West Seattle Speedway Old 6 lane track on Ebay

[Slapshot]

For those in the Seattle area this will bring back memories....
The track is currently in Spokane.

Raymond

On ebay http://cgi.ebay.com/1964-Custom-MONZ...mZ170147965644

[Zippity]

What a strange, but interesting track - you are either on the outside or the inside. A squashed oval?

Bet it was fun to drive.

[kbryanspokane]

Yes, it was fun to drive. My sons and I first started racing flexis on this track in 1991. When Dave bought the Hasse King, he took this track out of commission and had Hasse completely redo it. It is in pristine condition -- has new surface and new braid. I wanted to buy it to put in my house but could not make it fit.

The building has been sold and all 4 tracks (including the dragstrip) are for sale on ebay.

[Mike K]

[QUOTE=Zippity]What a strange, but interesting track - you are either on the outside or the inside.QUOTE]

That's pretty true of most tracks . . . unless you're in the CENTER

[Zippity]

Mike, Mike, Mike

Your statement is wrong.

On any track with a true bridge (think of a figure eight) you will have both inside and outside lanes (read both tight and open corners).

The track depicted above does not have this characteristic

One outer radius corner does not count.

Besides, I bet Purple lane and Red lane are not of equal length

[johnford]

Ben Kernan AKA Macman designed a track we called the "LTO" because it was like this track, sort of a squished oval with all left turns. This track I guess could be dubbed the "RTO"... jf

[kbryanspokane]

No, the lap lengths aren't the same, but the track was a lot of fun. Would be an awesome D3 track.

The raceway is closing after 18 years -- opened in 1989. Dave is also selling the Hasse Blue King and a smaller Hasse built modified figure 8 called a euroclip.

We are very sad to see the shop close. All the tracks must be out of the building by the end of September.

[Slapshot]

Ron: Although the track does have a long red and a short purple it still is a track that had quite a bit of history of racing behind it.

It origially was in West Seattle Speedway before it went to Spokane in favour of the Hasse hillclimb which replaced it. This track was in the same location for I have forgotten how long (20 years plus) but I believe it was the late 60-70's till the time it was replaced.

It was one of the few track assembled with routed marine plywood. It originally before Hasse worked on it had copper strip as braid which was slightly thicker than tape. It had a black surface painted with orange yellow side walls and base boxes in it earlier years. It was designed and built by a local crasftman who was rumored to build several in the Seattle area in that era. The real age of the track is not clear but it is near 42-50 years as best guess. That is impressive for a track.

True it has no cross overs is only six lanes and has a shallow bank but was home to many a exciting Seattle races. It has raced both wing cars during the 70-80's to scale cars. There have been numerous 6hr, 9 hr enduros run on this particular track. Paul Kassens got his picture on the cover of Scale Auto with a smoking controller and he still had hair. It used an original American raceways adjustable voltage power supply all through its Seattle life with only the addition of multiple capacitors. It appears the same supplies are still being used or a variant of them. The Rental timers were the original American raceway timers. Up until the 80's the races were run by stopwatch and a manual six way switch box. Later an early computer Swedaxi lap counter system was intergrated into the track for timing and race controll (was sort of like an Commador 64 system).

The track looks great for its age after the improvements by Hasse.

Oh by the way....I actually won a wing car open race on it.

Raymond

[Zippity]

Raymond

Please don't think that I was "knocking" the track in any way.

It looks like a cool track to race on.

I was just getting on my favourite hobby horse - a track without a cross-over nothing more - nothing less


Ron

[Slapshot]

No harm Ron. You just allowed me the opportunity to give the tracks history. We had to run on all six lanes so it worked out OK.

RB

[hotcool35]

how do you guys marshal it?

[Slidergreg]

I assume you would move the race directors podium out of the way and an unfortunate marshall, probably the sitout or a youngster marshalls that turn on their knees and digs cars out from under both bridges.
The finger presents a bigger cahllenge and I can't see the solution from the photos. It looks like there may be enough room for a "slender" marshall to fit between the bank and the finger.
Ray, can you help with this question?

