Latest / BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show / From Detroit Basement to Pebble Beach: The Slot Mods Story of David Beattie

Transcript

From Detroit Basement to Pebble Beach: The Slot Mods Story of David Beattie · BREAK/FIX the Motorsports & Vehicle Enthusiast Variety Show

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  BreakFix podcast is all about capturing the living history of people from
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  all over the autosphere, from wrench turners and racers to artists, authors,
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  designers, and everything in between.
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  Our goal is to inspire a new generation of petrolheads that wonder what's How did
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  they get that job or become that person?
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  The road to success is paved by all of us because everyone has a story.
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  Tonight's guest founded the slot mods brand in 2007 and serves in the
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  dual role of both designer and lead artist for each commission project,
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  every slot mods track bears David Beatty's signature, passion, artistry,
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  and meticulous attention to detail.
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  But did you know that David grew up in a suburb of Detroit with 10 siblings?
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  One who worked for McLaren's K& M team.
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  He's a fan of all things motorsports, including Formula
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  1, NASCAR, and sports car racing.
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  His love of auto racing began when Peter Revzin's K& M car appeared on a
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  car hauler in the family's driveway.
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  And he's here tonight to chat with us about how he turned his passion for
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  slot car racing into a second career.
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  And with that, let's welcome David to BreakFix.
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  Gentlemen, it's a pleasure to be here.
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  And joining me tonight is William Ross, who you might remember from
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  MPN's Ferrari Marketplace podcast and other fine programming that
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  we have here on the network.
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  Welcome back, William.
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  Hey, it's awesome to be here.
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  It's gonna be a fun one tonight.
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  Just so you guys know, listening, I'm That I actually was blessed to be able to
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  tour David's studio, which was fantastic.
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  It's really cool.
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  And if you haven't seen the video, check out the video to the tour.
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  Cause it's really, really cool.
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  Like all good break fix stories.
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  There's a superhero origin, 10 brothers and sisters.
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  You got to take us back to Motown and how this all got started.
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  It starts with your brother.
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  Back in the early seventies.
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  I was only nine or 10 years old.
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  My brother, Leo was working for McLaren.
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  He was kind of a gopher tiger guy and such like that here in Livonia, Michigan.
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  Yeah.
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  We were watching speed racer and really enjoying that.
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  And we had slot car tracks and things like that, but with him working for
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  McLaren, coming home and going out on the road, and then with the Peter
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  Revson car, the car hauler coming back from road America was really kind of
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  like the, uh, you know, the aha moment.
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  And it was super cool.
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  We just really wanted to ride the pit bikes because we had an acre of land.
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  You know, we're like animals.
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  We just all wanted to get on the bikes and he's like, Hey, chill out.
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  Seeing Peter's car there.
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  You know, that was really impressive.
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  From that comes the story of us getting the burned out tires off the
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  truck and put into our garage and we had, you know, all four of them.
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  We like to roll them around.
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  I mean, they were big.
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  We were little.
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  That was kind of my introduction.
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  And one day my dad came on and said, we're going to clean the garage and I
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  want those tires thrown to the road.
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  We rolled them out there thinking, okay, yeah, we're just going to throw them away.
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  You can see the cord sticking through them and such.
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  And now I think back and I go, God, I wish I had those in my office.
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  And, you know, it's just one of those things when you're in the moment,
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  you're not really thinking about it.
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  As he went on the road and, you know, he'd come back and we'd always talk
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  about speed racer and talk about racing.
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  And I believe he gave my brother and I the snowmobile slot car set.
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  And he also got us a Bachman Turner overdrive album, which
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  is really cool for Christmas.
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  Something else.
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  Little BTO.
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  Yeah.
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  You know, we started watching the Indy races cause he was working
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  for, I think it was Gordon Johncock was driving for McLaren, but I
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  believe he was the driver in the Indy series for McLaren at the time.
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  He was in the music business after that, but being able to go to McLaren
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  with him one day was super cool.
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  When I had the chance to go pre COVID to a reunion and the dynamometer is still in
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  the room and it was really a small place.
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  So it was really kind of cool to see some of the guys who worked with him.
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  Dave, how old was your brother at that time?
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  19 or 20.
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  Oh, that's it.
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  Oh, wow.
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  He was young.
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  Yeah.
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  He was out on the road and you know, I have this great picture of He came home
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  and it's my birthday and there's a cake and he's in his McLaren shirt and we're
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  all sitting there around the table.
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  It was pretty cool.
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  As adults, we raced slot cars, but as kids we played with slot cars.
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  It's very different.
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  So that snowmobile set, was that the Genesis of your getting into slot car
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  racing, or were you already playing with slot cars before that point?
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  We were playing with slot cars before that point, because I have six brothers.
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  They were racing one 24 scale, big Strombecker, one 24 cars in the house.
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  You know, it got down to where we were just racing chassis, the
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  bodies and such were torn off.
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  And so the way our house was set up, you could go in a complete H
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  through all the rooms and come around.
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  So we'd have our corner marshals and we'd host races.
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  They would humor us.
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  I have a twin brother and he's actually more of a car guard than myself.
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  So that's when we were like racing slot cars in our minds.
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  And then when we got the Stummobile thing, that was more of a toy ish, it
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  was kind of fun, they didn't go fast.
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  And to your point, Eric, we weren't really racing, we were more,
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  more or less playing with them.
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  And so, with life, as it changes, and I started finding myself watching
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  more Formula One, I was enjoying Indy and all that kind of thing, and it
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  was when I got older, and I would say, When I turned 45, six or 48
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  ish is when I had a franchise that I was running and I was kind of bored.
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  And I said to my wife, I got a hummock or schlummer Christmas catalog.
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  It's a little green.
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  I don't know if you've ever heard of it.
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  Love that catalog.
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  I think it was great.
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  Yes.
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  Yeah.
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  It was like a Brookstone or one of those kinds of things in there.
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  I said, Hey, you know, I'd like a soccer track for Christmas.
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  And I showed my wife it and, uh, it was Christmas morning and I got up
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  and I was all excited and there was no slack car track set there for me.
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  I was kind of bummed out and then she went down the hall and she came out and she
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  gave it to me and I was like, ah, yes.
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  And I looked at him like, ah, one of the 132nd set, but she got me the 143rd.
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  I couldn't show that I wanted the bigger track.
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  I went downstairs, we set it up on the floor and I was down there
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  on my hands and knees and racing.
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  And I was like, I felt physically too old to be on the floor racing.
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  And so over the course of the next four months, I purchased over 120 feet of
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  plastic track went to one 32nd, half of my basement was all just plastic track.
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  And then, then I was racing with my brothers and a couple of my neighbors.
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  So I would say my late forties when I really re engaged with the hobby.
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  Slot car racing and collecting.
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  There's a huge gap there between little David playing with the snowmobile
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  slot cars and let's say 50 year old David racing with slot cars.
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  So you mentioned that you had a franchise in between.
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  Now in your second career as the founder of Slot Mods, it's chief designer
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  and artist and things like that.
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  Did you go to school for like industrial design or for design
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  in general, graphic arts?
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  Like, what is your background and how did you take your original
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  career or your schooling and turn it into this second career?
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  Number one, I didn't graduate from high school.
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  Number two, I thought that was a great social scene.
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  So I was really good at that, but you don't get graded for that.
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  And I have no shame in that.
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  I always felt more artistic.
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  I'm a self taught drummer.
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  So at the age of 20, I got a record contract with a band out of Florida.
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  So I moved to Key West for a short period of time and some of the
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  members had been backup musicians in ABBA and bands like that.
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  So I was a self taught drummer because my brother Leo, after he
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  went from the racing, he went to work for a road manager for like Alice
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  Cooper, Peter Frampton, Proko Harum.
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  I was around a lot of music and I wanted to be a drummer.
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  So it was a big chunk of my life there that now I was a drummer.
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  I was playing around in Detroit, late seventies, early eighties, all, you
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  know, in the punk bars and new wave.
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  So I really wanted to make it music.
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  So that's where I kind of turned away from the racing, but I was still watching
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  formula one, which I really enjoyed.
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  So that gap there, I was just trying to find myself in life, you know,
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  because I was kind of like a lost soul.
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  So I really turned to music, but I was also always had like
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  an entrepreneurial spirit.
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  I was in sales and we drive down this road.
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  I mean, it's like our main strip.
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  Gratiot tell my daughter, people used to cruise Gratiot back in the
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  seventies and sixties here, just like Woodward, but they cruise Gratiot.
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  And there's all these little buildings and.
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  I told her, I said, I used to go and knock on every one of these doors
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  to try and sell people printing because that's what I was into.
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  So I learned to be quick on my feet and talking about things.
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  And she's like, Oh, you know, how many jobs did you have?
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  I said, well, you know, because I kept taking different jobs in different fields.
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  And I just told her, I said, you know, Mads, your dad can
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  interview really well, but I get smoked out about six months later.
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  So I didn't move on, but nothing really held my attention.
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  I always liked old toys and so that kind of like had me going in the music part,
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  but I was driven being the youngest of 11.
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  My dad worked two jobs.
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  There was a lot of struggle in there, but we always had holiday
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  gifts and things like that.
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  But I wanted to kind of, I don't want to say break the mold.
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  When I saw the movie Wall Street, good or bad, it had this influence on me and
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  I had the blue suit and I wanted to go sell and didn't have the brains for it.
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  But, um, to answer your question, I mean, there was young David having fun
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  with slot cars and then the music and playing out and getting the really great
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  opportunities there to then going, okay, what am I really going to do with my life?
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  I was in a car accident in 1992 that wiped out my memory for six months.
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  I could remember like an old episode of Gilligan's Island, but if you
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  just asked me what I had for dinner yesterday, I wouldn't remember.
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  It was kind of crazy.
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  I recovered for over a year, but after that accident, you know, like
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  my family and friends and everybody where I am today, they like said,
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  man, what did that accident do to you?
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  Because my head went to the side window and I said, I don't know,
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  but I haven't been the same sense.
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  And thank God, because here's what I'm doing.
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  Not that I thought, oh, geez, life is short.
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  It was just like, I want to do something.
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  I want to do something.
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  The economy crashed here in 2008.
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  Prior to that, you know, like a year or two before that, my wife had gotten
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  me that slot car set by Carrera.
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  From playing with the slot car set I got for Christmas, and then developing
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  that, I met somebody and they said, Hey, you know, there's a guy in Dearborn,
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  which is out by Ford Motor Company.
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  He has this large wooden slot car track.
