Goodbye Road Race Replicas? Is this the End of the Line, or a New Beginning?

Well…this sucks! I can think of better ways to ring in the new year than this:

This is, in a word, devastating. Road Race Replicas wasn’t just another vendor: they are the entire reason I got into this hobby, the reason this blog exists. It was RRR’s product line that got me into slot cars back in the earliest days of 2020, and without their awesome parts – especially their wheels, tires, and axles, you wouldn’t be reading this now. But that wasn’t all; they made the best HO slot car bodies ever created, bodies that set the standards other vendors only wished they could match. They also made the highest quality water-slide decals I’ve ever used, essential for customizing our cars. And on top of that, he sold excellent reproduction parts for Aurora originals.

So…now what?

Well, perhaps there’s hope; as you can read for yourself in the screenshot above, Mr. Pignon says there are new owners that will fill orders with “even speedier new millennium service,” but I’m skeptical; why, for instance, are these new owners to be “disclosed later?”

Well again, perhaps there’s some reason for this; I can’t know and won’t pretend too. I will admit that ordering from RRR was always a crapshoot; you had to call Phil Pignon and, if you were lucky enough to reach him, tell him your order and quantity verbally and find out whether what you wanted was in stock or sold out, and for me it was usually 60/40. And he only shipped once a week.

I wish my last order from him had been more positive, but that time I paid more than double his asking price for a special fulfillment of one of the last remaining copies of his excellent Maverick Grabber left a bad taste in my mouth, as what was supposed to be a complete track-ready car was actually a body and a set of wheels, as it was delivered on a useless junk chassis with missing parts and without even white letter sidewall tires (and as an additional egotistical point, he also showed zilch interest in ever visiting this here blog, which seemed a little foolish to me since I sung his praises and plugged his products on damn near every page!) Yet in spite of all this, his wares were second to none: the quality of his goods knew no peer in this hobby, and now we all have to sit back and wait-and who knows for how long?-to see who these “new owners” are and what they will or won’t do.

So perhaps there is cause for optimism; perhaps the website will be revamped with the same awesome products being available on a more consistent basis and with a form that will allow us to order online. Maybe this is a good thing.

There is, however, a disappointing trend here. If you’ve spent any time on this blog you’ve heard me piss and moan about how difficult it has been to find an acceptable timing system for my track, an ongoing battle that I seem to have won while remaining cognizant that the wider war may get hot again if something breaks. A couple of years ago the Joe Skylark whiteline and redline tires I liked to use on some of my Aurora originals disappeared. Months after that I had 2 vendors tell me they could no longer fill orders for reproduction Aurora wheels because they couldn’t get the plastic plating done. Then MEV’s website went dark for nearly a year; they do seem to be back to doing business as of the last few months, though for how long is anyone’s guess. And now this: the KING of HO slot car vendors, the one that started it all for me, is selling out. All of this indicates that being an HO slot car racer and enthusiast can be as frustrating as it is rewarding; it certainly is not the easiest hobby to be in!

Just to be clear: I don’t begrudge Phil for retiring; everyone deserves that and for all he’s given to this hobby he’s more than earned it. If I were in his position I would probably be doing the same thing. Maybe everything will be fine, even better, than it has been. And maybe I just have a nasty attitude about it. But for the reasons I enumerated above, right now, it still feels like another disappointment.

So, for the time being: no more RWL tires. No more Magnums or Stones or Bullets or Wires. No more dragster decal sets. No more Ferrari 250 GTOs, no more ’65 Mustang fastbacks, no more Maverick Grabbers.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

THERE IS A FOLLOW-UP TO THIS POST from JUNE 23 2024

HERE IS “THE REST OF THE STORY”