and growth have a lot to do with my current slot racing activities.  I'm going to pre-empt a bit of what will eventually be included in the History section as background.

Sometime in the late 80's, my son found a little advertisement in the classified section of a car modeling magazine offering something called "VSRN" - the Vintage Slot Racing Newsletter.  A subscription was soon acquired and the arrival of each issue eagerly awaited.  Because I had taken a long sabbatical from slot racing and because even my brief returns had been internally focused, there was a lot of stuff that I had never seen.

One issue carried a little classified notice directed at slot racers in the Baltimore, MD area.  After a few phone calls, I arranged to visit Todd Brace and his track in Columbia, MD, just a few miles from me.  I packed up a few of my 1/24 cars (I didn't have any running 1/32 cars) grabbed my "egg" clicker controller and headed down with my (in my mind) invincible team.  Was I in for a surprize! - First, my cars on their ancient rubber wouldn't even move and second, I had never even seen a magnet car! My reaction to the Fly Viper was one of utter astonishment.

There was, as it turned out, a pretty sizeable informal group, centered around Todd's track and Jim Butt's (old) Flying Cow Raceways.  I bought a couple of cars and joined in - that would have been about 1995.  I even eventually gave up my "clicker" controller for a real throttle (I'm not sure I went much better but the derision level dropped).

At that time, the group had no name but was simply a circle of friends racing with cars - usually the cars for a forthcoming race were agreed at the end of the current race.

Although we have adopted a name and have, courtesy of one of the group who is a web designer, a web site and forum, and despite the fact that tracks and faces have changed, the important things are still there - a relaxed and informal gathering of guys (and gals) who enjoy playing with toy cars - some people are more competitive, some less, new people have joined and pushed the former "hot hands" a notch or two down in the finishing order but, overall, we simply have a lot of fun on the half dozen or so home tracks that make up our circuit.

(A really good article on the group, complete with track pictures,  written by Jim Butt -aka SubDude-was published in the May 2007 issue of the NSCC journal - and with the kind permission of the NSCC, I have included it here. (Adobe Acrobat reader required)

So the old curmudgeon soldiers on, each year building a faster car that goes slower in the races, but thoroughly enjoying the group and the program!