Random photos: Got anything interesting, unique, strange?
- Thread starter Head Lice
- Start date
I see one Ford worth buying !
It has a chevy motor so Meh
Michigan man spends decades transforming his basement into slot car track
If Jimmy Attard needs to feel young again, he heads downstairs to the basement of his Dearborn home. It’s his fountain of youth, his trip back in time.
“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.”
Attard has one of the largest and most detailed slot car racing tracks in the country and it has been a labor of love building and detailing it for over 30 years, much of which he’d do when he wasn’t working as a chassis designer for Ford Motor Co., which he retired from in 2005.
His wood routed track can fit up to eight slot cars racing at the same time and fills much of his basement. At 25-feet-wide-by-18-feet-long, it 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.
And there’s no shortage of slot cars Attard can choose from. With close to 1,000, many that he has collected over time and some from his childhood growing up in Dearborn, he gets a little shy talking about them.
“I’m almost embarrassed, it’s almost an addiction you know? But I love it. I love every one of them. If one was missing, I’d know it,” he said.
Given the choice of what he loves more — the racing of slot cars that can reach 15 mph or the fine art of detailing the track, from the shrubbery to the 170 hand-painted figures around the track — it’s an easy answer: “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?”
Attard often spends countless hours at his workbench with a variety of fine detailed brush sets painting many things others might not appreciate.
“Those concrete barriers all around the track that have that dirty used look? I didn’t buy them that way. I scratch-made it that way. I can’t go to the store and buy it; I have to create it,” Attard said. “A lot of people don’t notice all the detail but it’s there for me and when someone notices the details and says something about it, it gives me the same rush I had when I’d assemble a model kit and show it to my dad.”
Much of Attard's detail work is inspired by going to actual tracks like where IndyCars race at Belle Isle. He attends not to watch the racing but to notice things many race fans pass on by. He’ll often take pictures and do sketches for his ideas scrapbook of everything from how the grass and weeds grow next to and through the concrete barriers to the fencing and advertising signage to the rubber streaks the race cars leave on the corners and on the track.
For Attard, his racetrack is all about making a connection with others.
“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.”
His basement is his sanctuary where he gets to do what he loves.
“Everybody has their thing and when they have a chance to do it, it takes them to another level and that’s what happens down here. I just get a rush out of it and when I go down there every day, I crack a smile. It makes me happy.”
https://www.freep.com/in-depth/news...my-attard-dearborn-slot-car-track/7191942001/
If Jimmy Attard needs to feel young again, he heads downstairs to the basement of his Dearborn home. It’s his fountain of youth, his trip back in time.
“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.”
Attard has one of the largest and most detailed slot car racing tracks in the country and it has been a labor of love building and detailing it for over 30 years, much of which he’d do when he wasn’t working as a chassis designer for Ford Motor Co., which he retired from in 2005.
His wood routed track can fit up to eight slot cars racing at the same time and fills much of his basement. At 25-feet-wide-by-18-feet-long, it 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.
And there’s no shortage of slot cars Attard can choose from. With close to 1,000, many that he has collected over time and some from his childhood growing up in Dearborn, he gets a little shy talking about them.
“I’m almost embarrassed, it’s almost an addiction you know? But I love it. I love every one of them. If one was missing, I’d know it,” he said.
Given the choice of what he loves more — the racing of slot cars that can reach 15 mph or the fine art of detailing the track, from the shrubbery to the 170 hand-painted figures around the track — it’s an easy answer: “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?”
Attard often spends countless hours at his workbench with a variety of fine detailed brush sets painting many things others might not appreciate.
“Those concrete barriers all around the track that have that dirty used look? I didn’t buy them that way. I scratch-made it that way. I can’t go to the store and buy it; I have to create it,” Attard said. “A lot of people don’t notice all the detail but it’s there for me and when someone notices the details and says something about it, it gives me the same rush I had when I’d assemble a model kit and show it to my dad.”
Much of Attard's detail work is inspired by going to actual tracks like where IndyCars race at Belle Isle. He attends not to watch the racing but to notice things many race fans pass on by. He’ll often take pictures and do sketches for his ideas scrapbook of everything from how the grass and weeds grow next to and through the concrete barriers to the fencing and advertising signage to the rubber streaks the race cars leave on the corners and on the track.
For Attard, his racetrack is all about making a connection with others.
“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.”
His basement is his sanctuary where he gets to do what he loves.
“Everybody has their thing and when they have a chance to do it, it takes them to another level and that’s what happens down here. I just get a rush out of it and when I go down there every day, I crack a smile. It makes me happy.”
https://www.freep.com/in-depth/news...my-attard-dearborn-slot-car-track/7191942001/
You and me both. That's just fabulous. I knew a guy similar but with large gauge model railroad.
Saw this on marketplace and got a little chuckle. Shocking!
Bottom is an early B-day present for my wife. The top is an old table lamp that is also an "Aughkstra" (stained glass) that I converted to just a nite lite - looks kinda like a genie bottle/vase now!
Flight 7. Another successful catch of Super Heavy. Starship was not so lucky.
Google "Moss Landing power plant fire"
Right by my old place of employment. I rode my bike right by that plant every day!
Right by my old place of employment. I rode my bike right by that plant every day!
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This says battery plant. @InOmaha just posted in the climate bs thread
https://www.ksbw.com/article/fire-moss-landing-battery-plant-hazmat-california/63448902
Last I checked, Castroville hadn't been evacuated - but if I were there, I'd be headed for SLO!
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