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  You should go there.
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  And I'm like, yeah, I'd like to meet him.
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  So I finagled an invitation and I went there and I took him a gift.
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  I had this mobile oil racing shirt and his name is Jimmy Adder.
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  And he's kind of my mentor from the early days.
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  And the way he talks, it's like, Oh, thanks.
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  He's got a really high voice.
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  He goes, no one's ever given me a shirt.
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  And I'm like, well, I always like to bring a gift.
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  He and I bonded really quick.
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  His track is phenomenal.
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  It's called the North line raceway.
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  And I said, boy, I'd like to build one of these.
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  He goes, yeah, everyone says that.
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  And I said, no, really, I want to build one of these.
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  Jimmy came out and we measured in my basement.
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  Okay.
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  18 by 18, we can fit a track.
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  And so he comes over and I got the wood and he goes, where are your tools?
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  And I go, what tools?
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  And I was a hammer.
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  And it's Screwdriver and he's like, come on.
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  So the next week he brought over his tools and table saw.
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  And we started cutting things outside and really created a bond.
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  And I learned a lot from him, but to that point, there was a lot
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  of gentlemen who lost their jobs here in the automotive industry.
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  And there was about six other gentlemen.
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  And so they would come over every two weeks and help me build out
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  this big wooden slot car track.
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  And then we'd host races.
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  And that's when I got into racing because Jimmy would hold these big races.
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  And then I'd have races with 12 guys over my track race, six cars.
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  And it was a great camaraderie.
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  And at that time I wasn't really thinking about this can become a business.
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  It was just something I was doing.
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  I was an operations manager at a large exhibit and display company.
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  But then when I lost my job, Prior to that, I was trying to sell this
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  do it yourself, you know, 4x16 kit.
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  And I showed William the picture of my daughter and I in the hobby shop
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  that I went to after losing my job, thinking, what am I going to do?
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  And then I thought, I love slot car racing.
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  I think there's people out there who will enjoy what I'm doing at this
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  larger level, or even a small level, just to get people back into the hobby.
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  And that's what I was really driven by.
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  I never thought, oh, I'm gonna, I'm making a lot of money.
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  So I'm like, I say, I'm going to make all this money because
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  that really wasn't the vision.
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  It was more about getting this grassroot movement of bringing friends
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  and families together through the joys of slack car racing, because
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  that's what I was experiencing with my friends during this difficult time
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  in building this track and racing.
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  I was kind of lost, but then I thought, okay, I'm going
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  to try to sell these tracks.
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  I went to a hobby shop.
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  The gentleman said, Hey, you know what?
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  I'll let you set up an aisle six.
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  So I set up a track that I routed on the side of my garage, a true story.
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  And I took it there, set it up.
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  My young daughter, Madeline, was with me, and I was just sitting
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  there and people would come by and go, oh wow, you know, what's this?
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  And I'd say, oh, there's slot cars, you know, and the store was busy.
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  So a lot of times they thought I was like one of the stock boys.
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  So I'd start helping them and picking out slot cars.
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  Oh yeah, here's a good one for you.
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  Through that, I met a gentleman, he came in and he goes, oh, everyone's
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  got a high voice in my world, I guess.
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  Oh, you know, but not really.
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  He said, this is really interesting.
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  And he took my card and he said, you know, Dave, you should print some
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  cards and leave them up at AutoZone, which is in the parts store, which
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  is a really nice static model shop, magazine store on Woodward in Birmingham.
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  And a lot of the heavy hitters, Ford Motor and such go there to get die cast cars.
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  And I mean, it's a great, it's called past diners.
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  So I set some cards out there and in doing so, a gentleman picked up my card
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  and he called me and said, Hey, you know, I'm interested in slot card track.
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  And I said, well, you know, sure.
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  Come on over.
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  Cause he had heard about mine, which was called legends.
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  And he saw my track and he was like, Oh shit, this is amazing.
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  You know?
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  And I said, Hey, so I started saying, okay, well, here's
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  these four by 16s that I sell.
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  And he goes, no, no, how much for something like this?
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  And I'm like, well, I don't know.
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  And I said, I can't build you anything this big, which was eight by 18.
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  Let's just say.
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  And he goes, what about a third?
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  And I thought, ah, geez, you know, I said, ah, 4, 000.
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  And he goes, all right, let's do it.
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  And I'll say, I'm like, wow, 4, 000.
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  I'm leaning against my dryer in the basement thinking this guy's going
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  to actually pay me money to do this.
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  Went out to his house and he and his wife were so excited.
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  It was one of the coolest experiences because it was my first sale.
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  I took it in my Dodge Caravan over there and installed it and they still have it.
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  And Jimmy actually came out and helped me build it.
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  And as I was building it, I started getting the idea that man, slot
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  mods could be something much bigger than just these four by 16 tracks.
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  And I should really think about doing more of a scenic track.
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  So I was working on that track.
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  And that's when the light went off about building these big
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  tracks for private clients.
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  As I was finishing up that track, I took an ad out in Garage Style Magazine,
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  just on a whim that said custom slot car tracks and things like that.
• 14:08
  They reached out to me and they said, Hey, you know, the Pebble
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  Beach concourse is coming up.
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  And could you build us the Pebble Beach Raceway, which it
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  was to be raised to the forest.
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  And I said, sure.
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  So borrowed 10 grand that I didn't have from my friend
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  and said, this is all I need.
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  I'm going to build this track.
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  I'm going to California.
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  As I was building that track, I got an email from Jim Farley,
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  Ford Motor Company president.
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  Back then he was the global marketing president.
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  I didn't know who he was and so I had to Google him and he was like the golden
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  boy Alexis before he came to Ford.
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  And I'm like, Oh wow, you know, Jim Farley wants me to build him a track.
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  He said, Hey David, can you come out to my house?
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  And I said, well, sure.
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  So went out to his house, got to meet Him, he wanted Laguna Seca because he and
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  his wife used to go out there and watch races when they were dating and such.
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  And so I started building him that track, which now I couldn't
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  really work at my house.
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  So I had to go to a friend's building who was kind of like a brother in law to me,
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  rent a space from him, you know, rent it.
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  I think it was a hundred bucks a month, but it was probably
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  15 feet by 25 feet wide.
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  So I could just build one thing in there.
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  So I started working on Jim's track.
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  And I was also working on the Pebble Beach track.
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  But what year was that?
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  That was 2010, 11, right around there.
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  So it was early on, there was a lot going on because I was trying to grow
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  the business and try to really kind of figure out what am I doing with this?
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  You know, where do I want to go and how do I do this by myself?
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  And Jimmy would still come around, but I had another guy that I was
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  actually able to pay to work with me.
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  Jim mentioned something about possibly a Ford motor track.
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  And at that time I couldn't even imagine.
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  I'm like, Let me just build these little tracks.
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  And for me, it wasn't little, it was like 10 by maybe 12.
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  We shoehorned it into his basement.
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  It was really cool.
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  And he was really happy.
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  But the actual launching point would have been when I went to Pebble
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  Beach and I was able to set up in the retro automobile exhibit and Gooding
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  Auction agreed to auction off the track so I could get my money back.
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  And then I could come home and such like that.
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  So the track went up for auction.
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  But in the meantime, someone said, Hey, Jay Leno's in the tent.
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  And I said, Oh, that's cool.
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  And then His producer came over and he's looking around and he
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  goes, man, this is really cool.
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  He goes, what's your story?
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  And so I just told him, I said, yeah, you know, I'm David Beatty.
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  I'm from Detroit.
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  I made this track, blah, blah, blah.
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  And kind of mentioned about my job a little bit.
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  And he goes, Hey, I think Jay will dig this.
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  So then, you know, Jay's walking through.
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  Hey, everybody.
• 16:20
  He comes over, he goes, whoa, what's this?
• 16:22
  And so, you know, next thing he goes, let's do a segment right then and
• 16:25
  there, you know, Jay and I are talking and he's asking me about the track.
• 16:28
  And I said, oh yeah, I'm building one for Jim Farley.
• 16:30
  And he's like, oh yeah, Jim Farley, Ford motor.
• 16:32
  It was really exciting because.
• 16:34
  You know, I got to meet Jay and then there was other celebrities
• 16:37
  that I got to race slot cars with.
• 16:39
  And one of the coolest thing was they had a VIP dinner that I took this track to.
• 16:44
  It was at some estate and I'm sitting there manning the track and, um,
• 16:48
  Sterling Moss came up to the track and I'm like, Oh man, this is awesome.
• 16:52
  I just saw him at the racetrack because I would go over there
• 16:54
  during the day, sneak away.
• 16:55
  And they were racing the historics.
• 16:57
  He got in an accident.
• 16:58
  So he was kind of in this wheelchair.
• 16:59
  Someone was helping him.
• 17:00
  So he came rolling up literally cause he's in a wheelchair.
• 17:03
  I had his Mercedes going around.
• 17:05
  I think it's when he raced at Targa Florio or something.
• 17:07
  He's like, Oh, that's my car.
• 17:09
  And then I just handed the controller to him.
• 17:11
  He was just sitting there squeezing it.
• 17:12
  It was just really a special moment.
• 17:15
  One of the things that you can Google Sterling Moss racing slot cars, and they
• 17:19
  have this really cool black and white video of he and his wife laying on the
• 17:23
  floor and they're racing slot cars.
• 17:25
  And his dad is carving the trophy and he's talking about his love of slot
• 17:29
  cars and it's about 10 minutes long.
• 17:31
  He was very passionate about slot cars.
• 17:34
  That was really a highlight of that event.
• 17:36
  And the track sold for 29, 000 during the auction.
• 17:39
  So that gave me an idea of what these things were worth.
• 17:42
  And while I was there, I met people from Rob Report.
• 17:45
  And then in a blink of an eye, it was gift of the season and Rod report.
• 17:48
  Just kind of like, Hey, David, you know, what can you offer us?
• 17:50
  And I'm like, well, I'm building this other track that I was taking to
• 17:53
  concourse here at Meadowbrook in Detroit.
• 17:55
  So much was happening, but before I knew it, I was building Jim Farley,
• 17:59
  a track auto week magazine, a track Tom loans, reliable trucking up here.
• 18:03
  Then as I finished up Jim's track 2011, I got a call from a gentleman
• 18:09
  from Ford motor company and said, Hey, is this David Beatty?
• 18:11
  And I said, yeah, he goes, Hey, Jim Farley says you're the best.
• 18:13
  Slot car track builder in the world.
• 18:15
  I said, okay, I'll go with that.
