From 1986 to 1995 my cousin Jean Pierre Roos and I were editors of the Euroslot magazine. Nowadays the 19 issues became collector's item, very hard to be found. In n°3, the 1986 pre-summer edition, we published in 5 parts the Social Economic History of Slot-Racing. J.P. Roos wrote it originally in Flemish and let translate it. The translation was nearly a disaster, in horrible English. The social-economic background was delivered by myself.
Now, two decades later, I consider the work of J.P. Roos still as the lonely well founded history of slot-racing ever written. Below I publish the facsimile of the study, which can be found at pp. 21-65 of Euroslot #3. I'll add a sixth part concerning the history of 1986 to 2004.
What stirs in this study is that the success of slot-racing was correlated for nearly 100 per cent with the success of endurance racing in autosport. The famous boom of the golden 1960s corresponds fully with the success of the famous Ford-Ferrari combat of 1964-1967. Never before and never later such large crowds were seen around the tracks. At the 1965 Nürburgring 1,000-kms one counted more than 400,000 spectators - a figure which came down to 50,000 in 1972.
Up from the early 1990s there was a revival in interna-tional slot-racing, provoked by the arrival of beautiful 1/32nd RTR cars launched by Ninco, Fly, SCX, ProSlot, etc. Such plastic cars, however, are hardly more than toys, in nothing comparable with the real slot-cars made by Cox, K&B, Monogram, Revell, Russkit and so many others during the 1960s. Toy-racing never revealed the same absolute racing talents as was done after the 1960s boom by metal-racing. Tuning of toy cars is nearly non-existent. Tuning of metal cars was decisive for the move from scale racing to wing car racing, where G7 racing became the true F1 of slot-racing. However, G7 racing remains restricted to hardly a couple of dozens of racers being able to win. So the real base of slot-racing remains always true scale metal racing, called nowadays model car racing.

In the course of the two last decades the issues of Euroslot became themselves part of the history of slot-racing. All issues from n°1 to n°13 were published at 10,000 copies and sent for free to the nearly 10,000 members of IMCA. In 1989 IMCA was handled over to Andy Smith, better known as "Professor Motor". He failed to maintain the structure of IMCA and by the end of 1989 IMCA became a ship out of control. In 1993 IMCA was again started up, but members were down to a couple of hundreds. That explains why only 300 copies of n°14 were printed. This issue is nearly no longer to be found. At a Dutch auction a copy of it was sold in 2002 at € 950! During 1994 IMCA was again growing so that of n°15 to n°17 over 3,000 copies were printed. N°18 was already published at 5,500 copies. The real last issue, n°19, was printed at 8,000 copies, but the announced Model Car Olympics could not be organised due to a lack of sponsoring money. For the second time IMCA went back to zero. In 1999 I started it up for the third time. Although there were no longer official "members" as from 1984 to 1989 and from 1993 to 1996, number of racers interested in model car racing increased from year to year. Based upon the number of readers of the IMCA web-site, having replaced since 2000 the former Euroslot magazine, there must be between 8,000 and 11,000 model car enthusiasts visiting regularly the IMCA web site.

From the "short cuts" in 1990 and in 1996 I learned that it is plenty of risks to change the main direction of an international model car sanctioning body such as IMCA. I believe that IMCA can only survive as long as there is at least one person able to define the structures of both the IMCA Nats and the IMCA EuroNats. Someone has to decide who are the racers invited at both contests and which cars will be raced by who. My hope that Chris Radi-sich (NZ), the actual IMCA president, could fulfil that task after my withdrawal of international slot-racing was vain. So I feel obliged to continue that task - of structuring the IMCA Nats and the EuroNats - until the moment that others, with fully experience of all what happens on the int'l model car scene - can be found.
There is hope that Tamar Nelwan (NL), Salvatore Noviello (I), Dieter Jens (D), Francesc Reyes (E), Yves Welter sr (B) and many others will find the way to continue a work I started twenty years ago. Model car racing remain the real base of slot-racing, especially since model car racing maintains the link between autosport and slot-racing, a link totally absent in scale racing as governed by ISRA and in wing car racing as governed by USRA and ESROC. Here efforts need to be done that model car racing becomes more than an exclusive European form of slot-racing. Contacts with the USA, South-America, Australia and Japan should be made much stronger than they were in the past. [JPVR]

