I have a been Jaguar nut all my life; I think they are amongst the coolest, classiest cars ever made. Of course they rust, squeak, rattle, overheat and fall apart with the best of them; so do Ferraris and Lamborghinis, but you never seem to hear anyone complaining about how “unreliable” those cars are!
Another of my former 1:1 scale toy cars; I miss this one!
Actually – awful British Leyland years aside – a lot of the scorn heaped on older Jaguars is a bum rap: I drove a 1986 XJ6 Series III sedan for years and had very little trouble with it, mainly because I am fastidious about maintenance on my cars, which is what it takes to keep a Jaguar running right: a lot of attention. Happily, I’ve had very little trouble with my little Aurora model as well! In fact, its one of the faster cars I have, owing to its light weight due to its small size.
I bought this as a body only on ebay and paid very little money for it because, as you can see, its missing its windshield, as they often are. Other than that it was in great condition, and I didn’t want to pay the premium for a perfect one-yet-because I wasn’t sure whether this small body, originally designed for a Vibrator chassis, would fit over an AW Ultra-G.
Well, it not only fit, but it fit with absolutely NO modification, which came as a total surprise, because less than 50% of my cars go together that easily! That being the case, I’m looking forward to acquiring two more in the colors I want most, gray and white: IMHO amongst the best colors for an early “XK” sports car. As for this red one, reproduction windshields are available, but I haven’t been too hot to buy one; I kind of like it sans full windshield, thinking it looks like a period track car with a “Brooklands screen.” I haven’t yet figured out a way to adhere a small piece of clear plastic in front of the driver in such a way that it will hold, but I’m thinking it over, and holding off for now on buying that replacement windshield.
By mid-March of this year, the tone of the news began to change; for the first time since 2015 some “news-ish” organizations took a breather from hating on the president and began reporting on a serious and scary development engulfing the world. As regions across the country went into lockdown, I was one of the fortunate ones; I have an “essential” job that has been unaffected by the shutdowns (in fact my office is busier than ever) and a house with a yard big enough to stay in for days at a time without going stir-crazy. My new hobby that I’m blogging about here has been very helpful in making it through this.
It is essential for survival that we maintain a sense of humor, even in the midst of catastrophe
With ebay, the USPS, and the savings on fuel and car maintenance brought on by being forced to work from home, I found myself quite content to spend my free time in the large room in my basement I have designated as my “toy room”, in which my collection of die-cast and, now, slot cars and tracks resides. Precisely because of the social isolation enforced by the lockdowns, I accelerated my journey into “Thunderjetting” and ramped up my purchases, not only building a car almost every day but also designing and building new tracks and beginning work on what became a sprawling and quite detailed diorama.
I am not making light of the situation: as I sit here and write this, my 75 year old mother is suffering through the severity of the Wuhan Flu; she has already been in the hospital twice, and my brother has just tested positive for it; I have an 82 year old aunt who only barely made it through her bout. I have friends and co-workers who have fought this thing, and while I am fortunate enough not to know anyone personally who has been killed by it, I do know people who know people who have. There is no question that the virus is very real and, irrespective of all the “interesting” theories about how it came into existence, it is clearly something we are now going to have to live with for the rest of our lives.
Eerily prescient short story by Steven King from 1969!
This requires a great deal of forbearance from all of us, and I’ve been lucky in my way: thus I have made myself a solemn promise to stay away from politics on this blog; there is entirely too much “politics” in our society today and I have no desire to contribute to the white hot hatred that has replaced political discourse in the age of anti-social media. However, it is probably impossible to discuss anything that happened in 2020 without mentioning the elephant in the room: that state and local governments have decimated our economy and upended millions of lives without any idea whether their edicts would be beneficial. As a result, we have all been subjected to vastly less free living, shocking those of us who thought that, here in the USA, the government doesn’t have the right to tell us who’s businesses-and whose jobs-are “essential” and whose are not. I guess I’m showing my age, aren’t I?
So, let me express again my gratitude to the hard working men and women of the postal service, to my employers and co-workers (we help keep your water running), and for all those folks out there who aren’t letting this get them down; who are contributing to this hobby by buying and selling, building and sharing their results with others. This is what makes it fun…and we need a little fun right now!