• 18:17
  Yeah.
• 18:18
  I said, yeah.
• 18:18
  Okay.
• 18:19
  What's going on?
• 18:19
  He goes, well, can you come down and see me?
• 18:21
  And I went down to Ford when this guy's office, he says, Hey, we're,
• 18:24
  we're launching Carroll Shelby.
• 18:25
  I don't know if it was a 50th anniversary.
• 18:27
  There was some GT and can you build us a track and make us
• 18:30
  custom slot cars and such.
• 18:31
  And I said, sure.
• 18:32
  Not knowing how I was going to pull this off at that kind of level
• 18:35
  that they're looking for with a nice shiny base and everything.
• 18:39
  Yeah.
• 18:39
  Before I knew it, I was building Ford motor track and it went around
• 18:43
  to the North American auto show.
• 18:44
  But the real launching point would be pebble beach with the track.
• 18:49
  And the funny thing is when I was flying there, I met Bob
• 18:52
  Bondurant in the airport, you know?
• 18:53
  And he was sitting across from him looking at him like, man, you look familiar.
• 18:56
  And he goes, Oh, I'm Bob Bondurant.
• 18:57
  And I said, Oh, I'm David Petey.
• 18:59
  Like, you know, who the hell am I?
• 19:01
  It was really super cool.
• 19:03
  Well, to use a metaphor, it sounds like you came out of the last
• 19:05
  corner and just slammed the plunger into the back of the controller.
• 19:08
  You accelerated so fast with an idea that you didn't even think might even blossom.
• 19:13
  And that's absolutely incredible.
• 19:14
  And it's super rare, especially in the modern times in the mid 2000s
• 19:18
  with everything that's happened.
• 19:19
  And you've continued to perpetuate that over all these years.
• 19:22
  But I think we need to take a pit stop because you said
• 19:25
  you're a big fan of Formula One.
• 19:26
  So I'm not going to ask you who's your number one driver because you got
• 19:29
  Nigel Mansell on the wall behind you.
• 19:31
  But I've heard you say in other interviews that you're a big fan of WRC, which is
• 19:36
  a discipline of motorsport is near and dear to me as many fans of the show know.
• 19:40
  So I got to ask, favorite car driver and or era of world rally for me,
• 19:45
  Walter roll with the Audi just because they were kind of out of control.
• 19:49
  But when, when the, the Lancey Estrados and all that came out, you know, those
• 19:53
  are like formula one rally cars and they were just so fast, but you know,
• 19:56
  that era when Audi really took over.
• 19:59
  Yeah.
• 19:59
  The racing scene, it's the fastest cars.
• 20:01
  Those old videos of the rally racing and then racing through streets of
• 20:05
  South America, wherever they were cresting those hills and dropping in
• 20:08
  the pops and bangs out the exhaust.
• 20:10
  I used to come home, go on YouTube to watch it.
• 20:12
  Then I bought the Duke videos, guys changing out the rear axle
• 20:16
  of a car on the side of the road during the middle of a race.
• 20:19
  And they didn't know what they were going to do.
• 20:20
  And then a guy came by, a casual citizen came by with the same car.
• 20:23
  And he pulled over and the guy said, Oh, here, you can take
• 20:25
  my rear end out of my car.
• 20:27
  And they put it in the rally car.
• 20:28
  I'm drawing a blank on the team, but I think it was a Rothman sponsored car.
• 20:32
  So the older rallies, late fifties, early sixties, into the seventies was
• 20:36
  kind of the era that I really enjoyed.
• 20:38
  And then back in the 2000s, you used to be able to watch WRC rally racing on TV.
• 20:43
  Be able to come home and see all the modern day races, Subaru and such.
• 20:46
  And then, and then that went away.
• 20:48
  Colin McRae, unfortunate death.
• 20:50
  Do I have a favorite?
• 20:51
  Like Walter Roll, you know what I'm saying?
• 20:53
  But yeah, that's the, uh, group B period of rally.
• 20:56
  And then followed that up to your point, Colin McRae, you got Marco
• 20:59
  Allain, Ran the Lancias, Delta HS.
• 21:02
  That was all group A.
• 21:02
  That was later.
• 21:03
  I digress.
• 21:04
  For those of you to go watch the video, since you're on the rally
• 21:06
  point of this, one track he is building currently for a client.
• 21:10
  That's three tracks incorporates all kind of aspects of the rally.
• 21:14
  Cause you start on the one and you got it up in the mountains and the
• 21:16
  snow and a bunch of different things.
• 21:17
  And it's really neat.
• 21:18
  Then he's got the middle section, which is the largest track of the
• 21:21
  three, all your greenery or like that.
• 21:23
  And it incorporates a lot of these cool aspects of like the mountains,
• 21:26
  Belvedere hotel and everything like that.
• 21:29
  And then he's got the desert one right next to that.
• 21:31
  So it's got all three disciplines in essence for the route, but the detail.
• 21:36
  on it is just unbelievable in regards to what they get into and how they go about
• 21:40
  making the little pieces like a little toolbox on the desert one he's got like
• 21:44
  little fire pits with little logs and everything like that and the trees and the
• 21:48
  bush and the brush going on and be just the detail that they get into on those
• 21:53
  i highly recommend watching the video because you'll see what they get into and
• 21:56
  how they think of every little thing to make it so realistic looking it's it's
• 22:01
  amazing that rally track is the dakar rally eric that's what that's based on And
• 22:06
  the client, he actually has a brand new Dakar he wanted that rally represented.
• 22:10
  And I appreciate William's masterful segue into our next
• 22:14
  segment of the discussion, David.
• 22:16
  So let's talk a little bit about the design and the build process.
• 22:20
  Obviously these are commission based.
• 22:22
  I'm sure there's a few that brew in your head that for funsies, you probably
• 22:25
  want to put together on your own.
• 22:27
  You're like, now what do I do with this?
• 22:28
  But William brought up how detailed the tracks are and looking at the
• 22:32
  behind the scenes video, you can see all the different materials that you're
• 22:35
  using, some really creative ideas.
• 22:37
  So what's the build process like, say I come to you or actually my sister asked
• 22:41
  about this, she'd love to build a replica of VIR that would fit in her basement.
• 22:46
  What would that process be like?
• 22:48
  From stem to stern, she said, Hey, I'm going to build VAR.
• 22:51
  I'd say that's fantastic track.
• 22:53
  We'd have a consultation call.
• 22:54
  How much space do you have?
• 22:56
  So we started with finding the parameters that we have to work in because
• 22:59
  we can't build something to scale because it'd have to be as big as VAR.
• 23:03
  So I call it, we build them in the spirit of basically, I would be talking to
• 23:08
  her, to you about your space allowance.
• 23:11
  What era of racing did you enjoy there?
• 23:13
  Like if it's sixties.
• 23:15
  And so that would start tuning me into the time period where I'd start
• 23:18
  to do in my mind thinking, okay, I understand if he had the oak tree turn,
• 23:24
  which I just thought was beautiful.
• 23:25
  And I did incorporate that into 1 of my earlier tracks.
• 23:28
  I'm surprised they never put another tree there because without it,
• 23:31
  I don't know what track that is.
• 23:32
  If you know what I mean, basically goes from a consultation call,
• 23:36
  getting to know what you're looking for, what the size is, and then.
• 23:40
  As I work up a pricing, I would quote you like, okay, based on the size
• 23:44
  and scenic elements, your tracks going to be, let's just say, 50, 000.
• 23:48
  And then you would say, okay, let's move forward.
• 23:50
  I'd say, okay, I need to, I need to design posit.
• 23:53
  And so with that, once I get that, then I sit down and I
• 23:55
  start to gather information.
• 23:57
  Yeah, books that I have on racing or YouTube videos, and I'll
• 24:01
  start to doodle a spirit of track and capturing turns and such.
• 24:05
  And then I would get with my guy, Nick, who can take my doodles to the
• 24:09
  next level of doodles that William saw here that clients can actually frame.
• 24:13
  And then I would submit that to you to say, what do you think?
• 24:16
  And on there, it would show the call outs.
• 24:18
  The grandstands, pit areas, the trees, yoke tree turn.
• 24:22
  And once you approve that, that part of it, then we take it to our
• 24:27
  three dimensional drawings, more engineering to show elevations and such.
• 24:32
  And then I would present that to you for your approval.
• 24:34
  So as the client now, you're involved in the design process.
• 24:38
  It's just not this blind thing that comes out the end.
• 24:40
  You can see, I like that.
• 24:41
  I don't like that.
• 24:42
  Hey, what about this?
• 24:43
  As we get through that, once there's the final design that we're showing you
• 24:47
  in 3D that you can spin around on the tube and see like, okay, I get this, get
• 24:51
  signed off, we get our first progress payment, and then we begin to build
• 24:55
  over six or eight month build period.
• 24:57
  Someone might have heard that number price that he's stolen off.
• 25:00
  You have to understand that basically nothing is off the shelf.
• 25:03
  Everything is made by hand, even starting with not the base where it's
• 25:07
  sitting on, but the base of the track.
• 25:09
  He starts with these solid.
• 25:11
  Um, blocks that can be 30, 40, 50, just with that, then he's shaming it off.
• 25:15
  The track itself is all hand done, all the details, everything.
• 25:19
  It's all made by hand and by his guys and everything like that.
• 25:22
  Once you see how he goes about building and constructing these
• 25:26
  tracks, you get the sense of, Oh, wow.
• 25:28
  Okay.
• 25:28
  Because you're not going to see another one like it.
• 25:30
  That's for sure.
• 25:31
  But.
• 25:31
  The detail that get into it, but you can see the value that's there.
• 25:34
  Once you realize how this thing is built, because it's just, it's unbelievable.
• 25:38
  And that's down all the way to the track itself, to William's
• 25:41
  point, you're not using plastic track and then building around it.
• 25:44
  Like some DIYers might attempt to do.
• 25:47
  You're literally carving out the grooves that the cars will run in themselves.
• 25:51
  Yes.
• 25:52
  Thank you, William, because I appreciate when people bring me back into it.
• 25:55
  how I do these things because I kind of give the cliff notes, you know,
• 25:58
  and to the point of like the scenic elements, everything is made by hand.
• 26:02
  Everything is looked at pictures and then we scale it down and we
• 26:04
  start making it to the track design.
• 26:06
  Once we take it from the CAD, we're able to see all the elevation.
• 26:10
  So when we CNC cut them and we no longer hand routering them like we used to in
• 26:15
  the early days, and we did a lot of that.