The birth of the postmodern society
How can we understand the situation in a postmodern world, if we stay ignorant for the main characteristics of this postmodern world? That enforces me to explain first of all the typical characteristics of our post-modern western society.
During the last quarter of the 20th the western society became a prey to a deep social crisis characterized by insecurity. The deeper roots of this crisis are to be found in the monopolisation tendency of the post-industrial society, inducing a strongly decreased social control. I explain. Capitalistic production implies an increa-sing concentration of production means. Such concentration implies a fewer number of competitors on the market and an increasing monopoly degree. Such tendency makes an economy as a whole more vulnerable: the business cycles became shorter and periods of overproduc-tion are more frequent. In such periods manufacturers increase their costs for publicity, creating artificial needs for consumption goods.

Increasing youth violence in the American postmodern society: assaults and robberies per 1,000 12th graders. The graph learns that almost 400 assaults with injury and robberies with a weapon were reported per 1,000 high school seniors (17-18 years) in 1998. Increasing yought violence is only one of the several dysfunctional aspects of the postmodern society being characterised by increasing insecurity and decreasing social control.

During the period 1945 to 1970 this artificially created need on consumption goods inspired in the western world more and more women to enter the production process, increasing by paid labour the household's income. In 1945 hardly 30 % of the US labour force was female, in 2003 that was up to 46 %. An increasing emancipation of women was the eufunc-tional effect. However, the fact that more and more women were no longer finan-cially dependent from their husbands, contributed to a sharp increase of the number of divorces. In 1945 the average duration of an US marriage was more than 35 years. In 2004 it was down to less than 10 years. The likelihood of new marriages ending in divorce is in the US already up to more than 44 %. A similar tendency could be observed in the whole western world.
All this implied a radical change in the traditional family structure. In the western world the stable and broad family was reduced to the nuclear family being much more vulnerable than before. Family stability made place for family insecu-rity. Social control over the children, within the family, decreased, resulting in a higher degree of absenteeism at school. This increasing absenteeism resulted in a sharp increase of youth criminality and in much more violence, as well at school as in the street.

At the same time another mean of social control disappeared. In a typical materia-listic consumption society, provoked by the increasing monopoly degree, spiritual values loose their influence. Between 1950 and 2000 the role of the Church in western societies decreased sharply. Norm consciousness became more and more vague resulting in a postmodern society with totally changed ethics. 
Lower social control results in general in psychological feelings of insecurity. Around 1975, during the structural econo-mic crisis of persistent overproduction those feelings were sharpened by an increasing fear for unemployment. 
Long structural economic crises are the result of more and more obsolete giant firms working under conditions of decreasing returns of scale. That means that an increase with a certain percentage in the input of production factors (labour and capital) results in an increase of production with a lower percentage. Economics describe such situation as one with too low elasticity of scale. Once an economy as a whole reaches the point where the elasticity of scale is lower than one, production costs increase faster than returns, resulting in a sharp decline of profits. That's what happened in nearly the complete western world after the 1973-74 petroleum crisis.

Once arrived in a situation where production costs increase faster than returns the economy as a whole is victim of persisting overproduction. Then firms try to decrease the overproduction by conquering a larger part of the world market. But who wins the struggle for the world market: not the firm with the lowest wages, but the firm with the highest productivity. The higher the labour productivity, the lower the wage cost is per unit of output. So firms will massively invest in new machinery at the very moment that a large part of the production capital is unemployed. Such investments are labour-saving and contribute in a larger unemployment. But larger unemployment means a decrease in the general purchase power, resulting in still more overproduction on the national market and in more dependency from the world market. But to win the combat on the world market new labour-saving investments are needed so that the economy as a whole enters a negative spiral. This process continues until the moment that the production costs increase more slowly than the return, thus until the moment that the elasticity of scale (of the economy as a whole) exceeds one: only then decreasing returns of scale are stopped and followed by increasing returns of scale. In the western world this crisis persisted during more than 15 years and resulted in a persistent fear for unemployment, thus in feelings of material insecurity. Those insecurity feelings, both in psychological and material sense, are the main characteristics of the postmodern society.