Some of my “kidz” in the toy room on a Lockdown Saturday morning
Some spectator and press shots from the early days at Drag City…
My early Tyco mechanical lap counter, before graduating to the digital timer. This looked good and worked well, although I soon realized I needed a timer in order to race during the enforced solo time as the pandemic erupted nationwide.
ABOVE: A pair of GTOs face off for a quarter-mile blast; a rare ’69 AMX against a loaded ’69 Camaro SS/RS; a pair of Chargers face off for the road course; ’68 Nova SS VS ’65 Mustang; a “barn find” brawl; ’41 Willys against a ’58 Plymouth
This was in the beginning-January/February 2020-when I was turning a large room in my basement into “Drag City” and was still hoping to have someone drop by and compete with me…plans that were scrapped as the Wuhan Flu began to ravage the land, which forced me to adapt to solo racing…a story I will explain in detail as this blog progresses.
This was the original Tyco “Turbo Boost 300” set from my childhood; I have come to refer to this as “Drag City” Mk. I. At this time I was buying and building cars at the rate of roughly 3-4 per week.
A mostly stock ’55 Bel-Air catches a ’63 Riviera in the turn: those cheesy homemade signs of Bic ball-point pen on construction paper were what 11 year old me thought would look cool scotch-taped to the the guard rails!
The original version of “The Copper Crate” with baby moons
Few of my cars have names, but this one does; it was originally derisive, because the thing was so slow I could barely get it lumber around the track. Changing out the magnets dramatically improved the performance, which is when I learned how much variance there is in the production of the Auto World chassis: I removed the original stock magnets and stuck in another set of stock magnets, but the difference was night-and-day.
I’m a sucker for all of the 1959 GM line-there’s not a single one I wouldn’t love to have-and when I saw this for sale, it was instant buy-it-now.
Originally she wore a set of chrome baby moons. I later decided that, as an Impala, it needed a set of whitewalls, so I swapped those out for a set of stock-sized chrome reverses so I could fit this hard-to-come-by set of white whites from Auto World. Like the real thing, it is a big and heavy car more at home on straightaways than curves, so its always in the lower ET’s and gets eliminated early, but dammit, it sure looks good doing it!
“The Copper Crate” as she appears today with MEV chrome reverses sized like the stock “Tuff ones” or Auto World wheels, shod with wide whitewalls
One of the first things people say-and you may have already said it!-is: “Your track is a road course; why do you call it ‘Drag City?’”
Good question! There are 2 reasons for this, and here they are!
The name was inspired by one of my favorite songs of the “Surf/Drag” era by Jan & Dean.
It’s a road course now, but in the very beginning, it was actually a drag strip.
The second of these reasons is part of the lore of the track, which I will describe in painstaking detail in “The History of DRAG CITY.” The first reason goes back to my childhood; as a fan of the surf/drag music of the early 60’s, I have a large collection-both original vinyl and digital reissues-of this genre, covering the well known and the obscure. The song “Drag City” falls in the former category, having been released as the title track of Jan & Dean’s late 1963 album and which became the 2nd of the duo’s 16 top 40 hits released during the years of their peak popularity (1963-64). I’ve loved this song since I heard it on a Liberty Records 45 at the age of 10 or 11, and when I built my first slot track, the name was just there; I didn’t have to decide on it; it happened naturally. If you’ve seen the home page of this blog you know I’ve quoted the lyrics of this song on that page.
In 2020, the rebirth of my interest in this hobby has so far resulted in four separate tracks, each growing in size and scope as I get more and more involved in it. Since the name “Drag City” is a traditional favorite with a long history in my personal past, each version of the track has this moniker, and is differentiated only by version: Mark I, Mark II, Mark III and Mark IV (so far!).
DRAG CITY Mk.I
One of the only “overview” images I have of the first track, taken after I had already begun adding some diorama elements
This was the re-construction of my original childhood Tyco “Turbo Boost 300” set that I put together on a momentary whim in early January 2020. This was the set that started what became my sustaining recreational activity of the year.
