Australian Slot Car Racers Association

Triggered off by a post from Neil B, I've created a simple web page for Australian publications of anything slot car related.
Reproduced in large format, so that us old farts can seen the

Australian Slot Car Magazines Index
http://slotbaker.com/slot-mags.html

Australian Slot Car Review
Volume 1 Issues 1 to 4
Volume 2 Issues 1 to 4
Volume 3 Issues 1 to 4
Final Issue

Australian Model Car & Slot Racing Review
Sep-Oct 1966
Nov-Dec 1966
Mar-Apr 1967
May-Jun 1967
Jul-Aug 1967
Number 7 1967

Australian Model Slot Car Racing Guide
Book 1 1966
Book 2 1967

Slot Car and Model Racer
Number 1 1966

Model Car Racing Review
May, Aug, Sep, 1970

Mini Wheels
Numbers: 2, 4, 5 1975
Numbers: 8, 9, 11, 12 1976
Numbers: 13, 14, 15, 16 1977

Australian Model Car Magazine
Vol 1, No. 2. Dec-Jan 1992

If anyone else has some Aussie slot car magazines, newsletters, etc and would like to share, please let me know.
Maybe we can build it up, and share some memories

If you are able help by filling the gaps, it would be greatly appreciated.

2 more added to the index today.
Australian Model Slot Car Racing Guide (thanks Don S) and
Mini Wheels #15 (Thanks Neil)

Hi Steve
have been reading thru the stuff put up so far, and just love it, I wish I was more into it in the day,,,but i was a bit isolated living at Windsor NSW. Great to see familiar names like STOO,FOX AND LINDSEY mentioned frequently,,,,,the glory days !!
thanks for your continuing efforts
Darryl

Yeah, and Mr Bramble features too.

There's more to come.

Thanks Steve,

Arh.. it looks like I did really exist in August 1977

When did Slotz close?

May I say, Firstly,
Thanks So Much Guys for Finally getting what we (I am almost sure), have All perhaps thought / Wished for,.. FINALLY Happening.

Thanks also to All those that Have AND Hopefully Will eventually 'Contribute' to both this 'Thread' and to the collection!!

I am personally strangely 'Bereft' of Any remembrance or knowledge of Either When, How OR Why, I have Not managed to Keep and Hang on to ALL of My Older Slotting Stuff.

I DO have Some Various Fragments from the Very Early Period,.. but as Ever So Happily Now 'Re-Read', in the May 1970 issue,.. Sadly Neither the Chassis OR ANY of my 26D's I was and had been running Quite successfully, in Club Racing, on the Old Super Smooth Wonderful old "10 Lane Flat Track" at what was then, Simply "Waitara Slot Car raceway", (many years prior to it becoming HSC), built by the Owner at the time, Kevin Thurston.
A Truly Wonderfully Nice Person and rather Excellent Cabinet Maker, (the Flat track, was almost billiard table smooth, tricky and very fast), who also 'Gets a Mention' in the Same Issue.

So Have to say, it Was Great FUN,.. Re-Reading of My Very First 'Exploiits' Into the (at the Time, Still Very Fast Paced) 'Crowd' of NSWMRRA Racing

As a bit of a 'Personal' History/Experience rave/story,..

I had (probably, like many) dabbled with Various incarnations of Early Scalextric, but partly through a 'connection' with a part of the company Dad worked for at the time and a Father/Daughter Combo who raced Slot cars Waaay back being as I recall Burt Kynoch and his daughter, whose name I forget.

After my First 'Commercial' Car Purchase, A Lime Metallic Revel 36D Sidewinder type thingemy,.. an 'Elva' ?? Body perhaps?,.. Not sure,.. awful,.. Inexperience perhaps, but on reflection would suggest one could have chosen Better 'Platforms' to have developed,.. lol,.. Like My Friends,.. Testor !!,..
Anyway,.. to cut a typically Long Story Short,... To 'Move Up a Bit' and to help getting some experience of a Much Faster Far Better Handling Car,.. Bert Gave Dad one of their Older Cars to give to me.

Something that I am Sure Steve King would have Loved,.. ,.. Being a Very Neatly 'Modified' and arguably 'typical' of current Theory/Practice at the time, it was a Very Nice Modded "Dynamic" Sidewinder" Chassis, with a Hand-Wound & Balanced "Kynoch" 36D , with Light Weight Body Out-riggers and a Dynamic 'Mirage' Body !!

He also gave me my first MRC Controller, which I used,.. for Years !!!
Wow,.. What a blast it was, at the time !!

Relatively quickly and through Kevin actually Recognizing the 'Kynoch' car and chatting with Dad, he suggested if I was interested I should come Club Racing,.... and ,..... so it All began !!,..
That car was soon realized to be (by that time),.. Old Hat/School and Metal and Wire Scratch-Built chassis with smaller Faster motors, were 'The Go'.

