Go Fast Products Uses 3D Printing to Build High-Tech Slot Car Chassis
Tracy Brown is the owner of Go Fast Products, and he’s been into slot car racing since he was 15 years old.
Slot car racing is the competitive hobby of racing with powered, miniature vehicles guided by grooves or “slots” in the scaled track on which they run. Slot car racing can be a casual affair — or very serious competition between car owners who build their own cars for maximum performance.
Slot car racing was once hugely popular. During the 1960s, sales of slot car-related products reached some $500 million annually, and there were more than 3,000 public race tracks across the United States.
Now Brown is taking his 31 years of experience in racing and manufacturing slot car parts to create and offer, in collaboration with Rapid Slot and SlotCars-R-Us, a 3D printed chassis to the slot car scene.
Go Fast Products will be the sole distributor and promoter of the new, cutting edge design, and Brown says the chassis was printed in PA 2200 and is available from Go Fast Products or Shapeways. The PA 2200 material tested is known on Shapeways as White, Strong & Flexible, and it’s used in their SLS process. This material offers excellent strength and stiffness, good chemical resistance, and excellent long-term consistency in material properties.
In the past, Brown has offered “green tires,” a magnetic balance and an armature timing tool, and he was a developer and manufacturer of the first “timing can” as well. Brown says he’s spent “countless hours in the research and development of fiber chassis and motors” and he’s worked with Boyt Johnson, Reggie Coram, and Wally Flemming.
Brown calls the new part “a 21st century, high-tech, 3D printed chassis,” and along with the release he’s also formed P.C.R., or Plastic Car Racing as part of the rollout. He says sometime in 2016, P.C.R. plans to hold a worldwide event at SlotCars-R-Us’ “The Track.”
They’re calling it “The Big Show,” and he says it’s all about “Big Money, Big Prizes, Big Trophies.”
The new chassis design is available in red, white, orange, blue and purple, and it comes in 4″ and 4 1/2″ options sold in kit form or pre-assembled.
The 3D printed chassis from the PCR team retails for $59.95, and you can find them at the Go Fast Products store.
Brown says he’s also working on a 4800 sq ft slot car racing facility in White House, TN, which will host a 1/8th mile slot car drag strip and “one of the best king tracks in the world.”
What do you think of this new 3D printed slot car racing chassis? Are you into slot car racing? Let us know in the High-Tech Slot Car Chassis forum thread on 3DPB.com.
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