• 26:17
  It's more of an engineering interactive piece of art that by the time it's done,
• 26:21
  you don't really see all the internals.
• 26:23
  You see the track and the beauty and the elevations and that miniature world that
• 26:27
  we're creating, you know, from carving the foam to roll forming the Armco
• 26:31
  rails to painting the track surfaces.
• 26:34
  There's just a lot of man hours structures.
• 26:37
  It's just kind of crazy.
• 26:38
  If I'm building the Nürburgring and I'm doing the main straight building,
• 26:41
  yeah, you know, I've done that.
• 26:42
  I've done, you know, the Monza big grandstand, but everything is thought
• 26:47
  well out and it's all made by hand.
• 26:48
  And to your point, Eric, not buying things off the shelf, it's not
• 26:51
  there and that would be boring.
• 26:53
  So I would assume if you had a six lane track, be a lot harder to get the
• 26:57
  spirit of VIR or its footprint, unless you had a massive amount of space, but
• 27:01
  maybe with a two lane track, you have a little bit more wiggle room to work in.
• 27:04
  Absolutely.
• 27:05
  It's kind of my trademark to do three lanes or less because once I do a four
• 27:10
  lane, I'm really trying to get the most linear feet racing length out of a track.
• 27:14
  So if I do three, it looks to scale with the buildings and such.
• 27:19
  And two, you can really get a lot of switchbacks and such.
• 27:22
  And with the threes, I've been able to capture turns and
• 27:26
  make some pretty cool tracks.
• 27:28
  So you mentioned before having the opportunity to chat with legendary
• 27:31
  drivers like Sterling Moss, and you even mentioned that you get some input
• 27:35
  and perspective when you're building these replicas from pro drivers
• 27:38
  that have driven on these circuits.
• 27:40
  Any other stories you want to share about your dealings with
• 27:42
  some of these pro drivers and their thoughts about your replica tracks?
• 27:46
  Quick Vic, Vic Elford is a great one.
• 27:49
  Yeah, I had this idea about doing a Porsche 917.
• 27:53
  And watching the videos in the early videos, Vic Alford racing
• 27:55
  at Lamar, you know, that really made an impression upon me.
• 27:58
  And so I don't know who gave me the introduction to him, but I
• 28:02
  reached out to him and I said, Hey, Vic, my name is David Beatty.
• 28:05
  I'm going to do this 917 clamshells open and it can be seen on our site at www.
• 28:10
  slotmaster.
• 28:10
  com.
• 28:11
  And he said, well, I didn't drive the Porsche Steve
• 28:13
  McQueen one, but I did drive.
• 28:15
  The long tail Martini car later.
• 28:17
  Yeah.
• 28:18
  Number four, Martini Rossi racing, Vic signed it.
• 28:21
  I said, well, I can do that version too.
• 28:23
  So we agreed that, okay, he's going to let me use his name.
• 28:27
  And first it was just kind of like, I just wanted to have a business,
• 28:30
  you know, like, Hey, look, I'd like you to put your name with this car.
• 28:33
  And I said, well, by the way, what was it like racing at Lamar?
• 28:36
  And what was it like racing at Monza?
• 28:38
  I said, I watched the video Grand Prix and I see the Monza rail.
• 28:41
  And I was like, So, you know, what's that like?
• 28:43
  He goes, Oh, David, crazy as hell.
• 28:44
  It's stainless aluminum foil.
• 28:46
  I forget more about what he told me, but it was just like, it was hot in the cars.
• 28:51
  You really just had to have the concentration and the focus
• 28:55
  when racing at Target Florida.
• 28:56
  I mean, the guy raced everywhere.
• 28:58
  It was very interesting.
• 28:59
  He was a very warm gentleman.
• 29:01
  We kind of became friends and we just kind of talk about
• 29:03
  slot car tracks in real races.
• 29:05
  And from there, when Bobby Rahal commissioned a track, Bobby,
• 29:09
  he was interesting because, so I got to back up here.
• 29:12
  I get an email.
• 29:13
  Hey, I'm Zach Brown.
• 29:14
  I'm interested in you building me a track.
• 29:16
  Can you come down to my place?
• 29:17
  And I'm like, who's Zach Brown?
• 29:19
  So I Googled him.
• 29:20
  And at the time he had his JMI marketing, you know, and I said, okay.
• 29:24
  We were going back and forth and I said, well, well, what race tracks do you like?
• 29:28
  And he said, his favorites were Indy, Le Mans, Riverside,
• 29:31
  which is one of my favorites.
• 29:33
  Even though people say, well, it's boring.
• 29:34
  It's not, man.
• 29:34
  It's one of the coolest tracks ever were was, you know, Zach's telling me,
• 29:38
  you know, okay, this is what I like.
• 29:39
  And I said, well, I can glide down.
• 29:41
  My brother in law has a plane, built a kid plane.
• 29:44
  I helped pull some of the wires in it, so I was a little bit nervous about flying
• 29:47
  with him, just because I worked on it.
• 29:51
  So what happened was, it was a snowstorm here, and I called Zach,
• 29:54
  and I said, hey, I can't make it.
• 29:55
  And Zach said, well, don't worry about it.
• 29:57
  I'll send you my jet.
• 29:58
  And I'm like, yeah, okay.
• 29:59
  You know, and I just kind of blew it off.
• 30:01
  And then his assistant came back and said, yeah, please be to the
• 30:04
  Pentastar terminal at the airport.
• 30:06
  Zach's jet will pick you up at 10 a.
• 30:08
  m.
• 30:08
  So I'm like, wow, this is awesome.
• 30:10
  Who sends a jet for you?
• 30:11
  Build and slack our tracks.
• 30:13
  Flew down there, Carmel, Indiana.
• 30:15
  Went to Zach's beautiful home and went downstairs and the whole house
• 30:18
  is finished and the door he opens is this frickin bomb shelter, you know,
• 30:23
  shit hangin from the ceiling and it's just an unfinished room, you know?
• 30:26
  Like the builders, when they left it, wires were hangin and no drywall,
• 30:29
  just studded walls and He goes, well, this is as much room as you got and it
• 30:33
  was only enough for him to fit like a 20 by 14 track and this weird angle.
• 30:38
  And he goes, I want you to stuff as much as you can in here.
• 30:40
  And all I want is 4 feet on this side.
• 30:42
  So I'm like, okay, so we got these really kind of funky
• 30:44
  shape and he goes, don't worry.
• 30:46
  Just build me the track.
• 30:47
  The room will be ready.
• 30:48
  I ended up building this track for him and he had a Super Bowl party
• 30:52
  and he had like the vice president of marketing from 7up and all these heavy
• 30:57
  hitters and Bobby Rahal was there.
• 30:59
  Like, oh, this is cool.
• 31:00
  In my mind, I'm thinking, okay, Bobby Rahal.
• 31:02
  Yeah, man, he's going to want to track.
• 31:03
  And Zach would talk about his friends that he was telling the track about.
• 31:07
  There's a simulator in the next room and I hear all these guys on it.
• 31:11
  You know, and it's like, I'm like, what is going on?
• 31:15
  Cause everyone was getting stuck against the walls and, you know, in
• 31:17
  those simulators, they're difficult.
• 31:19
  The next thing I know, I hear like, well, well, well, it was just something.
• 31:23
  Symphony of shifting and breaking and such.
• 31:25
  And I went and looked and I go, wow, who's in there?
• 31:27
  And so I'm going, oh, that's Bobby Ray hall.
• 31:29
  And I'm like, oh man, this is awesome.
• 31:30
  And he was racing at mid Ohio.
• 31:32
  It was kind of his home track, I guess.
• 31:33
  I he's from Ohio.
• 31:34
  Right.
• 31:34
  Drive it blind.
• 31:36
  Yeah.
• 31:36
  So then I was excited now and I was in, I was in the slot car room, the track and
• 31:41
  everything, and Bobby came in and he's like, oh my God, this thing is awesome.
• 31:44
  And he saw us guys racing around and I've already get something
• 31:47
  to eat before I buy this.
• 31:48
  And I'm like, oh, well.
• 31:49
  It was kind of like networking and I met Bobby and, you know, Zach was there.
• 31:54
  He was all proud of everything.
• 31:55
  I'm driving home and I'm kind of all out of builds and this is kind of the
• 32:00
  ups and downs of the business world.
• 32:01
  I didn't have any tracks, you know, in the queue, I was
• 32:03
  finishing some up, but nothing new.
• 32:05
  And also I got this call as I'm driving back and, you know,
• 32:08
  it's like, Hey Dave, it's Bobby.
• 32:09
  I want you to build me a track.
• 32:11
  I said, you know, what are you interested in?
• 32:12
  And he's like, I want to road America.
• 32:14
  Can you be in Chicago tomorrow?
• 32:15
  And I'm like, I'm thinking to myself tomorrow, man, I'm
• 32:18
  driving from Indiana to Detroit.
• 32:20
  I just want to go home.
• 32:21
  You know, so I said, you turn, how about Monday?
• 32:25
  He's like, okay, went to his place.
• 32:27
  He had a super cool place.
• 32:28
  He gave me a bunch of stacks from his racing career of the tracks, the programs.
• 32:33
  He just gave a lot of insight into what I was building for him.
• 32:36
  And normally my tracks start out low in the front and then plateau.
• 32:41
  So you're watching the cars go up and about.
• 32:43
  And Bobby's like, no, I don't want that.
• 32:45
  I want to just like road America where the beginning of the track is high.
• 32:48
  And then as they go out onto the course, it goes lower.
• 32:50
  And so Bobby was able to give me a lot of insight into that.
• 32:54
  And he had a party too.
• 32:55
  And I went to that party and met Don Devine, Emerson
• 32:59
  Fittipaldi, Adrian Fernandez.
• 33:01
  I built a track for, and just people who were kind of in the
• 33:04
  racing industry for quite a while.
• 33:06
  Wasn't Adrian the one that was like.
• 33:08
  Super, super particular.
• 33:11
  Yeah.
• 33:11
  Adrian reached out to me and he said, Hey David, I'd like you to build a track.
• 33:14
  He's got a killer place.
• 33:16
  And it's on the seventh floor of this office building down in Miami.
• 33:19
  And he says, I want you to build me something very unique.
• 33:22
  And I'm very, very particular.
• 33:24
  And I thought, okay, well, everyone's kind of particular, you know, that's okay.
• 33:27
  I talked to Zach.
• 33:28
  I said, Hey, Adrian's looking to get a track.