DRAG CITY Mk II:
After the Turbo Boost 300 set up, I started buying some cheap used Tyco track on ebay, much of which was damaged and useless, but I got enough out of it to build a large set on the floor of the main room of my basement. This was quickly replaced by another set, a Life Like set which was satisfactory but small. I decided to stop messing with junk and spend the money to buy a good set, and I opted for the newer Tyco “Ferrari Faceoff” because I liked the gray track. To this date this is only set I’ve found in gray, and it’s a particularly cool design since it is “shaded” with a dark streak throughout the center which simulates the look of oil on concrete. Its a shame Tomy doesn’t make the AFX track in gray, because I think it is more realistic looking and sets off the darker colored cars very nicely.
The expanded Tyco “Ferrari Faceoff” set shortly after its initial construction
However, the set wasn’t big enough to satisfy me, so I wound up adding a significant amount of extra black track to it, giving it a “half concrete, half asphalt” look that I liked, again because I think it adds an element of realism to the layout.
Drag City Mk.II after the addition of a couple of Matchbox garages and some California palm trees
This was the track that became my diorama, and as of this writing it is still up and I am still racing on it. Sadly, it is set to be deconstructed soon as I migrate out to the main room of the basement to the new, bigger track I’ve built on my custom made 6’ x 10’ table. It will be tough to say goodbye to it, but all the figures and other diorama elements will be reused, and anyway, building the thing is where all the fun really is, so I’ll get to do it all again!
DRAG CITY Mk III:
The 3rd iteration of the track began construction in June of 2020 after I worked with a friend to build to pair of large 5 feet by 6 feet tables out of plywood and 2×4’s; these butt together at the short sides, making a 6 feet by 10 feet surface. This was where I decided to migrate from Tyco to Tomy AFX, buying my first set from a seller on ebay that same month.
The table project: under construction, and nearing completion
My initial layout was inspired in part by the classic AFX “Big Block Battlers” set; I like the internal curves of this layout since it had a large number of right turns, which keeps things interesting. I expanded the layout significantly, adding longer straightaways with a banked turn at the end of each. After only a couple of months, however, I began to realize that this layout wasn’t satisfying me (even though to this day I can’t really say why), and I found myself repeatedly returning to my smaller Tyco track. This was exacerbated by the main room in my basement being windowless and thus very dark, while the smaller room I use for my toy collection where the original track was has 3 small windows to let in sunlight. The can lights on the ceiling in the main room were not enough, even with expensive “sunlight” LED bulbs in them; on order to enjoy the big track in the main room, I not only needed a new track layout, but also better lighting.
Protective acrylic sheeting added, but still showing the under-construction and very unfinished look of the whole area
DRAG CITY Mk IV:
The completely rebuilt Tomy AFX track, as seen on X-mas day 2020
Subsequent to July of 2020, I slowed down in my pursuit of the hobby in part due to frustration over finding an acceptable timing solution, a situation exacerbated by a bizarre dispute with a company in Virginia called Viasue, a company I discourage anyone from doing business with (I may go into detail about their remarkably unprofessional conduct in a later post). During the late summer and fall I was primarily looking into doing something about the lighting in my basement. Discouraged by the price tag of any really good solutions, I eventually wound up going with the cheapest and cheesiest solution possible: I ran around to every secondhand junk store in my area looking for cheap floor lamps. I bought six of them, ranging in price from $5 to $15 each; when placed at strategically selected locations and fitted with decent shades and good quality bulbs, they provided the exact type of lighting I was looking for, at a fraction of the price of the elaborate ceiling mounting systems I had been shopping.
Throughout all this, I was happy enough on my original smaller Tyco track that I kept racing on it, continuing to buy and build cars while doing so. It wasn’t until the Christmas holiday when, stuck at home alone away from my out-of-state family due to the travel difficulties caused by the pandemic, that I decided to really start using the tables I had built for the purpose. This was when I disassembled the Tomy AFX track and rebuilt it completely to a design of my own, making it significantly larger and more interesting while maintaining the all-important runway-style straightaway I wanted so the cars really wind out and achieve something near their maximum speeds.
Finally starting to look right!
As of this writing I am racing on this layout and am just starting the construction of the new diorama around it, which will eventually require the deconstruction of the smaller Tyco track as the scenery around it migrates out of the new larger layout.
One of the things I need to work on now is signage! I’ve been brushing up with YouTube videos on how to make decals and labels and hope to start doing some of this soon…after I spent a grand or so on a good 4-color printer (all it takes is money, right?)
As of this writing we can only wonder what Drag City Mk. V will look like! When it arrives, I’m sure I’ll detail it here!
