Then, he had to fill the space he’d created. But he explains that building the track was a challenge that started long before the car showed up at his studio.
Slot Mods Raceways Recreates Famous Race Tracks In Iconic Cars
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Inside each, race fans will find a “Le Mans-inspired layout” that features two hairpin turns, a pit area packed with crews, grandstands and scenery like lighting towers, hay bales, trees, and shrubbery.
After cutting its teeth installing massive tracks for car fans and corporate clients, Slot Mods Raceway took on a larger challenge that, ironically, was quite a bit smaller.
“Normally, I’ll tape it out on the floor in the shape of what we have and I’ll stack foam to kind of recreate it. It’s easier for me to see it in my head through my eyes on the floor so that I can pick elevations and get the shape going.”
We’ve all raced a slot car, right? You pick out your car and carefully line it up with a thin groove running along the center of a track. With the remote in hand, you watch it zip around and around along a circuit you spent hours dreaming up and building. It’s a fun activity for Christmas morning or a rainy weekend with family.
“I was racing slot cars with friends in the basement,” says David Beattie, founder of Slot Mods Raceways, when we caught up over Zoom. “I ended up building a custom wooden track. It was in my basement, six lanes, and I started just messing around with building structures. I really enjoyed it.”
There are, however, some people who take their slot cars more seriously, dedicating entire rooms to their elaborate tracks or clearing out garage space to build a course. And that’s where Michigan-based Slot Mods Raceways comes in. Since 2009, the company has made a name for itself building some massive tracks for the world’s biggest car fans.
Once the space is mapped out, Beattie starts working out how much scenery he can squeeze around the track, which with the Porsche 917 build included recreating things like the Le Mans grandstands. When everything is mapped out, the construction begins.
“We do the math on the inside to figure out what that cavity is and what we can fit into the body,” explains Beattie.
Beattie then began to wonder if there were people out there that might like a track like his of their own. So pinned up business cards around town and, eventually, someone reached out to order one.
“There was a lot of thought that went into it because I really didn’t know if it was gonna, you know, work,” he says.
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