• 33:30
  And he's like, oh, no, he's a solid guy.
• 33:32
  You know, basically everyone knows Zach Brown.
• 33:34
  That's what I found out in the racing world.
• 33:35
  So Adrian and I hit it off.
• 33:38
  I made this track with drawers with leather inlays, and you know, you could
• 33:41
  put the cars in, and it was just, it was like a big jewelry box slot car track.
• 33:46
  And this was going in his man cave where he actually has one of his Indy cars
• 33:49
  hanging on the wall, which is super cool.
• 33:51
  We built the track and we got it done and Adrian goes, thanks.
• 33:54
  You know, I, I, you know, I know I can be pretty particular.
• 33:56
  I said, Oh yes, you are very particular.
• 33:59
  And he just kind of smiled and just a great experience trying
• 34:02
  to meet their expectations as drivers and wanting to have fun.
• 34:07
  And, you know, he just loved the slot car track for me.
• 34:09
  Sometimes I feel like, well, I kind of get bored with this, but
• 34:12
  I think I'm so close to it every day that I don't get that feeling.
• 34:15
  Like I did when I first saw my friend, Jimmy's track, like, man,
• 34:19
  I want to come back every day.
• 34:20
  Yeah, geez.
• 34:21
  You know, from the racing world to the rock and roll world with
• 34:25
  Brian Setzer from the stray cats, he reached out to me, called me.
• 34:29
  He goes, yeah, man, I'm interested, you know, in a slot car track.
• 34:31
  And I said, well, let me get this out of the way first.
• 34:33
  Are you Brian Setzer of these stray cats?
• 34:35
  And he goes, yeah, yeah, that's me.
• 34:37
  So I had to go, okay, I said, yeah, you know, big fan, you
• 34:40
  know, rock this town and things.
• 34:42
  And, you know, he went on to say about when he was younger, he and his brother
• 34:45
  used to race lock cars and he wanted to get a track for his home studio.
• 34:50
  You know, you get to know these guys and you're working with them over the course
• 34:53
  of the build and then you deliver it and you know, if they need things, they'll
• 34:56
  reach out to me and things like that.
• 34:57
  The building of the track for Brian was really cool.
• 35:00
  My back's starting to hurt from having to pick up all these names.
• 35:05
  Going back to the scenario that we pose there, you're building a replica of VIR.
• 35:09
  It is going to be a substantial amount of money.
• 35:11
  There's a lot of time and care and effort put into making
• 35:14
  a replica of whatever it is.
• 35:15
  Even if you're creating a fantasy track, maybe your version of National
• 35:19
  Corvette, where it's a combination of other tracks to make that test track.
• 35:22
  Is there a potential for people to go try a Slot Mods track or see one in person?
• 35:28
  Are there places that have them in public or that hold events on
• 35:32
  a Slot Mods track where somebody could basically try before they buy?
• 35:35
  The only place that I know of, the LeMay Museum up in Washington, we built the
• 35:41
  track for them for their grand opening.
• 35:42
  So the track is set up.
• 35:43
  Still there and the public can go there, can pay a donation of $5.
• 35:47
  You get to race on the super cold track that has parts of Road America,
• 35:51
  parts of Daytona, it's all American tracks that are on there right now.
• 35:55
  Currently we built a track for Hot Wheels and it's over in
• 35:59
  Abu Dhabi at a mission play.
• 36:01
  It's like an indoor amusement park.
• 36:03
  So if you have the money and the means, you can go over
• 36:05
  to Abu Dhabi and race there.
• 36:07
  You know, unfortunately, there aren't any in a real public
• 36:10
  setting here in the States.
• 36:12
  They go in private collections, car collections that people
• 36:16
  aren't going to allow you in.
• 36:16
  Like Bobby Rahal's not going to allow you in to race at his house.
• 36:19
  You know, Zach Brown, he loved his track so much when he moved to England,
• 36:23
  we moved it over there and moved it.
• 36:24
  We had to go back to England twice and move it.
• 36:26
  You got a raise or something.
• 36:27
  He went from COO to something else, a general manager.
• 36:31
  Unfortunately, Eric, there's not any tracks that the public can go race on.
• 36:35
  And I, and I think it's a shame.
• 36:37
  I would interject though, and I'll chalk this up to today's memory.
• 36:40
  Now, obviously it's not a public place, but you can't go there.
• 36:44
  To the facility when they have some events, they have some events that
• 36:47
  won't probably get paid, but he is doing some stuff for the M1 concourse.
• 36:51
  Thank you, William, that you will have the ability to test out and try, but
• 36:55
  not until the end of like 2025 though.
• 36:57
  Right.
• 36:58
  That's correct.
• 36:59
  M1 concourse X center experience.
• 37:01
  They're going to have two 10 by 20 tracks, one representing all European tracks.
• 37:07
  And then the other one, which is kind of interesting is tells the history of
• 37:10
  Pontiac triangle where the M1 course.
• 37:12
  is located.
• 37:13
  It's super cool.
• 37:14
  So the public will be able to go to Xcenter, uh, M1 concourse, and we'll be
• 37:18
  putting that out as we get closer to it.
• 37:20
  Let's go back to our DIYers.
• 37:22
  Maybe we've got some slot car tracks.
• 37:24
  Collecting dust in a closet somewhere.
• 37:27
  I got to get back to that.
• 37:28
  You know, I've always wanted to build something or maybe you're getting
• 37:30
  back into the modeling hobby, right?
• 37:32
  Because that's also part of this is like you said, not just the
• 37:35
  track layout, but the scenery and all the things that go with it.
• 37:38
  And there's a lot of very creative people out there, especially on social media
• 37:41
  and the things that they can do with, you know, sadly Lego or with trains
• 37:45
  and how you combine all these different mediums together and things like that.
• 37:49
  Maybe some tips and tricks from the master about what you can
• 37:52
  do with that off the shelf kit.
• 37:55
  It's got that patina now.
• 37:57
  And you want to bring it out and do something with, well, you know, what
• 38:00
  I would recommend is if you really want to get back into it and you have
• 38:03
  an old track and you bring it out in today's market, you can actually
• 38:06
  go out and buy a really nice track.
• 38:08
  That's going to run.
• 38:09
  And you're not going to spend so much time getting that up to running.
• 38:12
  Carrera is very affordable and fun.
• 38:15
  Great slot car company.
• 38:16
  Have a great relationship with you.
• 38:17
  So those out there who are looking to get into the hobby, you know, on
• 38:20
  YouTube, there's many guys out there showing their miniature modeling skills.
• 38:25
  You can go to our website and look at what we've recreated.
• 38:28
  And we don't really ever get into, I mean, there's the video
• 38:32
  it's called painting coconuts.
• 38:33
  Which Audi did a feature film short on me that won a pleo in the advertising
• 38:38
  world, which I didn't expect to happen.
• 38:40
  But it shows me carving foam and kind of talking about how we do things here.
• 38:45
  But when people say to me, Hey, I want to get back into slack car racing.
• 38:49
  I'll say, you know, Carrera and Scalelectric makes a really good
• 38:51
  set and you can get these online.
• 38:53
  But then I say you can lay your track out, get a 4 by 8 sheet of foam, outline
• 38:58
  your track shape, carve down, remove that, inset your track in there, and then
• 39:03
  start carving around the foam to get those reliefs of the berms and the side things,
• 39:07
  and then start scraping the topography.
• 39:10
  It all depends on what the person's skill level is.
• 39:12
  And, you know, if you want to get back into the hobby, and you want to pull
• 39:17
  out your old stuff, which is super cool, I collect vintage slot car sets.
• 39:21
  So I got things that still have the little trees in the box, and you can set up a
• 39:24
  little grandstand, little pit building.
• 39:25
  I would suggest, Refurbing your own little set or looking at how to make your
• 39:30
  own set, which can be a good father and son kind of thing with the wood and the
• 39:33
  routering, by all means, just get back into the hobby, and there's a lot of
• 39:37
  information out there on YouTube about building your tracks and scenic elements.
• 39:41
  When you started out, Jimmy was saying, well, you only got
• 39:44
  a hammer and a screwdriver.
• 39:45
  That's it for tools.
• 39:46
  What are the top five tools that a DIY er should have in their toolbox if
• 39:50
  they're going to build their own set?
• 39:51
  Let's see, hand router, table saw, drills, break screw machine for,
• 39:56
  you know, cutting all the supports.
• 39:58
  But basically if you go out and you can go to Lowe's or Home Depot's,
• 40:02
  get yourself three quarter inch MDF and you can make a template.
• 40:06
  And there's plenty of videos on how to make a wooden slot car track,
• 40:09
  but MDF board for the track surface.
• 40:12
  There's magnetic braid that you can get through like professor motor.
• 40:15
  That is the rails that'll run.
• 40:17
  You can get a transformer from Professor Motor.
• 40:20
  So you can get all these items from a slot car supplier and you can make your own
• 40:24
  track and you can make it inexpensively.
• 40:27
  You can make your own little flat track that you put on a ping pong table.
• 40:30
  That's a great place to start.
• 40:31
  Even if you'd put the track on the ping pong table, that's plastic.
• 40:35
  You know, you need some power tools.
• 40:36
  You need a router to route all the slots, but you don't really use hammers.
• 40:39
  So, you know, you use drills and power screwdrivers and,
• 40:42
  you know, that kind of stuff.
• 40:43
  And then paint it with outdoor flat latex gray or black.
• 40:47
  And then I come through with cans of Rust Oleum and I blend colors
• 40:51
  to make it look like pavement.
• 40:52
  I made the biggest mistake when I made my track, I painted it all.
• 40:55
  And Jimmy's like, Oh, you got to spray it with doll coat.
• 40:58
  And I'm like, okay.
• 40:58
  And you know, that stuff's like.
• 41:00
  Death, you know, when you sprayed, it's like, you know, from the 10
• 41:02
  commandments when the plague came in, you know, and, you know, I
• 41:05
  didn't put any blood around the door.
• 41:06
  My wife came home and she's like, what the hell is that smell?
• 41:09
  It was coming up to the air ducts and it was bad.
• 41:12
  I mean, I'm glad the pilot on the water heater.
• 41:15
  You didn't get it.
• 41:16
  You know, just, you know, Blue at my house, but I've had people
• 41:19
  call me and say, Hey, I want to make a track for myself.
• 41:21
  Can you help me now listeners out there?
• 41:24
  I am all about helping people out and I have to help people out.
• 41:28
  I've sold some tracks at cost, if not below, just because their
• 41:32
  passion for it and their situation.