Dysfunctional consequences
Life in a postmodern and post-industrial society is certainly more complicated than in the modern industrial society of the golden sixties. Since criminality and violence increased there is a contra-reaction of the State, claiming the monopoly of contra-violence. Rights on privacy are continuous-ly violated by a police suspecting every-body as a potential criminal.
Big Brother is watching you more and more. Since criminality is associated with lower income groups and since foreigners belong in mass to such groups racism is increasing. People are living in perpetual panic: will I loose my job tomorrow? Will my wife let me alone? Am I still secure in my proper house now that home jacking became a new form of criminality?  Will my kids take drugs? Have my kids still a future in a no-future society? Will I still have an old-age pension now that my State has such an high public debt?
In such society of continuous fear more and more people belonging to the middle and upper class ask for a strong leader, even if he limits certain democratic rights.

Eufunctional consequences
But at the same time the post-industrial society enjoys a high number of advanta-ges. The struggle against the too low elasticity of scale resulted in a never seen technological progress. In less than two decades everybody has his home computer, has his handiphone, has access to the new Internet, can commu-nicate by e-mail with the rest of the world. All this creates a (false) belief in increased freedom. This technological progress will have a great influence in slot-racing, as will be seen later. Racers are much better informed via the Internet on all what is going in the world. Expensive telephone calls and letters are replaced by cheap e-mails. A real internationalisation of slot-racing is at once possible at lower costs.
Increased mobility transforms the labour market. Workers and employees are now longer condemned to work life long for the same boss. They switch jobs at a never seen pace. Labour mobility is at once several times higher than two decades before. That too results in a higher (but false) belief in uninhibited freedom. Liberalism is the new credo.
In a fast transforming society norms change quickly. Marriage between men and women is no longer the corner-stone of the sound society. Weddings between homosexuals and lesbians are more and more accepted. Sexuality is much more free now that religion lost its power.

Creation of a new bipolar world
With the fall of the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain, people had the illusion to live in a world no longer threatened by communism. At once the arms race was stopped and that was interpreted as the way to world peace. The two-power world, at once, became a world dominated by one State, claiming the hegemony over the rest of the world, the United States. People forgot that exactly that State was the most belligerent of all States, deciding on war and peace beyond all international institutions. Now that the arms race was abruptly stopped profit was in great danger. Indeed, more than 25 % of all American profits depended upon the arms race. For the American economy - a typical war economy - the outbreak of peace was a real disaster. New wars were needed to keep profits going. In this search for wars the world's leading nation was helped by the opposite transformation of society in East and West. 
While in the western world marriage was no longer the corner-stone of the sound society, the oppression of the female in the eastern society, especially in the Muslim world, made that only a low percentage of women had access to the labour market. The increase of divorces in the western world, followed by general norm fading was seen by the Muslim world as a sign of western deterioration, of western decadency. While in the western world the traditional (large) family was replaced by the nuclear family - with far-reaching economic and sociological consequences - eastern religion not only maintained, but even strengthened the traditional family. Instead of loosing its influence over the society and its norms, the eastern religion enforced its authority over the society. Church and State were no longer two different social institutions, but underwent a dangerous osmosis where politics were inspired by religion. With the steady progress of the western society corresponds a steady decline of the eastern society, more and more sliding down in fanatic fundamentalism.
And exactly on the border of two societies, developing in opposite direction, we find Israel, claiming the monopoly of all sorrow as direct victims of Nazism. Threatened from all sides by the Muslim world, the Jewish State spends one third of its GDP on armament. By treating the Palestines as second-hand citizens in their own country, Israel became the sworn enemy of the traditional Muslim world. Continuously Israel violates the most elementary human rights, driven by the obsession to preserve security. In the centre between two societies, developing in opposite direction, Israel was always supported by its most direct ally, the USA. So the USA became the sworn enemy of the Muslim World.