There was at the time a Really Amazing and large bunch of guys around Racing Slot cars, with Plenty of Skill and Experience, both at Club level And racing in the early versions of the 'Association', so Learning How to Do 'Stuff', (which at the time you NEEDED to do to actually be Able to Race), was in reality, relatively Easy and there were also Great Commercial magazines available from Overseas and at that stage, their Was ONLY One Class, OPEN's. In effect you could Almost run Anything, as long as it 'fitted' within the Basic Spec's,..

After managing to Build with some help,a Pretty reasonable Chassis to run at Club Level at Waitara and having also Recently gotten Into and Started 'Winding' my Own and at the time Only 'Staticly Balanced' Armatures, initially Only the 26D's Seriously, and had a Number of Good running Motors as well as some End Bell Melting 'Ballistically Stupid' ones as well,.. lol,.. #26's and 27/28 Doubles were good !!,.. and seemingly to be getting Better and doing OK etc, Kevin suggested I should 'Enter' and have a run in the upcoming NSWMRRA Event.

As there was a Vast difference in Age, Number and Skill levels of the Various and Many regular Entrants, there was Now the recently instigated, "Divisions", which Meant the New Comers, like Myself, could All Race and run together, with the Top 2 Drivers in the Lower Division getting a 'Move-Up', into the Lowest Division 2 race and so on, till one Arrived at what were the Pro's,.. in Div' 1.
So it was Great,.. as there was No Way, I could have raced with the Div' 1 guys at the time, when I first started !! Some of those guys Were ,... Quite Awesome !!

Anyway,.. as it turned out, both I and My Car and Motors, Were Competitive and I ended up In the Div' 3 Main,.. Either Leading or running 2nd for All of the Race !!,.. ,.. thinking,.. Gee,.. this is a 'Bit o' Allright' etc,.. when,.. the (in those days,.. with HOT 26D's) Inevitable Melted Champion endbell, put an End to My Glorious 'Run', causing me to Drop-Out in the Last Bracket.
It Was as I recall, A Very Close race, against Dudes I had Never met or Raced against,.. in fact the Raceway was Filled with Very Fast and Furous Strangers,.. lol,.. Some,.. as it will be seen, also to become both Close and Very Long term Friends.

This Initial 'Foray' into the World of Serious 'Organised' Slot Car racing, was also my first meeting and interaction with a few people I have since managed to Race with Both then,.. and perhaps amazingly Still / again,.. NOW.
On the Day, I met and seemed to form 'some' kind of 'connection' with Wayne Bramble, Lindsay Byron and somewhat Especially as it would seem to Prove,.. One of My True, Close fiends, Mark Fox !!

So was a rather 'Special' Life Moment for myself at that age !!,..

Plus,.. I MUST Take this Opportunity to 'Gloat' over the Fact, that On This particular Occasion, I Did Actually Manage to Beat Both Mark and Wayne !!,..

I did Make the Move Up to the Div' 2 race and actually Did Start, but was with an Absolute Beast of a Wind, being some Stupidly Low number of turns of #25, that was a Sweet Motor but Not Up to the task of running That hard, for That Long and it similar Destroyed itself close to the end of the First bracket,... Race Over !!,.. lol

All in All A Fantastically enjoyable and Apart from the eventual 'Blow-Ups', (which I kinda figured,... May Happen), I was Chuffed !!
First 'Real' Race With ALL My Own Stuff and Came Home with a Trophy !!!,..
In Fact,.. I Still Have it !!,.. , see below

Such great fun,.. I look forward to reading more "Blasts from the Past"

Thanks Stoo.
Looks like another "Trophy" page comming to the website.
Sounds like you should re-create that Dynamic 26D sidewinder...

I'm in similar dismay at what happened to all of my slot car stuff. I stopped about 1969 and all my stuff was boxed up, and went poof!!! I can't recall what I did with it. I was more of a builder and hacker and just raced with a few mates. So no serious competition apart from a couple of endurance races at Hillsdale and Coogee.

Maybe others have got some trophies from the 70s and earlier that they could share with us.

Perhaps these Extra "Historical Musings", should be Moved (eventually), to another 'Thread' eventually,.. but,.. thinking Back,.. I guess having also Re-Read some of the other Magazine Issues,..

I think the Other interesting thing to have come from That Very First Official Race referred to previously and with Specific reference to Wayne Bramble, Lindsay Byron, Mark Fox and myself,.. it is interesting, that from 'Our' almost Collective Meatings, On that Day, that Theoretically and regular until Very recently, the Four of us Have been and in effect Still Are racing Slot cars,.. after All these years !!,..

Pretty Cool, Really,..