• 41:34
  It isn't about.
• 41:35
  The money.
• 41:36
  This is a business.
• 41:37
  I have guys I depend on.
• 41:39
  And when I first got married, my wife's like, how can you live out of the ATM?
• 41:42
  Like, I had all these receipts, you know, 20 bucks.
• 41:45
  I just said, I don't know.
• 41:46
  You know, so she straightened me out.
• 41:48
  But sometimes it gets lost in doing podcast and interviews that
• 41:51
  people talk about the celebrities and we talk about where I've been
• 41:55
  with the tracks and this and that.
• 41:56
  But at the end of the day, What I got out of slot car racing was I could
• 42:00
  sit down in my basement and just tune a car and with my lap timing system,
• 42:05
  trying to shave off a hundredth of a second, tenth of a second, or whatever
• 42:10
  that minimal thing was by sanding the tires, painting the front tires.
• 42:14
  Here's a trick.
• 42:15
  You paint the front tires with nail polish.
• 42:17
  So when they go around the turns, it cut backs the resistance.
• 42:20
  So the hard rubber isn't pushing against the track.
• 42:23
  And so there's just things like that, that the guys who really race know.
• 42:27
  All these tricks, but just to be able to go down there and go,
• 42:29
  Oh yeah, I got a lower lap time.
• 42:31
  I'd spend three hours doing that.
• 42:33
  I'd get out of bed at three in the morning.
• 42:34
  Cause I couldn't sleep.
• 42:35
  And I'd go downstairs and my wife would say, here's, you know, and I had 121 foot
• 42:41
  linear slack our track and to paint the picture for you was a Sunday morning.
• 42:45
  It was about 56 degrees out track conditions were slightly dusty
• 42:49
  and I got my Rothman's a nine 56.
• 42:53
  Normal lap times to get around my track were like around 22 to 23 seconds.
• 42:58
  These are cars that are weighted.
• 42:59
  There's no magnets.
• 43:00
  You really had to have it tuned with silicone tires and
• 43:03
  the right magnets on there.
• 43:05
  So, I spent three hours and I went from an average lap speed of 23 seconds.
• 43:10
  to 19.
• 43:10
  87 and I was racing on the edge and the rear tires were chattering
• 43:15
  around the turns and then when it was done I was exhausted but I was
• 43:18
  like yes because no one could ever beat that record on my track but I
• 43:22
  spent the time sanding the tires and just really being engrossed in it.
• 43:26
  It was the greatest escape.
• 43:28
  Well, I'm glad we went here because our last segment of the conversation
• 43:31
  was really going to be about the cars.
• 43:33
  Let's walk back just a second.
• 43:35
  You specialize in 132nd scale cars, but you also mentioned in
• 43:39
  the old days, the 124th scale, but there's also the HO scale cars.
• 43:43
  So when you look at, again, the DIY at home, Maybe go into the local hobby
• 43:47
  shop and they want to buy a set off the shelf to start with just to get
• 43:51
  the foundation going, or maybe they got that vintage set in the closet.
• 43:54
  Your heart leans one 32nd, but some pros and cons of the other
• 43:58
  two scales pros of one 24th.
• 44:01
  They look super cool.
• 44:02
  They're big.
• 44:03
  The details really great.
• 44:05
  The cons are they're heavy and when you're racing them, you
• 44:08
  really got to have a lot of fun.
• 44:09
  track length.
• 44:10
  And when they go around the turns on a plastic track, they'll kind
• 44:13
  of pull the track a little bit.
• 44:15
  The weight going through a turn.
• 44:16
  And so you're always pushing the track sections together.
• 44:19
  The way to them was mostly the con of it.
• 44:21
  Unless you're racing 1 24th scale, they look like a flying
• 44:25
  wedge and they're super fast.
• 44:26
  That's a whole nother level.
• 44:27
  But for the person getting back into it, I wouldn't really recommend 1 24th scale.
• 44:32
  I would just say I would stay away from 1 24th because there's not
• 44:35
  enough variety of cars available.
• 44:37
  HO I think are great.
• 44:38
  They're a scale that, you know, younger, I had a, had a track, but
• 44:42
  it didn't really grow too fond of it because the cars were little.
• 44:45
  I thought they went too fast and it wasn't realistic enough.
• 44:48
  I mean, I'm going to be building my first HO track this year for a gentleman.
• 44:52
  He built this big house, of course, and he's got this beautiful fireplace
• 44:56
  and on the side of it he has this.
• 44:57
  I'll call it a table, but it's four by eight.
• 45:00
  He wants to put a track, have us recreate his home in such in the Colorado area.
• 45:05
  I'm always up for a challenge.
• 45:06
  So we've been playing around with HO cars and everything.
• 45:10
  And I think they're really cool.
• 45:11
  They're just too small and they're really fast.
• 45:14
  But I think for young kids, they can really enjoy it because they can set up a
• 45:17
  track in their bedroom and they got enough space to set up an HO track versus 132nd
• 45:22
  where you need a little bit more room and 124th where you need much more room.
• 45:25
  So each scale has its pros and cons, but 132nd, the manufacturers are
• 45:30
  just making such high quality models.
• 45:32
  And the detail is just any scale, any model.
• 45:36
  Race them because you're going to enjoy them.
• 45:37
  So you mentioned your relationship with Carrera.
• 45:39
  That's only one of the brands, you know, there's a scale electrics.
• 45:42
  There's a CX there's fly.
• 45:44
  There's so many out there.
• 45:45
  Are there also, just like we're talking about the track sizes, are
• 45:48
  there good, bad, and indifferent?
• 45:50
  You mentioned weighted cars versus magnetic cars.
• 45:53
  What would you suggest to a first timer or somebody coming back into the hobby?
• 45:58
  What should they be looking at, or is there a compromise
• 46:00
  between quality and price?
• 46:02
  What's on your list when you're selecting a car, especially to race?
• 46:06
  If I'm going to race, slot it cars, slot it brand.
• 46:10
  Maurizio Ferrari, who's not related to the family.
• 46:12
  He has like, I'll call it a boutique business, but he's one of the finest
• 46:16
  brands of slot cars in the world.
• 46:18
  And I'm talking about cars you can buy off a website.
• 46:20
  NSR makes Wonderfully fast, beautiful slot cars.
• 46:24
  They're almost too fast for my tracks because mine, I call it miniature model
• 46:28
  racing where you're going to go fast, but you're not going blistering fast.
• 46:31
  But NSR is a very fast car and in like South America and in
• 46:35
  Europe, they'll have big races where they have eight lane tracks.
• 46:39
  It's plastic and they race these on there.
• 46:41
  If you're going to get into the hobby, you're going to go buy a track.
• 46:43
  Carrera makes wonderful tracks.
• 46:45
  They're going to last a long time.
• 46:47
  The width of the track is more to scale.
• 46:49
  The quality of the pebble finish, let's say, retraction is really good.
• 46:53
  And their magnetic downforce between the amount of steel they have in their tracks,
• 46:59
  because the cars come with magnets, all modern day slot cars come with magnets
• 47:03
  that you're buying out of the box.
• 47:04
  You can buy a track.
• 47:05
  You're going to spend maybe 140 to 250 on a Scalelectrics.
• 47:10
  Scalelectrics makes great cars.
• 47:11
  That's what I give with my tracks because they run great out of the
• 47:14
  box and they run really well on wood.
• 47:16
  Ferrara pros and cons.
• 47:17
  Beautiful cars.
• 47:18
  The guide pins on them for a wooden track, they're too thick.
• 47:22
  And the Germans, bless their heart, they always over engineer things.
• 47:25
  They could have left the guides alone like they were 10 years ago.
• 47:28
  But you know, everyone wants to keep improving.
• 47:30
  But once you have one of those tracks, you can go back to your
• 47:32
  local hobby shop, which I would.
• 47:34
  Prefer people do, they'll have slot cars, singular ones that you can buy
• 47:38
  from Lola's to Mercedes to 911s to, you know, LMP cars from the 60s to current
• 47:45
  day models are available and they have the same quality as a die cast car.
• 47:49
  When you're looking at it, you're not going to really get into racing with
• 47:53
  magnets unless you're really diehard.
• 47:55
  Now the patients keep putting your car on while you learn how to
• 47:58
  take a turn at the proper speed.
• 48:00
  I can race with or without magnets and I can be competitive with somebody
• 48:04
  on one of my tracks who has magnets and I'm running without them because
• 48:08
  I know where to let up in the turns.
• 48:09
  And I think it's super cool.
• 48:11
  Like I geek out on this kind of stuff and I got out of the hobby.
• 48:14
  My sister's still sort of in it.
• 48:16
  Like I was saying, you know, she wants to build BIR and stuff like that.
• 48:18
  So that's why I ask.
• 48:19
  It's like every once in a while she teases me.
• 48:21
  She's like, Oh, I'm going to set up the track and we should come
• 48:23
  over and race like in the old days.
• 48:24
  And I'm like, you know, that maybe I should buy a new car.
• 48:27
  What's the Technology now, 20 plus years later.
• 48:30
  I don't know.
• 48:30
  You know, I got to check it out.
• 48:31
  You know, one of the things that is new is digital racing
• 48:35
  and that can be a lot of fun.
• 48:37
  And I was really against it early on when I had my career set, but then Carrera
• 48:41
  with the digital racing, you and your sister, you could buy plastic track
• 48:45
  and make a closest replica to VR as possible, but you can raise six cars on.
• 48:50
  And do lane changing and you can go down there and race by
• 48:52
  yourself and put on the ghost cars.
• 48:54
  You're single and you're racing around these other cars that
• 48:57
  are automatically breaking.
• 48:58
  And first time I did that, I got kind of dizzy because I was
• 49:01
  watching all these cars going up.
• 49:02
  I'm controlling mine, but with the lane changing, it's really fun.
• 49:06
  And so if you have limited space, And you have, let's say, a couple of buddies that
• 49:11
  want to come over and race and not just stand there and watch two people race.
• 49:14
  A digitalist, they can all get into it.
• 49:16
  And I gifted my twin a track last year.
• 49:19
  Went over there and I surprised him and we built this track.
• 49:22
  He's like, I don't know what I'm doing.
• 49:23
  I go, just sit back and watch.
• 49:25
  And so, I was just, I kept reconfiguring this thing.
• 49:27
  thing and it was a digital track and it's just a blast.
• 49:30
  So he's in a car group.
• 49:31
  He has a 57 Chevy.