September 11 was no accident of history. It was the clash between the ultimate postmodern world and the ultimate fundamentalist world. At once the mightiest power on earth was hit at its most vulnerable place: its proud. Terrorism can be considered as the ultimate disputability that only States have the monopoly of violence via their armed forces. It's blind hate of the powerless, acting as an enemy without face, having not the smallest respect for innocent citizens.
The reaction of president George W. Bush was hardly more than the reprisals against a substitute enemy, especially since his short war in Afghanistan failed to bring him Osuma Bin Laden. Telling the American people that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, pointed at the heart of the American State, was exactly the same lie as his father's when he was telling king Fath of Saudi-Arabia that Iraq had the same weapons pointed at the heart of Riad. Here the proof was given with by the CIA falsified pictures. In that sense the First and the Second Gulf War were based on false pretexts to make war in a world where the arms race had stopped.

Terror as a weapon for elections
Blind terror by the fundamentalists is abused at western political elections to vote all kinds of non-democratic laws, violating the privacy. Moreover it increases the general postmodern climate of insecurity and fear. Crowds need to know to be anxious. The more anxious they are, the more conservative politicians can let believe that they are the rescuers of the nation. Very typical was what happened at the Spanish elections where a terrorist attack had to be the work of the Basque separatists, even if it was obvious that they had nothing to do with it. And at the American elections Bush the Liar maintained his lies that there was a link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, being the ultimate justification for an endless war against the substitute enemy. 
The fear for terrorism, for home-jacking, for car-jacking, for robbery, etc. makes life in a postmo-dern society less comfortable than before. Peaceful co-habitation between autochthonous population and foreign population within the same country borders is continuously in danger. The new bipolar world after the Fall of the Wall is now tangible in most western society where the presence of Muslims  is often source of blind racism. Nowhere the multicultural society is a stable achievement.

Drugs as escapism
Social insecurity is source of a sharply increased escapism in all kinds of drugs. The LSD of the 1960 was replaced among youngsters in much more large scale by XTC. The rock and roll dancings were replaced by temples of house music, being at the same place sanctuaries of drug abuse. At the same time, the increased stress provoked by the postmodern society, increases the consumption of alcohol and tranquilizers. 

Is there still place for slot-racing in a postmodern society?
In two decades time the whole world was thoroughly changed. Mass consumption of PCs introduced completely new forms of amusement. Video games as manufactured by Playstation, Nintendo and others were the new favourite toy of youngsters. At once the turn-over of slot-racing and R/C products decreased sharply. Youngsters were no longer interested in assembling cars. Even the consumption of model kits, as manufactured by Revell, Monogram, Hasegawa, AMT, Tamiya was decreasing. In the postmodern society the complete culture changed. Even our eating changed: with more and more women involved in the production process demand for ready meals - as copied from the USA - increased sharply. Later that became generalised for lots of other products. Only ready-for-use products were still wanted. Between 1985 and 1990 it could be feared that slot-racing was on its way to disappear totally. Youngsters, educated in a ready-for-use society, were only interested in RTR slot cars, manufactured only by a very low number of manufacturers. Among them Carrera having changed of owner several times after the initial owner committed suicide.

Nothing influenced post 1985 scale racing more than Pinky Point. By bringing 1/32nd (scale) racers and 1/24th (wing car) racers from all parts of the world together, the old-fashioned ES32 cars were systematically replaced by modern ES24 cars, using chassis and motors inspired by wing car racing.

How tampon printing saved slot-racing
At the end of the 1980s a group of Spanish slot-racing enthusiasts discovered that the old technique of tampon printing - since years applied in the ceramic industry - could be applied to plastic wares. What was needed were three-dimensional moulds and a mass production of bodies. It was the start for Ninco, later followed by Fly, ProSlot, Slot-It, SCX, Scalextric and others, selling ready-for-use slot cars. Of those companies only Scalextric survived - not without problems - the golden sixties. Early 1990 slot-racing products were again available in model car shops and ware houses. There is a general prejudice that 1/32nd scale RTR cars are sold to a consumer's group between 35 and 50 years old. That is only true for the collector's items sold by those companies. But the majority of the consumers are kids. Although looking beautiful the technological level of the RTR 1/32nd cars is very low. They use plastic chassis allowing nearly no tuning and no advanced set-up. In Europe several slot-racing clubs quit the too expensive scale racing with ES32 and ES24 cars to switch to toy-racing. The level of competition remains low and hardly one toy-racer became a good slot racer. Among the scarce exceptions we can name Gilles Dohogne and Yves Welter jr.

