You raced at places with a track , not at home. You paid by the hour. The cars were about 6 inches long. I got a car for Christmas around 68. I think they did not last long when people bought smaller cars and tracks they could race at home for free I think my car was green and named an Asp.
I meant to put this in game room
I’m too young to have raced slot cars back then, but when I got interested in them in the mid '70s, I found several books about the bigger slot-car scales which had been printed in the '60s, and showed pictures of the commercial tracks.
Those bigger cars are either 1/24 or 1/32 scale; the smaller ones, which were focused on home racing, were HO scale, more or less (somewhere between 1/64 and 1/87 scale). I had an AFX set in the '70s, which was HO scale.
The bigger scales are still around, and there are still commercial racetracks, though I suspect that they are somewhat few and far between. There was a hobby shop here in the western suburbs of Chicago which focused on slot cars, and had a big track in their basement, but they closed up a few years ago, after decades of operation.
I never raced one but we used to go to the local slot track and watch. I think there were 3-4 different tracks, each (maybe) eight lanes wide with big banked curves. This was a whole different animal than the “at home” tracks with little cars. It was a long time ago so details area bit foggy.
I raced in NJ near North Bergen. It may have stayed around a while but since my father was tight with dollars we just raced at home once that was an option.
I had both 1:24 & 1:32 cars and a small portable track set up at home. This would have been 1963-1967 ish. There were big tracks at some of the local hobby shops which we occasionally got to go to & race for an hourish. But mostly we raced at home on our little track.
I last saw a real live track in use in 2014 here in SoFL. I had hunted down what seemed like the last old-style men’s/boy’s hobby shop in SoFL in pursuit of some small scale oddball raw metal stock for a non-hobby project. I was amazed to find the gigantic 8- or 10-slot track in there and even more amazed to see kids (well teens actually) racing.
I just tried to Google up the same store and could not find one near the location I think I remember. So it may have gone the way of the Dodo.
Yes, we had a track downtown for a while. When I was a child my uncle (who was only 5 years older than me) would take me to watch him race.
Soon after we built a massive track with landscaping in his basement for the smaller cars. Good memories!
I loved slot car racing! I had the Aston-Martin from Goldfinger, and the 1966 Batmobile. Jeez, those things could move around the track! 
One more feature of an odd childhood: we raced slot cars in the basement of a pet store.
I still remember walking past cages of iguanas, through a jungle (they sold plants too, told you it was odd), then through an unmarked door, where instead of a broom closet or a restroom, it was a long stairway down to another city, all laid out in 1/24th scale.
And it smelled of wintergreen.
The manager of the slot car track was full of great advice and his favorite was “If you want to corner better, here, try some of my wintergreen oil on your tires.” To this day, I try to find gum or mints in wintergreen, and the smell takes me back over half a century to long Saturday afternoons.
…
Yep, looks like it was the basement of Wisconsin Garden And Pet, 85th and North (I bet the basement is just storage, now… sigh. Ooh, bucket list item: stop by on a drive to Milwaukee, open the basement door and see if I can smell any wintergreen).
Same here. There was a track in a storefront on the NW side of Chicago - N side of Belmont, just W of Austin. Very hazy memories of stopping in when I was quite young (in the 60s).
BTW - several kids had the home systems, and they were all pretty much crap. My best friend and I were Hot Wheels fiends…
Yep, did slot cars, 1/24th scale, in the early '60s in New York City. Place used to be a grocery store and had 6 tracks as well as a drag strip track. Most of our cars were hand built of brass tubing and brass sheets.
Moved.
Yep; the track was also in the basement of a pet store. I had a Chaparral; which I believe was the first car with a rear-end spoiler.
I also had an HO scale track at home. The concept of taking my thumb off the accelerator was foreign to me – game play mostly consisted of going all out, wiping out on the curve, putting the car on the track, repeat.
1/25 scale was also a thing, no idea why there would be 1/25 and 1/24. Had a 1/32 Strombecker set as a kid. The 2 cars that came with it were a white Chaparral, pre-spoiler, and a blue Cobra. Best fun was slewing around corners to knock your opponent off the track. The set even had a starter: a little figure with a green flag, on a stand with a timer: set the timer, which cut the power, then the guy’s arm would drop, the circuit opened, and game on! Also raced 1/24 cars at a hobby shop with a massive 8 lane track a couple of times.
Used to race slot cars at a place in Bethesda MD. You could rent a car there but eventually I got my own. It was about the cheapest one available, not real great at handling curves. My brother had HO cars and track at home.
Strombecker. Strombecker. Now that’s a name I’ve not heard in a long time …a long time.
Takes me right back it does. Revell of course was the other big name in 1:24 & 1:32 ready-to-race (“RTR”) cars & home tracks.
Sixties? I was in some hobby shop in the late Seventies or early Eighties and they still had people racing slot cars!
I didn’t participate but I did watch. I had my own HO set at home.
And Eldon was another slot car manufacturer. I had a relative who worked in a department store’s toy department and snagged several Formula One slot cars for us: heaven!