[oldweirdherald]

I got an email from Stanley J's Raceway owner to activate his OWH ID to post an ad.

I activated him and replied before I saw this thread... mentioning how I'd love to see the Monza track again some day.

In all the years the Monza was in Spokane WA - I have never had the opportunity to cross the mountains and see the place.

Now it breaks my heart that yet another commercial slot car raceway is closing it's doors.

I literally grew up on that Monza track, which was at West Seattle Speedway & Hobby from 1965 to 1987, when it was replaced with the Hasse Hillclimb.

Zippity, you are correct about the vastly unequal lane lengths. It was a 6 lane routed track, built by a a guy whose name escapes me now (Butch Williams???) and along with (supposedly) Bruce "Buddy B" Budville.
There were dozens of these 6 lane taped tracks built by these guys back in the 1960's all over the Greater Seattle area.

Coincidently - "Buddy B's" last raceway - touted as the "World's Biggest 6 Lane Track in the World" at 220' ??? was located in the very same business park where I am now sitting at 13Slotcar Raceway in Tacoma.

The Monza was all right turns, but with a sharp "S" left turn that went under the straightaway - forming what was referred to as "The Hole" - where many a skinny young kid served more then his fair share of time marshalling.

Back when I was a skinny young kid - I no doubt logged more hours marshalling "The Hole" then the combined total of everyone else.

Since you do rotate and race on all the lanes, on such an unequal lane track, it became a big part of the strategy in your race. Judging what place you were in was a lot like in a round robin race. If you're behind, you hope you can make it up in the inside lanes - if you're ahead, you hope you can maintain your lead before running the dreaded "Brown" outside lane.

The highlight of my racing memories on the old Monza track was the annual Enduros at WSSH in the 1970's. Many were 9 hours, some were 6 and some were 4 hours - but they were always a lot of fun, and very competative. We raced open class scratch built chassis wing cars in those Enduros, filled with cars built by guys like Slapshot, Dennis Cook, Tom Hanson, and even a few by myself.

The owner of WSSH, Steve Hosford, had framed photo collage's of each year's Enduro pictures - on the wall in the back room. You could literally see the local racers growing up over the years looking at these photo galleries.

I am happy to say that many of the friends I made racing over the years at WSSH are still my friends, and many are still racing slot cars. Craig Rieland, Dennis Cook, Bill Clemans, Raymond "Slapshot" Batchelor, Jim Naughton, Steve & Mike Nichols, Controller wiz Alex Danilchik, Scalextric USA webmaster Steve Lesh, Gary Johnson, and Gary King and Lee Gilbert actually raced (and worked) there back in the 1960's.... among others...

The "left" end of the track (before the straight) was much different - it was a HUGE SWEEPER. A very large radius sweeper, that looks like it has been replaced with the triangle shaped turn now... probably to save space. The old "kink" was a complete 180, then went into a full sweeper that extended out even with the driver's panel (where you see the computer in the pics above - was part of the sweeper). "The Hole" was that tiny space between the "deadman" turn after the driver's panel, and the left turn. You not only had to wriggle in there, but you had to marshal 3 levels of track. I rested my hand on the wood brace for the straight, mostly to keep from poking myself in the face on it.

Back in the old days, the race director sat inside the sweeper. One marshal stood inside the sweeper, mostly watching the transition from the laft turn to the sweeper, and there was a marshal outside the sweeper, who had to stay behind the driver's view, and one in the corner at the lead-on (which is now different). The deadman had a marshal sitting inside, also watching the turn before the left kink, and occasionally the sweeper marshal had to run in to help with "Brown Lane" gutter wrecks in the deadman. Another marshal sat inside the bank facing the 180, and was also responsible for catching the wreckage after wall-blasts in the bank.

It really brings back memories to see the pictures of the old Monza.

Let's hope that track (and the others) can find a good home where slot car racers can once again enjoy racing on them.