Scale racing at 1/32nd was less influenced by wing car racing than at scale 1/24th. The tripod chassis of 1/24th racing could not be used at a smaller change, but motors with open cans were clearly influenced by wing car racing. Used 1/32nd chassis in laser cut steel became much more expensive and reduced 1/32nd scale racing to a very limited number of racers all over the world.

The failing TSRF approach
Several small companies, having not followed the structural change of the post-modern society, continued to manufacture slot-racing kits. Among them Patto in Aus-tralia, White Point in Germany and Pro-Track in the USA, designated for model car racing with true scale lexan, hard plastic, resin or GFK bodies. In order to be competitive on the market they release low quality products having never found their way to the model car shops. A promising and better approach seemed the one followed by Philippe de Lespinay in the States. Himself involved in the develop-ment of slot-racing material for Cox at the end of the 1960s, he launched by the end of the century his TSRF slot-car kits for cars at 1/32nd and 1/24th. He developed an original chassis with a plastic centre piece and steel pans. It was a revolutionary con-cept since only one screw was needed to hold the chassis together. Nevertheless the new product failed to conquer the market. Manufactured by an old man, he forgot that the ready-to-use postmodern society is only interested in good looking finished pro-ducts. Although the TSRF was an innova-tion, the quality of the RTR products, remained low in order to keep the price competitive. Refusing Tampon printing, the delivered bodies needed to be painted, what made comptition with the RTR Ninco & Fly cars almost impossible. 

The Pinky Point factor (1985-1986)
No other event had such far-reaching repercussions on the history of slot-racing as Pinky Point. It was a series of nearly 60 races organised in Belgium, France and Holland with a real Ferrari 308GTB as first prize. A group of wealthy business men, having been in the mid 1960s involved in competition racing, discovered that two decades later they was a tremendous gap between 1/24th racers (using wing cars) and 1/32nd racers (using scale cars). There was nearly no contact between those two groups. Meanwhile slot-racing had scrambled down to a hobby of the poor. Wing car racing at 1/24th was popular in the States, in South-America, in Japan, in Australia, in Germany, in Holland, in Switzerland, in Scandinavia and in Austria. Scale racing at 1/32nd was popular in the UK, in France, in Spain, in Italy, in Belgium, in South-Africa and in New Zealand. International wing car racing was governed by such federations as USRA, and ESRAC. International scale racing was governed by the French UES (Union Européen du Slot). Between those two groups there was not the smallest communication.
Reasoning that both forms of slot-racing originated from the same roots - hard plastic bodied model cars as manufactured by Cox, Monogram, Revell, etc. during the golden sixties - the central device of Pinky Point was: back to the roots. Over $ 2,000,000 US was invested in plane tickets for racers from all parts of the globe, meeting each other at the several Pinky Point meetings. So the gap between both groups of racers was bridged. It was the real start of a new kind of racing, next wing car racing and scale racing: model car racing.

It took several years before the notion "model car racing" was well understood in all parts of the world. Even up to know most American racers have hardly notion of what "model car racing" is. For them its synonymous with scale racing, just another form of it.
End 1985 the IMCA (International Model Car Association) was founded before notary Van Tricht. From 1985 to 1989 IMCA organised at Antwerp (B), Valkenburg (NL), Toulouse (F) and twice Chicago (USA) the world championships for the 3 forms of slot-racing: wing car racing, scale racing and model car racing. IMCA opened also several slot-racing centres: in Font-Remeu (F), Toulouse (F), Antwerp (B) and Chicago (USA). It contributed to a further internationalisation of slot-racing competi-tion. 
End 1988 Jean Pierre van Rossem - the driving force behind IMCA - bought his own F1 team, Onyx, with Stefan Johansson and Bertrand Gachot as racers. The team finished 10th on 20 teams and finished once 3rd at the Portugal GP. After this GP Gachot - called by the press "Betrand Crashot" for the unbelievable number of crashes he made - was replaced on advice of Keke Rosberg by J.J. Lehto.

