North Alabama Slotcar Association N.A.S.A.

I took my wife for a little drive to Huntsville, AL the other day seeking wisdom and enlightenment.  What I found was a bunch of new friends who know a lot more than I do about HO slot car racing.  Of course, a monkey with a note in his mouth knows more than I did about HO racing just a few short weeks ago.  This trip, I was able to hear from people who actually race T-Jets on a regular basis.  I was able to see the tracks they run on and learn about the different classes.  Perhaps, most importantly, I actually was given the opportunity to drive cars of the different classes and see what the difference is in speed and handling.  But, more on that later.

Is this a cool sign, or what?

The kind people of N.A.S.A. met me at their club-owned track 'Heart Of Dixie Motor Speedway', which is housed at the home of Jim Norton.  Along with Jim Norton, I was also met by Tony Hopkins, Kevin Riggs, Pat Hastings, and Rob Rose.  I would like to thank them all for their warm welcome and friendly hospitality.  N.A.S.A has four tracks in its association and races about once a month.  Races move around to the various tracks and all are used in the association races during the year.  Only the Heart Of Dixie Motor Speedway is owned by N.A.S.A. The rest are owned by individuals.  The other tracks are Dave Parker's 'Rocket City Raceway', Kevin Riggs 'Rivertown Roadcourse', and Rob Rose's 'Thunder Valley Raceway'.  All of these tracks have very good power supplies which offer 0-20 volts and 10 amps of power.  Rocket City Raceway was the only one using photo cells for timing purposes.  All the other tracks use reed switches.  The tracks were each on 4'x12' tables and offered probably 50' of racing each.  The tracks were all different but they all are very race-able.  The most landscaping was done on Dave Parker's 'Rocket City Raceway'.  At first glance it might seem a little busy with all the buildings, grandstands, garages, people....and let me not forget to mention the model of what I believe was a Saturn rocket ready to launch.  But upon driving on the track, the landscaping kind of fades away, and all you notice is the layout, which was possibly my favorite of the four.

        

I want to say this was a fact finding trip and I got more facts than my poor little noggin could retain.  I got a lot of useful information about power supplies, wiring, lap counting methods, and actual firsthand knowledge of how the different class cars handle.  Remember, I am still in the design phase for the track I am building (see Building A Home Track parts 1-3).  I found out a lot of things that work and don't work on an HO layout.  I have a much better idea now of what I should be trying to develop.

N.A.S.A. holds races approximately once a month.  They seem to have good turnout for their races, even drawing people from the Memphis and Nashville areas to race with them.  Their races are all T-Jet cars and circle around three classes.  These classes are Stock, Nostalgia, and Super Stock.  Often they will run I.R.O.C. races in addition to the other classes.  The I.R.O.C. cars are provided by the track owner.  It seems they have a sense of humor when it comes to the I.R.O.C. class.  They like to run unusual cars for this class.  One such group of cars I saw were actually snowmobiles.  I understand they will be running an I.R.O.C. race soon using Tyco Turbo Trains.  Well, it should be a drivers class after all.

Along with their regular races, they keep points during the year for the year's championship.  They also have run 'bag of parts' races.  I can see they keep the racing fun.  Maybe that, combined with the friendliness of all involved, is why their association is successful.

I would like to thank Kevin Riggs for helping set this visit up.  I would like to thank Dave Parker for the kindness he showed by offering my wife a chair when he thought she might be tired of standing.  Dave, you are a true southern gentleman.  Rob Rose, you are one of the most dedicated T-Jet racers I have ever seen.  Not many people have a tattoo of a pancake armature on their arm.  I can truly say you are the only one I have ever met.  Pat, you made my wife feel very welcome and I see you two are already facebook friends.  I want to thank Jim for our private conversation concerning our faith and the churches we attend.  Tony, thank you for the insights you shared.  You never know when you may say something that will help someone else with what they are working on.

My tour of the tracks started at Heart Of Dixie Motor Speedway on Friday night where I met all the guys mentioned except for Dave Parker.

Heart of Dixie Motor Raceway owned by N.A.S.A.

From left to right Kevin Riggs, Jim Norton, Pat Hastings, Tim Hendricks, Tony Hopkins, Rob Rose

After examining the track, it's wiring, power supply, etc... for about 90 minutes we went to Dave Parker's house to see Rocket City Raceway.

Dave Parker's Rocket City Raceway

At Dave's I started learning more about their power supplies and got to see the photo cell system at work.  This was important to me as I am planning on using this system myself.  After about 90 minutes playing on Dave's track and learning as much as I could it was off to bed at the "No Tell Motel".









The next morning we met Kevin at his house to see Rivertown Roadcourse.

Kevin Riggs' Rivertown Roadcourse

Kevin took time to explain a lot of things I learned and got confused about the previous night.  It was here I got to actually drive the different classes and compare the handling, and start to understand more about them.  I actually started getting a feel for what I would be more comfortable with.  At Kevin's I also found out a DeFalco Genesis Fanatic controller WILL work for HO Cars.  It will actually work quite well.






 After a couple hours with Kevin we went to Rob's to see Thunder Valley Raceway.  Here I learned even more about the cars and more about the power supplies.

Rob Rose's Thunder Valley Raceway

Rob Rose and his infamous Pancake Arm Tattoo

Overall, if you have the opportunity to spend a day racing with the guys of N.A.S.A., I highly recommend it.  I hope in the future central Mississippi will have an HO racing circuit and our two groups can visit each other.  Who knows?  You might even get to run on Kevin's old plastic track again.

You can find out more about N.A.S.A. by going to facebook and finding North Alabama Slotcar Association.