I grew up in Garden Grove, CA. We had several enormous slot car tracks biking distance—so big the cars would run up and around the ceiling and fall onto nets where you retrieved them with hooks on broom sticks when they de-tracked. I have my Cox controller and a split window Corvette my father built with copper welding rod for the frame—way too valuable to ever loose—wonderful days of youth...
Yes, the nets. And the employees working the "infield" who retrieved all the "off track excursion" cars and put them back on the track for you.
Some of the repeat offenders (and the guys who simply liked to cause crashes) had to pack up and go home for the day.
Nice idea for the copper frame. My dad was an engineer at Hughes Aircraft, and he "may have" taken a couple of my cars to work and modified the motor/brushes for higher performance. Probably used some special aerospace lubricants too.
Those then-new (late '60s) sticky tires (sort of a composite foam rubber, IIRC) were the thing to have, too.
Speaking of what we still have from those old days...I still have my Strombecker slot car track and controllers, and the D-Type Jag and a Ferrari (Testarossa perhaps) cars. I got it as a Christmas present in 1963.
Great memories, for sure!