JPVR's involvement in F1 had as direct consequence that IMCA was left over to Andy Smith, better known as "Professor Motor". He organised the 1989 Worlds in Chicago. At the end of the season, however, the budget was consumed, and no new substantial sponsors were found. Several regional IMCA federations originated in the States, but all they moved in the direction of scale racing with horrible lexan bodies, whilst model car racing with hard plastic bodies was no longer continued.
One important consequence of Pinky Point was that scale racers adopted bit by bit wing car principles in scale racing. Stamped chassis and laser cut chassis were at scale 1/24th replaced by tripod chassis and open cans found their way to scale racing. A new class, ES24, was born. Several wing car racers, such as Jon Laster, Jan Limpach, Dan Debella, Csaba Szekelyhidi, and others launched 1/24th scale racing in the US.

The dark years (1990-1993)
Once IMCA was no longer active the organisation of world championships for scale cars and model cars was stopped. In 1991 the NPRA (BR) organised a poorly attended Ersatz world championship. In 1992 the UES, never more than a ghost or-

ganised a well attended Worlds for scale racers. In 1993 the new created ISRA becomes the new organiser of scale racing world championships. They continued to do so until today. In wing car racing the organisation of world championships is continued by USRA, ESROC (the successor of ESRAC) and NPRA. But during the dark period 1990-1993 attendance is extremely poor. In 1993 e.g. Jon Laster wins the wing car worlds ahead of only 18 other entrants.

The Petri-Jens factor (1993-1996)
The major problem of model car racing with hard plastic bodies is that no universal chassis was found which could be used under any hard plastic body. Model cars by the end of 1989 were hardly more than motorised "maquettes". In Germany, however, Kurt Petri, a small slot-racing distribu-tor, has discovered a strange chassis, with lots of bolts and nuts, manufactured in Japan by a cer-tain Nori Ono: the PlaFit chassis. Everybody is initially very critical for such strange chassis, but after countless tests everybody must also agree that it works wonderful with hard plastic bodies. Petri signs a distribution contract for Europe with PlaFit. He promotes several local races and the chassis is a success among model car racers. Distribution in Spain is done by Cric-Crac, in England by MRRC. Thanks to the commercial efforts by Petri, the PlaFit chassis is generally accepted in most European countries.

Eventually the new chassis is attractive enough that, helped by Raymond van Campenhout (a former IMCA employee and excellent tuner of ...scale cars) a new IMCA track is built in view of a new start of the International Model Car Association.In 1994 a 10-year sponsoring deal is conclu-ded between IMCA on one side and NASCAR sponsors and Mello Yello on the other side.  Nascar bodies, PlaFit Evolution chassis and Slot Works motors become the new international standard in model car racing. All top racers of the world are again invited at the Model Car World Champion-ship. New are the Czechs with the totally unknown Vladimir Horky, Josef Korec and Frantisek Poledna. Up from now international model car racing is popular in most European countries.
Meanwhile  Dieter Jens - a former good wing car racer - discovers in Japan another universal chassis fitting under all kinds of hard plastic bodies: Sakatsu. Also disco-vered are resin bodies of Mini Exotics, Le Mans Miniatures, Fisher, Studio 27, etc. Up from 1996 Jens organises a yearly Le Mans Challenge restricted to model cars having seen at the Le Mans 24 hours. Model car racing becomes extremely popular in Germany.

At the left side a Nascar car in scale version, fitted on the Slot Works chassis. In the mid an AMT Ertl hard plastic Nascar body fitted on the PlaFit Evolution chassis with Slot Works motor. At the right a hard plastic Monogram body, fitted on the same motorised chassis. Prices of the RTR cars are res. DM 113.51, DM 183.27 and DM 215.57. Average speeds on the new IMCA track at a 1,000-laps test were res. 13.841 kph, 12.723 kph and 12.731 kph. The complete test can be found in EuroSlot n°15 at pp. 38-39.

