My first race in over a year 9-25-2021

I have always loved cars. When I was very little  my dad took me to the races to see the spectacle of amazing cars and incredible drivers. My dad also raced dirt racers, midgets, and more.
My dad had an early Porsche 356 that was baby blue and he’d take me out on highway 1 and drive and drive it hard. I loved that car and the experience of pushing the edge of the envelope. That’s when it gets into your blood.

Both my mom and my dad had a love for cars. My mom had a Fiat spider two seater I just loved too. They both always had the most amazing cars. I watched Indy on TV religiously with my Dad every year.

One day, I can’t remember exactly when, my dad got a Stromberg Slot Car set. He bought extra track and made an Indy replica track. It was huge and it captivated me. He used to have famous drivers over on the weekends to race the track. They’d play the sounds of the race track on the record player. Even burned a bit of racing fuel for the smell. They put money into a pot and the winner won the money. 
My dad was quite the modeler and he made up the cars with special liveries to match the actual cars at Indy.
I met A.J.Foyt, Mario Andretti, Eddie Sachs and many over famous race drivers. We later both got into 1/24th scale cars and would race the local tracks. Then sadly when I was 14 my dad died in a senseless car accident on his way to work caused by a wrong way drunk driver. 
Slot cars came to an end for me. It did for many with the Vietnam war taking many of the slotters to war. Many never returned. And some of my friends that did were never the same again.The tracks closed and interest faded away. But not completely.
There were some that kept the torch lit. And in recent times it has come back. Many of us including myself never really lost the passion. It was always there but now that the kids are gone and many of us have the time for such things we checked online and found slot car racing alive and well. In fact it has blossomed into a growing hobby with incredibly realistic cars and tracks like we have never seen before.
I discovered the FarrOut slot car club. I had just joined and had my first race with the club at Stephen’s track Feb. 18th 2020. It was a wonderful time and then covid struck before the next race could happen.

Yesterday after almost 2 years of covid lock down I returned to racing with my club. It was a 2 hour drive to Los Angeles up windy roads in my 1985 Z to Eddie Shorers track where we all met and had a blast. 
We didn’t talk about anything else in the world except cars and racing. Well Fingers did bring up our love for our dogs. 
Richard Rodriguez was a big help to me getting my car tuned up well enough to keep it on the track. Eddie was a fantastic host. There was pizza, cookies, drinks, and lots of Lays potato chips galore.
We met at 11am and by about 4pm it was all over but not forgotten. Never once was there an argument or complaint from anyone aside from Stephen putting me in the crap house for bad Marshalling. LOL
Or the screw Stephen lost from his car during a race that ended up in my lane which really screwed me up.
Tom tore it up and was the big winner. His cars were beautifully painted custom liveries too.
This is the second time I raced with these fine gentlemen. I’ve never played with a better group of kids in my life since the days of the races with my dad.My dad was there too. Right in my heart. 

The drive home was scary. Driving a restored sports car on the freeway these days is a roll of the dice. With so much rage and poor diving skills on the road I never watched my mirrors so much. There were bad accidents several times on the way home.
 Despite all that I enjoyed the long drive in my time machine from my youth in 1985. Back then I had just worked on Ghostbusters and Fright Night. We were all making lots of money and bought sports cars. I’m glad to still have mine. I enjoyed the drive and the day very much. It was an adventure.
Thanks to everyone at the FarrOut club for keeping this all alive and well. Thanks for the experience!

Below are images from the day. Including the car that got me there and back safely again to my studio in Ventura.

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