• 49:34
  He's got a model a, and he's in this group called the taints is their car club.
• 49:42
  And they're all crazy bastards, but they all got super cool cars.
• 49:45
  But they go over his house and they race on Friday nights, but you can
• 49:49
  race four to six people, you know, that's something to think about.
• 49:51
  But as far as technology, slot cars are the quality of the models.
• 49:55
  The construction is better.
• 49:57
  They operate the same.
• 49:58
  They go fast, but there's just a bigger variety of the models themselves.
• 50:03
  But it all really comes down to the tires at the end of the day,
• 50:06
  like you were saying, right?
• 50:07
  So like my old slot cars might benefit from new rubber technology
• 50:11
  like any old race car would.
• 50:13
  Put a brand new set of Hoosiers on it versus bias plies from the 60s.
• 50:17
  It's going to handle completely different without changing anything.
• 50:19
  So is the same true of the slot cars?
• 50:21
  Is the tire technology really improved?
• 50:23
  Out of the box?
• 50:24
  I mean, the tires.
• 50:25
  You know, when they're putting them together in China, that's basically where
• 50:27
  they come from, unless you're getting your NSRs, you know, and they're making them
• 50:30
  over there in Italy and they're truing the tires and everything, you know, when you
• 50:34
  pull it out of the box, it's going to go on the track and it's going to run great.
• 50:37
  Similar to slotted.
• 50:38
  If you're getting scale electrics.
• 50:40
  And Carrera, you know, they're being made over, you know, in
• 50:43
  China, they're being assembled, like people aren't really passionate.
• 50:45
  Sometimes the chassis are screwed down really tight.
• 50:48
  So when I get a slot car, I'll take it apart.
• 50:51
  I'll make sure the gears are lined up and the tires are pressed.
• 50:53
  First thing I do is I get rid of the stock tires and I put on silicone tires.
• 50:57
  And you can get those from a major slot car supplier, be it Professor
• 51:00
  Motors or Electric Dreams, and that silicone will immediately give you
• 51:04
  better handling of the car, better traction through the corners, you
• 51:08
  know, a nice round ride and such.
• 51:10
  So I take it apart.
• 51:12
  I'll super glue any of the inside pieces.
• 51:14
  So nothing's rattling just.
• 51:16
  tighten the screws, but then once I tighten them up, I'll
• 51:18
  back all the screws out.
• 51:19
  So the chassis and the body's got a little bit of a waiver.
• 51:22
  So when I go through the turns, it's more like a suspension
• 51:25
  instead of just a stiff thing.
• 51:26
  So you want it to give a little bit, there is a lot of
• 51:28
  tuning that you can do to cars.
• 51:30
  I mean, you can go online and you can upgrade the motors from 20, 000 RPMs to
• 51:34
  25 to 30 to 40 red, green, blue motors, and they'll fly and they're fantastic.
• 51:40
  So it depends.
• 51:40
  You can take them out of the box and race them and have fun, or you can
• 51:43
  really get into tuning each car you get.
• 51:46
  And that's what I really got into for a long time.
• 51:48
  But now like I'll get cars and I'll give them to my slot car guy and go here,
• 51:51
  tune this for me, or I'll call, you know, Oliver, I'll go on his site and
• 51:56
  I'll say, Hey, I see all these cars.
• 51:57
  I want these, but I want you to put these engines in them, these tires, they'll
• 52:01
  come to me and there'll be pre tuned and there'll be hot cars set up for me to run.
• 52:04
  Maybe that's one of the benefits I have of being the slot mods guy,
• 52:08
  but there's so much available out there for slot car enthusiasts.
• 52:12
  You can go online.
• 52:13
  I don't like to say Amazon, but you can find some stuff on Amazon,
• 52:16
  but support your local hobby dealer, go to garage sales, you
• 52:19
  know, go to a Facebook marketplace and you can pick this stuff up.
• 52:22
  People are just getting rid of it.
• 52:23
  You know, they've only want 10 for it.
• 52:25
  But you know, once you get it home and clean it up, it's worth hundreds
• 52:28
  for yourself, the amount of enjoyment you're going to get out of it.
• 52:31
  You've mentioned before, and even on the behind the scenes video with William
• 52:34
  about the custom cars that you guys make.
• 52:37
  So how does that work?
• 52:39
  Because we had Rick shod, quote unquote, the Pope of plastic on a while back.
• 52:43
  And he talks about the recreations that he makes and how he modifies the cars.
• 52:47
  And he's famous for doing all sorts of very intricate and realistic
• 52:51
  recreations, especially race cars.
• 52:53
  So are you guys basically taking, let's say a chassis?
• 52:56
  Like you just said, I'm going to Facebook marketplace, I'm going to
• 52:58
  eBay and I'm buying up the chassis and then building bodies on top of them.
• 53:02
  Are you building your own thing?
• 53:03
  Forms, are you taking other sets apart?
• 53:05
  Like what constitutes a custom slot car?
• 53:08
  For what we do when I say like we do custom slot cars, when we
• 53:12
  did the Audi project, they were launching the a four a seven.
• 53:16
  So it doesn't exist in a slot car.
• 53:18
  So we had those 3d printed and we were able to buy chassis that had adjustable
• 53:23
  facing from the front of the back tire.
• 53:25
  There's screws and you can lengthen the chassis or close it
• 53:27
  in to fit within the wheel wells.
• 53:29
  So what we're doing here, like we made a hundred Fiat, uh, what,
• 53:34
  what, what is that little Fiat?
• 53:34
  The 500 Cinquecento?
• 53:36
  Yeah.
• 53:37
  So we made a hundred of those for when we did the Lingotto Fiat factory
• 53:40
  and the cars were racing on the roof.
• 53:42
  But basically what we're doing for those, we got sneaky, I'll call it sneaky.
• 53:45
  We got one 43rd scale bodies and we printed the Fiat bodies because then they
• 53:50
  look to scale and they fit on those cars.
• 53:53
  You know, I have a guy here, Nick, who's wonderful and he's got a
• 53:55
  great head of hair, right, William?
• 53:56
  Yeah.
• 53:57
  That guy's got the best hair.
• 53:58
  You got to see it in the video.
• 53:59
  Outstanding.
• 54:00
  Yeah.
• 54:01
  Well, basically what we're doing, like we'll take a real world car, a slot car
• 54:05
  and Nick can design it in 3d CAD and everything, and then we'll 3d print it.
• 54:09
  And then we'll fit it up to a chassis that is adjustable.
• 54:12
  That's the extent versus the super.
• 54:15
  Talented guys that can modify cars and just call it hand weld brass chassis where
• 54:21
  there's all these lines and everything.
• 54:22
  And I'm like, how did you do this?
• 54:24
  And they're miniature works of art.
• 54:25
  I mean, they really are.
• 54:27
  We don't tend to get into that when I say that we do custom slot cars.
• 54:30
  We've done slot car shopping carts, you know, and they raced around the
• 54:34
  track and we've done Mercedes vans.
• 54:36
  We've done the Fiats.
• 54:38
  And right now, uh, William was here and the project we're working on,
• 54:41
  we're going to be making custom Gammond Porsche 356 slot cars.
• 54:45
  We're going to be designing those right from Nick's head, like looking
• 54:49
  at the math and making those and possibly 3D printing the chassis.
• 54:53
  So that's going to be a little bit more into pushing us beyond what
• 54:56
  we're normally doing and kind of kit bashing by using the 3D printing.
• 54:59
  3D printing has come a long way.
• 55:01
  And so that's kind of what we do on the custom end.
• 55:04
  But there's guys out there that are just building phenomenal slot cars.
• 55:08
  You don't even want to race them.
• 55:09
  I mean, they're that beautiful in the amount of detail.
• 55:11
  So we've talked about tips and tricks for building the tracks for acquiring
• 55:16
  your cars and tires and things like that.
• 55:18
  But I guess the last piece is some of us get frustrated.
• 55:21
  Like you said, there's that patience factor.
• 55:22
  You're there for three hours, trying to set your best lap time on the
• 55:26
  track with your timers and all that.
• 55:28
  When you get back into the hobby again, what are some
• 55:31
  ways to not fly off the track?
• 55:33
  Are there exercises you got to do with your finger, your trigger finger?
• 55:37
  Like what are some of your tips and tricks for being a better racer and enjoying
• 55:41
  the experience of slot car racing more, especially if you're getting back into
• 55:45
  it or getting into it for the first time?
• 55:47
  I always say, pretend you're in the car.
• 55:49
  And you wouldn't go into a turn at full speed.
• 55:51
  So throttle control on the trigger, that's your gas pedal, you know,
• 55:55
  go around slowly, but then as you start to build confidence, no, to
• 55:58
  let up before you go into a turn, like two feet or one feet into it.
• 56:01
  So you can flow through the apex.
• 56:03
  It's more about start out slow, then build up your confidence level.
• 56:06
  Because people say, man, when I had a stock car track, they
• 56:08
  always went off in the first turn.
• 56:10
  It's like, well, you don't squeeze it.
• 56:11
  You got to, again, put yourself in the car and think about how
• 56:14
  you would be Braking and actually driving to get young Children.
• 56:18
  And what we do, we send these tracks out to shows.
• 56:20
  You can buy magnets attached to the bottom of the car to give
• 56:23
  you really good down for us.
• 56:25
  You can put magnets on there are so strong.
• 56:27
  I can pull 12 volts full power and it will never come off.
• 56:30
  It's a business, you know, but I like it to be a little bit of a challenge
• 56:34
  that, you know, there's a consequence.
• 56:36
  You need to learn how to drive.
• 56:37
  Start off slowly, pretend you're in the car and just build up your feel for it.
• 56:42
  It's sort of like when you get on the track, you got to warm up your
• 56:45
  tires, your brakes, and your brain.
• 56:47
  Exactly.
• 56:47
  You know, I was out at Thermal Raceway.
• 56:49
  I don't know if you're familiar with the Thermal Club.
• 56:51
  You know, they take you around a few times.
• 56:53
  We were in BMWs and I'm like, Oh yeah, I got this.
• 56:55
  In the lead driver, you're following me saying, David, get off my ass, you
• 56:59
  know, because I'm kind of competitive.
• 57:00
  And I, you know, I'm not a race car driver or anything like that.
• 57:03
  So then they let you have your own track time.
• 57:05
  And I was getting real confident.
• 57:07
  And I came up over this crest and it went into these S's and I just came over too
• 57:10
  hot and I started going off in the gravel.
• 57:12
  It scared the shit out of me.