The stable factor: wing car racing
Whilst the new model car racing and renewed scale racing (where ES24 was introduced) go their own ways, wing car racing takes profit of the strong technolo-gical revolution having contributed to the end of the persistent structural economic crisis (1973-1988). Especially the open class (G7) enjoys lot of improvements. The world record on Blue King tracks goes down from 2"459 [Jon Laster on December 15 at Uden, NL] to 2"017 [Mike Swiss on March 1990 at Chicago] and 1"787 [Paul Ciccarello at Port Jefferson on March 1995].
This spectacular progress goes thanks to the use of multi quad cobalt magnets, hollow axles, new electronic speed controllers and digital chokes. The price of a RTR G7 car is by all this sharply increased and number of G7 racers in the world decreases from 1985 to 1995. Former triple G7 world champion Paul Pfeiffer launches a new form of wing car racing, Formula 2000, where hollow axles and multi quads are forbidden, but the majority of the pros refuses the alternative class.
The progress is even more stirring if one analyses the progress in the number of achieved laps over 40 minutes. On December 29, 1985, Csaba Szekelyhidi succeeds a new record of 699 laps at Phantasy Raceway. On January 10, 1988 Mike Swiss realises already 842 laps at the Midwest USRA #1.

Here the G7 car with which Paul "Beuf" Pedersen won in 2004 both the USRA Nats and the World Championship. During the 1980s there was a sharp competition between Koford, Camen, ProSlot and Alpha as main manufacturers of G7 parts. Eventually only Koford survived the 1990s. ProSlot returned to the production of arms (and sold also 1/32nd scale plastic cars). Alpha returned to the production of mainly wheels and tires. New on the market was PK, famous for its much appreciated arms.  At a first sight a 2004 G7 cars differs not so much of a 1985 G7 car. The use of light weight chassis, hollow axles, muti magnets, etc., however, made the cars much faster.

Then we have to wait 4 full years before Juha Yli-Sipola can improve Swiss's record by ...one lap at Mönsteras, followed the same day by 871 laps realised by Anders Gustafson at the same track. May 1992 Peter Lala realises 874 laps at Munich. August 1992 Mario MSP Schöne makes it 897 laps on the same track. The first to go over 900 laps is Darryl Zirbel at the 1992 Australian Nats, where he lets note 910 laps. During the 10 following years (1995-2004) the progress in wing car racing slow down. On April 14 Jari Porttinen realises a new world record on the Kouvola Blue King of 1"548.
In twenty years time number of G7 racers seen in competition went down from 576 racers in 1985 to 382 racers in 1990, 288 racers in 1995, 139 racers in 2000 and 168 racers in 2004. Now G7 racing is restricted to the USA, Brazil, Australia, Scandinavia and Czechia. During those last 10 years the speed of the G7 cars was not so much improved, but pros succeeded better and better to master those high speeds.

 Zirbel's 910 laps - still a record in 1995 - have been improved bit by bit, resulting in 1,133 laps realised by Paul Ciccarello at the warm-up race of the 2004 World Championship at Port Jefferson. Such high speeds over 40 minutes were only possible by modifying the Blue King tracks becoming more and more swoopy and being banked much more than twenty years ago.
As top-class in slot-racing G7 racing became the field of the happy few. Nevertheless wing car racing was the lonely class in slot-racing where the continuity of world championships was NOT interrupted after IMCA stopped in 1989 to organise the three world championships (wing cars, scale cars, model cars). In this sense it remained the stabilising factor in international racing, despite its sharply decreased number of adepts. The spectacular progress in G7 wing car racing resulted in a further narrowing of the number of pros. Japan and Australia could no longer follow. In Japan the last surviving Blue King closed its doors in 2004.The last years number of active Japanese G7 race was down to hardly 10.

