Announcement

Big changes are coming for Slots New?.  I have pretty much lost interest in 1/24 scale at this point.  Honestly, my brother is the only reason I would ever race 1/24 again.  It would just be to spend time with him and quite frankly I would just as soon watch him race and cheer him on. I have really gotten into the HO scale scene though.  I have built a couple four lane tracks at my house and have helped a friend build one and have really enjoyed it.  It is funny, I enjoy building the tracks more than I do racing!

 So, I said there was an announcement.....here it is.  Slots New, effective immediately will be all HO slot racing.  I will be taking down all articles concerning other scales at the end of September 2019.  I will archive the articles I think should be saved concerning other scales and they will be stored in a corner of the site somewhere.  In the next week or so this blog will be changed a lot to accommodate the needs of HO scale.  There will be new categories where items will be stored.

My loss of interest in racing 1/24 influenced my writing here.  It was a constant battle trying to get news to post about 1/24 scale.  The racers of that scale, other than local racers, were not that interested in this blog.  I do want to thank Chuck Hendricks for his constant reporting of the races at Charlie's Garage.  If other tracks had been more interested maybe things would have been better.  Having said that I also want to thank Clyde Romero for reporting the races in the Atlanta area back when the track was owned by Eddie Cordle.  These two men were the exception to the rule when it came to Slots New?.  All the other tracks viewed the situation as, I could find their results myself if I wanted them.  They couldn't be bothered and really didn't care if I posted them or not.  The number of views this blog reflected this attitude except for our local racers and the racers in Atlanta.  However, when I posted my first article about HO the views on this blog blew up!  The people involved in HO racing are very passionate about the hobby and wanted to read about it.  I found this infectious.  I believe by dedicating this blog to HO I will have lots of material to be posting plus I will have a lot more people interested in what I write about.  After all, before writing about HO I had about a thousand views.  After posting about HO the views exploded and went to over 9,000 in a short time.  I haven't posted regularly in months but believe if I start posting again about HO it will be over 10,000 in no time at all.

For any 1/24 scale racers who may actually still be reading, allow me to help you understand more about HO.  The HO scale seems to be more of a "community" than the larger scales.  While my brother is a champion for helping others in 1/24 scale (I admire him greatly for this), there are a lot of people in HO doing the same thing.  It is over run with people helping each other.  HO racing is predominately a home racing scene, but it is none the less organized.  In many ways it is far more organized than other scales.  I predicted years ago that HO racing would be the future of slot racing.  There is little doubt that HO has now surpassed 1/24 in numbers of racers and of competitive tracks.  I predicted a couple decades ago that the home club was the future of slot racing, I think I was right, especially with the combination of home race clubs and HO.  Commercial tracks can close up and you are without local racing maybe for years.  Locally it had been 20+ years since a track had been open when the track here opened.  If the owner loses interest and closes, the racing is finished.  Our local track owner even told me "If I close up there will never be another track in this area".  I don't know if he is trying to scare people into racing, but that kind of talk will only make people want to watch how much they actually spend on that scale.  If a local HO track shuts down someone else can just build one at their home.  Currently we have two HO tracks to race on in our area and are looking for someone else to build another track for us to race on.  The last time we had two local tracks in 1/24 scale in our area was in the 1960's.  When there are more than one 1/24 scale track close together you do not ever hear about them working together.  In HO racing this is common place for the tracks to work together to create the best racing they can.  Yes, I guess I have drank the Kool-Aid and am now one of "them".  Please don't think I am trying to take anything away from our local or any other 1/24 commercial track or its owner.  They spent the money to buy the track and the building.  They go in every day the track is open and spends their time there.  You have to respect them for this if nothing else.  They put their money where their mouth is.  I myself have done the same.  I am more interested in HO now and I put my money where my mouth is by building my own track.

Who knows?  Maybe one day our local racing will be good enough we could travel to race at the Fray, ECHORR, or NASA events.  Be watching for the changes, they will be taking place daily.