In the Hot Seat: Not As Easy As It Seemed!

The environment of my track has come in for some scrutiny of late. I don’t mean the diorama-not this time; I’m talking about the act of sitting (or standing) at the track, racing. There is a lot of room for improvement governing the conditions of hanging out in my vast “dungeon” and pumping the trigger for a tournament.

When I think about regrets-all the things about my track set-up that I wish I had done differently-the #1 thing I think of is: lighting. I went cheap on my lighting, and now I’m stuck with it; the only way I can install proper track lighting over the track now would be to wreck everything; to disassemble the track and the entire diorama. There is a possibility I might be able to install 2 sets of lighting tracks on each side of the table, but I’m afraid that doing so would still produce shadows; what I really need is a line of Halogen lights shining directly down on the center of the table, and now it’s too late to do that.

Improvements are going to have to be made in this area, but those improvements will be somewhat expensive and, since I’m not an electrician, somewhat difficult, as well. Something else that I think I can fix much more cheaply and easily is the seating. Since day 1, I’ve been using a pair of wooden chairs for seating. These have been OK, except that one of them was badly broken years ago and I put it back together with screws and wood glue. It’s held up surprisingly well over the years, but its finally starting to fall apart again, leaving me with only 1 functional chair.

A lot of guys prefer to stand up when they race, and I often do as well, but let’s face it: I’m an old man now and sometimes, especially if I’m running a full tournament which can take hours, I just need to rest my weary bones even when the excitement is going full-bore.

The chairs worked but they weren’t ideal, so I started thinking that-since I need to replace of them, I’ll replace both-what should I use instead? My racing buddy Shanon bought a couple of wheeled Recarro-style office chairs for his own track when he had it set up in his house, but although those worked well for him, I didn’t want something with wheels on my tile floor. What I did need, I thought, was more elevation, which meant a stool. I have to be careful, though; since your HB is barely 5’6”, I often find that bar stools are uncomfortably tall for me, and very difficult to hike into and out of, so I wanted something that wasn’t too tall. And finally, I wanted something padded for at least a modicum of comfort.

Enter IKEA

My Hot Wheels collector friend Jason lives not too far from Centennial, one of the many Denver X-urbs that has the population of the city without the character. This is the location of the only IKEA store I am aware of that is located in the state of Colorado. I can still remember the absolute mania this store caused when it opened back in 2011; the anticipation for it was insane! I was aware of IKEA from my days in California, and back there it didn’t seem like all that big of a deal, but when it was announced that the company would be building their first store in CO 14 years ago, you’d have thought a new Disneyland was being built! It was so crowded for so long that it took over a year after it opened for me to even dare braving it. The mania has worn off now, but even today the store is almost always crowded!

The best thing about IKEA-as anyone who knows the store will tell you-is the cafeteria, where they serve their famous Swedish Meatballs and Lingonberry Jam. Jason and I were hanging out last weekend hunting for Hot Wheels, and since he is still in the stages of setting up his new crib, he wanted to take a break from die-cast collecting and go hunt for some housewares, and suggested a trip to IKEA for those purposes, further suggesting I should join him; not for the housewares, but for the food! I thought this would be the perfect opportunity to look for a couple of stools for my track: a massive “furniture warehouse” the size of IKEA would surely have several things that would foot the bill! So, I acquiesced, and there we were on Saturday evening standing in line at the “commissary” for a plate of meatballs and mashed taters! It took well over 15 minutes just to get through the line, but as always, it was worth it!

Sadly, that was as good as the trip got, because it was all downhill from there! First off, everything in the store was a hell of a lot more expensive than I remembered it; IKEA was built on the notion of affordability, but they seem to have let that fall by the wayside. Jason didn’t find many of the things he was looking for either, but that night I learned that-by all appearances-they don’t have stools in Sweden! I was looking for a simple 3 or 4 legged padded stool with a swiveling seat-didn’t seem like a big ask-but in a store filled with thousands of chairs of all types, their stool selection consisted exclusively of fixed items that were large, heavy, and most of all expensive! Virtually everything I saw there that looked comfortable was over $100! For a stool! I found one model that seemed like it might be OK which was reasonably priced @ $35, but that was it! I figured I would have to check out a different store and just moved on, spending the rest of the night following Jason around while he shopped for drawer inserts and utensil racks.

We were headed toward the registers at the end of the massive store when we came upon the area they call the “As-Is Department.” This is the area whey they offer odds and ends of things that have been either returned or slightly damaged at deep discounts. By this time I was tired enough from traipsing through the gargantuan place that I just wanted to leave; when Jason asked “You wanna check out the As-Is Section?” I replied, “No. No, I don’t.” So while he went and scavenged around, I sat down in a mock-up of a patio under an awning until he called me over, excitedly pointing at something. I ambled over there and saw that he had found a single copy of the lone model of stool that I thought might work, discounted from $35 down to $24. There didn’t seem to be anything wrong with it, but there was only 1. So at that point, I thought, OK what the heck; for that price, I’ll buy it and try it out. I figured if I liked it, I could come back and get another one at the full price any time.

I unloaded it from the car Sunday morning without much expectation, but I have to admit that I’ve been pleasantly surprised! I’ve tried it out and actually, despite not being padded, it’s quite comfy! It doesn’t seems like it would be comfortable to look it, but it’s just the right height for my short stature, gives me a great view of the track without giving me vertigo, has a nice footrest, and it easy to get on and off of. It seems fairly study too, having a metal frame. Maybe this will work after all.

To be honest, its probably still not ideal; that simple 3 or 4 legged swiveling padded stool I was looking for is probably a better bet. But seriously: I don’t want something so cheap that its only going to last a few days, and anything that’s well made and comfortable is likely to cost quite a bit more from this piece from IKEA. So, I dunno…for $24 I was willing to test drive it but since I now think its a possibility, I’ll keep using it for a few days and if I’m still happy with it by next weekend, I’ll head back to out Centennial and pick up a 2^nd copy of it.

Still doesn’t do anything about the lighting…but its a start toward getting back to the track for a tournament! Its’ been a while! I would be curious to hear from any of my fellow slot-heads about what your own seating arrangements look like; if you have any ideas, run them by me!