Anyway,.. was also interesting, that relatively soon after starting to run in a Few of the Sprint races at Places like Yagoona, Chester Hill and Ofcourse G&D at Parramatta, a Few of Us 'Younger' ,.. "Kids",.. decided we should have a run in the (at the time, Taken Very Seriously), by the I guess as WE are Now,.. 'Elder Statesmen', of the Sport/Hobby,.. "TEAMS Enduro" !!,.. Eeek !!,.. lol

I guess in some ways we really had No Idea,.. but it Was actually a Lot of Fun,.. thank God Stuff was SO much Cheaper in those days !!

I think it somewhat Interesting, that realistically, we being Wayne, Lindsay, Mark and myself, eventually ran as "Team MURA", I guess called that, as We took the perhaps somewhat Wild decision to Run with a Particular current 'El-Cheapo' Machine Wound Version of what was at the time, called a Mura Grp7 !!
These were I think a #24 arm' of unknown Quantity of Turns, but were invariably rather 'Messy' winds and if you got a couple of Good ones,.. (of which there Were Quite a Few !!), they were Ballistically Fast and almost Cheap enough to Virtually Just Throw them, On the Fire, as it were,.. LOL

From recollection, we were really the ONLY Team of Younger guys to regularly attend and race with the Serious Older Team guys, like Geoff Cowell, Steve Hutcheson, Barry Brotherton, Jimmy Westwell AND "Andy", etc, etc !!,.. lol and it was Really Great Fun and I think We all Learned,.. a LOT !!

I think we All became quite good at Building Both Decent chassis and Fast Motors and learnt how to Fix, repair and Pit cars Quickly and to Marshal Correctly !!!,.. LOL

It was Great Racing in the Teams Championship,.. with the 'Big Boys' !!,.. and I think actually Earned us a certain degree of 'Respect' from those guys that perhaps some that Didn't enter the Enduros and 'Slog-it-out' for 8 Hours, around Totally 'Mad' places like Chester Hill !!,....
Perhaps did Not get !!,. ???

Anyway,.. once again, was fun reading about it again and realizing My Brain Can Still recall all this stuff from the Distant past !!,..

Good memories and recolections Stoo.

2 new listings;
Mini Wheels #13, Thanks Kim
Mini Wheels #16, Thanks Neil

7 more in the process.

4 New additions
Mini Wheels; No. 8, No. 9, No. 11, No. 12.
3 More to come.

Great to see the 'Collection' Growing !!
Thanks Kim, Steve for the latest 'additions' !!

Especially as One of them has a Pic of one of My Cars (Body) !!

In the April 1976 Issue No8, there is an article about 'The Matich', which has a pic of a 'Wing' car within the Text, which is Mine,..
I Do 'Now' recall both Dave taking a pic of it and it's eventual 'Publication', but had forgotten until I saw it again,..

I 'Remember' both the Car and the body somewhat 'vividly', as the Body, was a "Labour of Love", as was the chassis.... being a (Slightly Less Extreme), Attempt at 'Replicating' the Body as used in the 'Infamous' "Model Car" magazine Lee Gilbert chassis Article.

It's a bit difficult to really 'see' it in the pic, but (even though Nowhere near how Slick the Gilbert body was), was pretty good for a bunch of Spray cans/masks etc. It was a Blue 'Fade' on the body and as I recall, was actually a Bit Dark especially on the Sides and was Hard to See at G&D.

I Do remember the chassis as well, it was very much a US style car than what was being run (arguably More effectively here at the time) and although a rather nice 'build' per-se, even IF I Do say so myself, it was definitely Nothing too 'Special' and was a bit disappointing as I recall,..
Dave Smith helped me out in my 'Quest' for some Better 'Open' Horsepower, by supplying a MURA Bob Green (#25 ?? I think), Vulcan Setup.

Strange in some ways that I Don't STILL Have that Body !!?????,... I Know I kept it for a LONG time,... SO Much 'stuff' Missing from that era??,.. Chassis, Motors etc,.... Yet,.. perhaps Amazingly, I DO still have the Motor !!,.. (Well Can/Setup/Endbell etc) and a Few Arms of the Era but NOT the one that came with the can.

Whilst (in theory), all the above Could have been Good,.. I also do recall Not having a great time of it the day I ran that 'Car' as Pictured,.. lol

What colour cars did the Fox run back then??

You know,.. that's a good question,..

Well,.. as 'Fluro' colours were Not around then, I seem to recall they May have been Bright Orange, and then an Orange/White Fade?
Mine were often a 'Fade' of Very Light Bright Yellow into White.

The 'Fluro' colours of Both our cars came about in the 80's.

3 New additions
Mini Wheels; No. 2, No. 4, No. 5.
That brings it up to date with what is at hand, but there are more in the pipeline to come.
Would be nice to fill in the Mini Wheels gaps, if anyone can help out.

Finally got 2 New additions uploaded.

1966, Slot Car and Model Racer.
One of mine that has quite a few pages and took a while to scan and format.

1993, Australian Model Car Magazine, V1 No.2.
Thanks Kim.