Club Racing at Charley’s Bay Shore

By Pete Shreeves

I was pushing hard through the left hand turn-two carrousel (outside lane) when it happened again. The in-line 16D set-up produced a level of torque drift that would swing the tail to the right under acceleration and I was fighting to keep the revs up without sliding the right rear tire against the plastic guardrail more than necessary. The smooth rail on the narrow plastic track should have been safe but there was a broken section where your exposed rim would slam the next solid post. The impact popped the car out of the slot and spun it 360 degrees in mid air. It clattered against the guard rail and fell back into the slot where it continued to rocket up the third straight. It happened three times in this race and I had learned to quickly re-adjust my braking point since the same tight mesh would lock the N-18’s rear tires over the plastic surface making the car want to swap ends. A momentary power blip straightened the car for the apex. I clipped through the tight right 180-degree hairpin (inside lane) and watched as the car sped down the back straight vanishing from view down the hill behind the track. No one could ever have told me racing on an old plastic track would be like this!

I remember the first time George and I visited Charley’s slot car place In Bay Shore, Long Island in 1972. One of the regular slot car track owners told us about some old guy who had set up a track for kids so we decided to be polite and drop by to say hello. Bay Shore Raceway was far from pretentious and neither was Charley. Charley’s place had once been a stylish 1940’s storefront on the parking lot of an active Long Island Rail Road Station. The LIRR still whispered to a stop occasionally through the windows outside, but in 1972 the shiny new aluminum electric cars carried few commuters to the overgrown industrial slum that had once been a pleasant suburb for New York commuters. Those that disembarked did not linger to glance at the vacant shop fronts nestled around the lot.

George and I already had seven years of slot racing under our belts, had competed on most of the tracks in the area and even done some local pro driving. When we stepped through the doorway I instantly hoped we could make this visit as polite and quick as possible. We could hear slot cars running and young voices but our eyes had to adjust to the dark. A single light bulb in the middle of the ceiling seemed to supply the only light. A disheveled old man hovered around the back of the small white room and a couple of young kids crowded around what must have been the pit side of a table which filled almost all of the small space available. As we attempted to announce ourselves and edged further into the dim room it became clearer. Yes, the dark patches on the table seemed to be the track. There was no parts counter, no cash register, no place to sit. Just the track, the kids and Charley.

We had to squeeze along the left wall past the kids holding controllers to greet the elderly gentleman who still was not hearing us, presumably due to deafness in addition to the noise in the place. It was awkward squeezing around the track, much like having to shove past the casket when entering a funeral you really didn’t want to attend. We were aware that slot car racing was declining at the time. It was the end of an era of exuberance, the baby boom, the muscle cars and the Can Am / Trans Am series. The big splash of the mid sixties, which saw big slot car tracks on every mall, were long gone.

“Has it come to this?” I had to ask myself looking at the stained walls and bleak little plastic track. “Is this the future of slot car racing?” The feeling of doom passed as I noticed how neatly the track was built and how much the kids were enjoying themselves. The Bay Shore track was of the plastic table top home layout type mounted on boards that sloped up and down to provide variations in elevation. The track was doubled up for four lanes and neatly screwed to the wooden base. The track was just four parallel straight-aways connected with constant radius hairpins. The front and back straight sloped down one level where a short straight passed under the top lanes to connect the furthest ends. The pits were on the first straight where the cars ran to the left up the hill, then right (2nd straight), then left (3^rd straight) and back to the right down the hill. The outsides of the track had no aprons, just the armco-like guardrails separating the driving surface from the drop to the floor. Anyone vaulting the rail was in for a bad trip so you had to be on your toes.

It was fascinating to watch the kids since they were running a smattering of battered and obsolete equipment. I couldn’t tell if the mostly pre-teen boys had inherited cast-off cars and pieces from older brothers or if they were just running the remains of Charley’s old cars. Charley seemed to be constantly patching or adjusting somebody’s machine and there were few new parts in evidence anywhere. Slot racing had become a more serious proposition since the mid sixties but George and I started as baby-boom track-rats blowing our minor allowances or paper route money playing at some local track. The kid’s enthusiasm was both familiar and heart warming. They seemed to range from raw beginners to a couple of standouts who seemed to be able to squeeze solid laps out of the straining transformer. The better drivers were clearly making progress simply by making consistent laps and staying on the track. The youngsters jibed each other enthusiastically and made a great fuss, especially when somebody got bumped over a guardrail onto the floor.

George was finally getting through to the owner and we learned that Charley was retired and ran the place like a club track since the kids generally had little money. The place looked promising enough to be interesting to try so we noted the next race time and promised to visit again as we left.

Back in my shop at home I looked around at my cars to see what I might use at the Bay Shore track. It had been a long time since I had raced on a plastic track, let alone on transformer power. All my scratch built rod and pan chassis were too wide for the 4” track and the group motors of the day (gp12, gp15, gp20 etc.) would pull too many amperes for Charley’s small transformer. Charley allowed tire grip so at least sponge tires would work. I decided to take the same approach I would whenever we went to a club track and build a car to suit the racing. This track required a step back in technology and in time. It would also require a machine that could take some abuse from enthusiastic youngsters on a narrow track.

I pulled a soldered in-line springie thingie chassis from my pile and added hinged pans to give it some strength and handling ability. Power was a modest stock 16D motor, which I felt would help me hold my own in the ampere-sharing field. I mounted a fresh green metal flake “Stinger” replacement body. The body was almost a decade old but looked snazzy and had the virtue of being strong (.020” acetate), low enough to handle well and narrow enough to fit Charley’s track. The green body was offset by a set of bright orange sponge tires.