• 57:13
  And then I was like, Whoa, that didn't like automatically
• 57:16
  think about slot car racing.
• 57:17
  But it was just kind of like follow the lines, you know, in the apex and
• 57:21
  everything and build up your confidence.
• 57:22
  And then you can really turn in some hot laps just by getting to work.
• 57:26
  The controller, just be patient, enjoy it.
• 57:29
  It's fun.
• 57:30
  People love to crash.
• 57:31
  Yeah.
• 57:31
  You know, that's one thing I found out, not the guys on the race nights.
• 57:35
  They don't like to crash cause they got their really nice cars and stuff,
• 57:38
  but it's fun, it's a hobby guys.
• 57:40
  Take it real serious.
• 57:41
  That's fine too.
• 57:42
  There's those groups.
• 57:43
  I say, get kids started young with a small track and then get them involved
• 57:47
  and get them on a bigger track and turn them on to, um, videos on YouTube.
• 57:51
  Or, you know, we don't make enough videos.
• 57:53
  We're too busy building these tracks.
• 57:55
  So Dave, what's next for slot mods?
• 57:58
  Well, currently, right now, I'm deciding to release these
• 58:01
  new half scale Porsche 917s.
• 58:04
  They're art cars, which would be a fiberglass shell, which would be
• 58:07
  airbrushed, hand painted, with rubber wheels and everything, and it would
• 58:10
  be similar to the 917 that we did.
• 58:12
  You flip a latch, the track opens up, and then there's a miniature Le Mans
• 58:16
  raceway in there, in 143rd scale.
• 58:19
  Instead of on 132nd, you could actually have in your office thing would be
• 58:23
  about five feet long, maybe seven feet long, three feet wide, 917 that opens
• 58:29
  up and it's got a miniature raceway in it and you can race slot cars.
• 58:32
  So when you're not racing it, you just click a button and it closes.
• 58:35
  Looking to bring to market in 2025.
• 58:37
  There'll be limited editions.
• 58:38
  There'll be the Steve McQueen number 20, the winning Salzburg Porsche,
• 58:42
  the red with the white livery.
• 58:44
  You know, we can talk rally, but I just got commissioned to build one
• 58:48
  of my largest builds, which is the recreation of Targa Florio and Miglia.
• 58:52
  Miglia.
• 58:52
  It's going to be pretty incredible with those Italian villages and
• 58:55
  stuff, and it's quite a project.
• 58:56
  And the gentleman says to me, I want you to make your build of a lifetime,
• 58:59
  your most magnificent, you know, and I said, well, this is the price.
• 59:02
  He goes, Oh, I wasn't thinking it would be that much.
• 59:05
  And I said, well, we can take things away.
• 59:06
  And he goes, Oh no, I want it all.
• 59:08
  And I'm like, okay, well, it's salesmanship, but there has to
• 59:13
  be a limit because we only have so much time to build these and
• 59:17
  we want to make each one special.
• 59:18
  And that takes a lot out of me as an artist to make sure that it looks right.
• 59:22
  And it's not that I'm just mailing it in.
• 59:24
  Because people are making a big investment in me and with my guys and
• 59:28
  we really do want to deliver and bring a lot of happiness to people and joy.
• 59:31
  We've reached that point of the episode where I like to ask our guests to share
• 59:35
  any shout out promotions or anything else we haven't covered thus far.
• 59:38
  Dave left out something there in the beginning when he was kind of
• 59:41
  getting going and starting this.
• 59:42
  Tabletop hockey games he builds.
• 59:45
  Not just talking these old chinky, old tin metal things.
• 59:48
  Primo, I mean outstanding.
• 59:50
  He's got his little thing, you know, it's a slobbery, but he does some other
• 59:53
  things too and got an unbelievable collection of old stuff sitting
• 59:56
  up in his rafters too at his shop.
• 59:58
  But the one funny thing was you were walking through what in the back, you
• 1:00:02
  know, you would think that as busy as he, all these different projects going on.
• 1:00:05
  Cause me and him talked about this.
• 1:00:06
  He's at the front, he's in the middle and he's at the end of the whole process.
• 1:00:09
  Wearing all these different hats, so to speak.
• 1:00:11
  But he finds the time to go do his own thing for everything.
• 1:00:14
  He's building his own little track for himself.
• 1:00:16
  He's like, I'm just doing this for me.
• 1:00:17
  Really neat.
• 1:00:18
  You can see the passion there that he still has for this.
• 1:00:21
  And this is the enjoyment.
• 1:00:22
  He's like, this is my, I'm building this for myself.
• 1:00:24
  It's fantastic to see what he puts into it.
• 1:00:26
  And it's going to be really cool to see technology advances, whatnot.
• 1:00:30
  He, you know, new techniques, everything like that.
• 1:00:33
  Better and better and better.
• 1:00:34
  I can't wait to see what comes up out in like five years, what he's
• 1:00:37
  going to be able to come out with.
• 1:00:38
  Cause he's going to be unbelievable.
• 1:00:39
  Well, thank you, William.
• 1:00:40
  And the tabletop hockey was a real passion of mine from childhood.
• 1:00:44
  And Eric, I have over 200 vintage tabletop hockey games just above my head.
• 1:00:48
  And it inspired me to build my own custom tabletop hockey.
• 1:00:52
  And I kind of did it out of spike because a guy in New York sold me a
• 1:00:55
  game and he sent it with it cracked and I wanted my money and he's like,
• 1:00:58
  well, you wanted me to rush it.
• 1:00:59
  And I'm like, oh yeah, I'll show you.
• 1:01:01
  And I'm not boasting.
• 1:01:02
  I built my games and it got to be the gift of the year and cigar aficionado.
• 1:01:06
  I printed out the article and I sent it to him on the Christmas card.
• 1:01:10
  And I was like, you know, yeah, there you go, buddy.
• 1:01:14
  Anger can really kind of motivate me, but you know, it's kind of funny because
• 1:01:18
  the tabletop hockey as a kid and racing slot cars and Christmas morning, it's
• 1:01:23
  all those kinds of things that I enjoy.
• 1:01:26
  And, you know, the business side of it, it can take the shine off of what we do,
• 1:01:30
  but then when we deliver these things to people and their eyes light up and.
• 1:01:34
  You know, there's a gentleman, we built him some point Raceway and he
• 1:01:38
  raised his nine 11 there and we built this for him and he was over the moon.
• 1:01:42
  He's like, yeah, all my buddies come over.
• 1:01:44
  We race now every Thursday night and they bring their wives.
• 1:01:46
  And when I heard that, it just, it made me feel so good.
• 1:01:49
  And then they sent me a summit point t shirt and you bring these things into
• 1:01:52
  people's lives because they're not watching TV, you know, they're having fun
• 1:01:56
  with their friends and they're racing.
• 1:01:57
  And, you know, it's just like you setting up the track with your sister.
• 1:02:00
  I mean, I think you should do it.
• 1:02:02
  I think you should come to Detroit.
• 1:02:03
  You and William should come up when we get these three massive tracks done.
• 1:02:07
  But other than that, we're really busy with just building these really
• 1:02:10
  incredible one offs for clients.
• 1:02:12
  And for the listeners out there in 2025, William and I are going to work
• 1:02:16
  together in bringing a track for a donation to raise some funds for his
• 1:02:20
  charities, a charity of his choice, because I'm at a point where I really
• 1:02:23
  want to give back in any way I can.
• 1:02:26
  And that's pretty much what's going on.
• 1:02:28
  David's creations have been featured in publications across the
• 1:02:31
  globe, including Car and Driver, Sports Illustrated, and CNBC.
• 1:02:35
  And he has made appearances on Jay Leno's Garage, the Today Show, Discovery
• 1:02:39
  Channel, the BBC, Galileo, and multiple enthusiast podcasts, including this one.
• 1:02:44
  Inspired by legendary circuits from around the world, Slot Mods creates
• 1:02:47
  wooden 1 32nd scale megatracks.
• 1:02:50
  And every inch of these raceways, from the corkscrews to the chicanes,
• 1:02:53
  from the paddocks to the pits, right down to the mounting bolts on the
• 1:02:56
  aluminum guardrails, is handmade with incredible precision and built to
• 1:03:00
  withstand years of intense racing.
• 1:03:02
  If you'd like to get your very own bespoke slot car track, be sure to check out www.
• 1:03:07
  slotmods.
• 1:03:07
  com.
• 1:03:07
  Slot mods.
• 1:03:08
  com and learn more or follow them on social at slot underscore mods, underscore
• 1:03:14
  raceways on Instagram and YouTube at slot mods, raceways on Facebook.
• 1:03:19
  And you can also connect with David via LinkedIn.
• 1:03:22
  And with that, David, I can't thank you enough for coming on break fix
• 1:03:25
  and reigniting a passion for many of us collecting patina in a corner.
• 1:03:29
  Some are going, man, I got to bust that slot card track
• 1:03:31
  out and turn some laps again.
• 1:03:33
  It's a great way to introduce a younger crowd of petrol heads
• 1:03:37
  into the many disciplines of motorsport that we all enjoy.
• 1:03:41
  And I'm all for perpetuating the continuation of motorsports
• 1:03:45
  out there in the world.
• 1:03:46
  So thank you for what you're doing and thank you for being a
• 1:03:48
  unique part of the autosphere.
• 1:03:51
  Well, thank you, Eric and William for having me on.
• 1:03:54
  Sometimes I think that everyone knows about slot cars, so.
• 1:03:57
  A show like this helps reintroduce to people who maybe forgot that they can get
• 1:04:01
  back into the hobby of slot cars and they can do something with their kid while the
• 1:04:04
  kid's plugged in on the couch to Nintendo.
• 1:04:07
  From my experience, all little kids love to race slot cars with
• 1:04:11
  each other and with their parents.
• 1:04:12
  So it's really a great interaction, be it the plastic
• 1:04:15
  track, be it a slot mods track.
• 1:04:17
  What you guys are doing is amazing for hobbyists, not only in the slot
• 1:04:20
  cars, but your other followers and interest in shows that you've shared.
• 1:04:25
  You know, I feel like a kid again.
• 1:04:26
  I love it.
• 1:04:26
  Yeah.
• 1:04:27
  You know, right on.
• 1:04:28
  Thanks for having me on.
• 1:04:34
  We hope you enjoyed another awesome episode of break fix podcasts brought
• 1:04:39
  to you by Grand Touring Motorsports.
• 1:04:41
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• 1:04:44
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• 1:04:48
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• 1:04:52
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• 1:04:55
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