Long Before the Popularity of Car Racing Video Games, Slot Car Racing Was a Popular Fad in the 1960s _ Vintage US

Slot car racing was born in the early 1900s, but the hobby languished until the 1950s, when English entrepreneurs began to build electrified tracks and controllable scale-model cars to race on them.

The new system spread to America. By the mid-1960s, there were more than 3,000 public race tracks in the U.S. Manufacturers Scalextric, Revell, Aurora, Carrera and Tyco were together selling $500 million worth of cars and equipment a year.

Kids began frequenting tracks where, for only a few dollars, they could spend hours racing with their pals. As the fad peaked and then waned, slot car businesses found themselves unable to turn a profit charging teenagers small amounts of money to use their large tracks.

By the early 1970s, slot car centers — like the once-prevalent ice-skating rinks, bowling alleys, pool halls and miniature golf courses that also required a large real estate footprint — were folding. Fewer than 200 tracks were still in business by 1975, and gradually most of those closed, too.