As a final touch to the ‘older’ era look I decided to add a pedestal-mounted wing over the back of the car. The orange wing was made of balsa, looked good, and was big enough to generate some needed down-force at a track where traction was probably spotty and the speeds never got very high. The car was dubbed the Nancy 18 (N-18), taking the next number in my series of grand touring machines.

George and I arrived on race night to find the regular crowd of local youngsters there. At the advanced age of 19 we felt like visiting pros with our car boxes in hand and controllers slung over our shoulders. The kids saw us and didn’t say anything. Like serious racers, they were just intent on preparing their machines. There was a practice session before the race, which gave George and me a chance to see what we were working with. I hooked up my controller and set the new car loose. My machine seemed light enough to get up and down the hills but I quickly learned my N-18 car had to scrabble for traction everywhere on the surface. I had remembered to shave my flag for the shallower slot but any unevenness in the track joints made my front end bounce up dangerously. Careful blipping and braking was needed to navigate the circuit while avoiding the unpredictable drivers around me. I felt like I was in the movie “Grand Prix” where the slightest mistake would send you flying into harbor!

George brought his familiar white Lola-body gp-12 Phase III car. He swears to this day that when he punched his controller, not only did all the cars slow down, but the bulb over the track dimmed! The car staggered up the pit straight and around the first hairpin to the upper level. When he let off for the next hairpin all the other cars surged forward clattering into the barriers! George looked plaintively at Charley who ducked into the next room to turn up the transformer power. The evening would become a learning experience for everyone since the kids now had to adjust to driving with more juice than they were accustomed to as well as the power surging up and down as George got on and off the gas.

The time came to line up. The start-finish line was at the start of the second straight and Charley helped the boys bump to the line. The shape of the track suggested a chariot race where a cluster of cars would charge back and forth between hairpin turns in an enclosed coliseum. I was on the right and next to me was Todd’s VW Womp car. Todd was a short 8 year old with slim driving skills but his aging machine was probably the most sturdy of the local cars. For some reason Todd decided to paint the car dark brown and the first time I saw it clatter across the track in the dim light I thought it was a Norwegian Rat! (Nothing would have surprised me at that place!) George was next to him and on the left was Allen, a pudgy, polite, 12 year old who was pretty much the top local driver. His machine was a curious combination of ancient parts that looked strange but held together. It was a pre-’64 bolt-together brass chassis with an extremely chopped Batmobile body. The front was trimmed so low the hood just covered the slot pin and the fenders were cut open to clear the ¾” front wheels. The rear deck just covered the cross-mounted 36D motor and tires. The dramatic rake of the car may have offended the Dynamic Duo but the shape resembled a pretty good wedge car.

I knew from experience the first turn would be a pile-up and since I would be on the outside I resolved to brake early to avoid the carnage. This is where George and I differed in driving style. George would always see a tight field as a chance to out-brake everybody and emerge ahead. Charley counted down and hit the power switch. With everybody pulling power George found himself a half car behind the cars around him. I stabbed the brakes early and watched as George’s wide car swung smoothly around the turn. The other two cars fell victim to George’s late-braking power-surge careening across the track to pile up in the outside lane… my lane! I had to stop while Charley cut the power and George coasted to a halt near the next hairpin. (George knew enough to keep his finger on the trigger while the power was off to avoid EMF braking.) I was barely into the race and I was already last and a straightaway behind! At least my new car wasn’t under the pile!

I think that was the last time anybody got fooled by the power surges since the field was now spread out and rotation heats didn’t start with cars abreast. From then on, drivers knew to watch their cars carefully because they couldn’t count on track rhythm to execute turns.

With the power back on I stomped it and chased the pack to the third hairpin, braked hard since I was on the inside, powered into the turn and was monetarily stunned as my car vanished. “Oh yeah,” I thought as I remembered that back straight went down hill leaving drivers blind to find the last 90 degree right hander, run across the short tunnel straight to reappear at the foot of the first straight. I couldn’t see the car but I could hear it going ‘klack, klack, klack at every track joint. (Charley’s track was nothing if not loud!) Where the turn should have been I braked and blipped tentatively hoping I had judged it right. Allen’s Batmobile appeared at the bottom turn followed by George’s Lola and Todd’s Womp. I tapped my trigger slightly and heaved with relief as the N-18 appeared slinging the apex just as if I knew what I was doing. I stomped the gas and was rewarded by the sight of my car sprinting up the hill passing the Womp and the white Lola before dropping the nose hard for another tight right, inside hairpin (turn 1).

I can’t narrate the entire race (after 36 years) but I can recount some impressions. Back in the ‘70s there was a world of difference between plastic track racing and commercial track racing. Slot car technology had advanced so much that it was almost impossible to translate the cars back to plastic layouts. Charley’s track was like a time capsule balanced between two eras and it was interesting to try bridge the gap. Like any club track, competition was very stiff and the kids would run just as hard whether they were in the open or entering a turn next to you. They learned fast and there was no expertise or technology we possessed for out-running them. We finished somewhere in the middle of the pack and felt lucky not to be DNFs.

We returned for the next race and I built another new car to correct the first car’s weaknesses. The N-19 was a very light, angle-winder, full-plumber chassis mounted under a more orthodox McLaren body. I did away with the useless wing and added a much softer set of rear tires. The flexible car proved to run better on the bumpy track but didn’t complete the race. The smooth running chassis got tweaked in a pit accident causing something to bind and the motor went up in smoke. It had been a fun challenge but we never raced on the road course at Bay Shore again.