Could This Dearborn Michigan Man Have The Largest Slot Car Racing Track In The World?

Finding this story took me back to when I was a young boy, as I get older I find this happening to me more often than not.  I used to love playing with my Hot Wheels cars and track. I was never lucky enough to have a slot car track.  The Detroit Free Press reported on the story of Jimmy Attard, a man who has been on a 30-year mission.

Who is Jimmy?  Jimmy is a 68-year-old retired man who retired from Ford Motor Company where he worked as a chassis designer.

Could this slot car track be the largest in the country or the world.  He certainly has a decent claim for those titles.  Now the details:

• It took him 30 years to create
• The track is carved in wood
• The track can handle eight cars
• The cars can go as fast as 15 mph
• The track is 25-feet-wide-by-18-feet-long
• It currently has 18 turns “including ones inspired by famous corners of actual racetracks, from the banked Turn 3 at Daytona to the corkscrew at California's Laguna Seca and the Larned tunnel in Detroit that Formula 1 cars raced through back in the 1980s”
• 170 hand-painted figures
• Approximately 1,000 cars

Jimmy told the Detroit Free Press that:

Down here, I don’t realize I’m in my late 60s. It’s no different than when I was a kid although today my track is on a much bigger scale, and I can afford it.

He is a very detail-oriented man who stated:

It’s all in the details. I’m trying to be as accurate as I can so that when a photograph is taken of the track, my goal is to leave you wondering if it was really taken at the apex of that turn or is this a model?

If you look at the pictures in the Detroit Free Press piece you will know exactly what he is talking about.  He has created an absolutely cool track and piece of boyhood memory.

Jimmy said it is all about making connections.  Listen to this wonderful story:

I had a 6-year-old boy knock on my door (who) said he heard I had a slot car track. I think he expected little cars and just a plastic track and, honest to God, I’ll never forget: He opened the door and he gasped; He was breathless. Well, today he’s 26 years old and he comes over to help me when other little kids come over to race and I just find joy in that.

It must be great to bring such a smile and love of the hobby to young children and have some of them grow up and be part of what you have created.

Check out this video, it will blow your mind and take some of you back to your childhood as it did for me.