And at the 2004 Ultimate Group 7 Race in Uden, full evidence was given that the Australian pros of the post-Wayne Bramble generation, were no longer competitive. None of them was able to reach the main final, and at no moment they were able to compete with the best Americans and best Europeans.
But also in other countries G7 racing was no longer practiced. In Germany all Blue King tracks disappeared. In Switzerland G7 racing was stopped after the legendary Hans-Peter Sutter died in an accident. In Austria Martin Gramann - with Mario MSP Schöne the lonely racer in the world having won the G7 Worlds, the USRA G7 Pro and the ESROC G7 Nats - closed his shop and sold his beautiful Blue King to a club in Czechia. In 2002 Stefan Hommel made a trial to revitalise G7 racing in Austria, but less than one year later the trial ended with bankrupt. In Holland, having always been a famous G7 nation, G7 racing is only practiced by Douwe Banning. In Canada G7 racing totally disappeared (the lonely Canadian pro, young Greg Mills, lives in the States). Only in Czechia G7 racing won several new adepts.

G12 racing, future of wing car racing?
In its lower classes - G27 and G15 Int'l - wing car racing conserved its adepts much better than in G7 racing. Serious progress was noted in G12 racing. During the 1980s such racing went with stamped chassis as released by Champion, ProSlot, Racer Products and EuroToys. Bodies were of non-winged scale car type. During the 1990s some racers equipped their G7 or G27 chassis with a cheap standard G12 motor, creating the so-called Box Stock G12, being less expensive than G7 racing, and winning year by year more adepts.  Recognised by the USRA, NPRA and the Australian Federation, the new class succeeded the recuperation of wing car racers having quit G7 racing. Costing only a fraction of a G7 car, and equipped by inexpensive G12 motors, the new class became in five years time extremely popular in the USA, in Australia and in Brazil. In Europe the new class became only popular in England, where nearly all former G7 racers (among them Adrian Gay, Ian Barker, Eddy McDonald, Tony Hough, Mervin Hunt, etc.) switched to G12. Here the BSCC (British Slot Car Club) governed the rules. In Holland and Belgium Douwe Banning and Philip de Vries started the new Multi Open Dutch.

The last years G12 racing as recognised by the USRA in the States and the NPRA in Brazil became popular. Using chassis and bodies very similar to G7, but inexpensive motors, arms, axles and wheels, the class attrachted several amateur racers, but also pros. In Europe G12 racing is only practiced in England and in Holland. No international federation governs the new class.

In the States a special class of G12 wing car racing originated, Cobalt G12, using motors with cobalt magnets, just as in G7 and G27. Those cars go actually nearly as fast as a G7 car of the mid-1980s. They are, however, so expen-sive that the number of adepts remains low. Box Stock G12 and Cobalt G12 struggle with a serious handicap: they don't fit in the postmodern ready-to-use society. RTR G12 cars are sold - e.g. by Koford - but have to compete against cars having been thoroughly modified. The direct conse-quence is that the class attracts nearly no youngsters, only former wing car racers having switched to a fast and inexpensive class. Outside the USA, Australia and Brazil no international federation organises races for G12 cars. That is a real handicap for the promotion of the new formula. It's now waiting on ESROC to put G12 to their calendar. But even if such will be done it remains uncertain if G12 can become the wing car class of the future. The set-up of such cars needs hours of work, whilst youngsters in a postmodern society are only interested in typical ready-to-use products. Moreover such cars can only be raced well on typical Blue King tracks, whilst the number of European Blue King tracks remains too low for a well-spread international G12 competition.

The last years Cobalt G12 was added. A Cobalt G12 is now able to achieve a fastest lap on Blue King of around 2"010. The cars are nearly as expensive as G7 and even in the USA and Brazil the new class attrackts hardly more than a dozen of racers.

Scale Racing under the ISRA umbrella (1994-2004)
Scale racing has always been sitting between two chairs. It tries the impossible co-ordination of speed (as obtained by the wing cars) with true scale (as reached by the model cars). The used bodies are more and more scale of nothing else than madness. In wing car racing the position is very clear: here one opts exclusiverly for speed, without further conotation to autosport. In model car racing one opts for true scale models of cars seen in autosport.
During the last 20 years degeneration in scale racing increased year after year. The used bodies and the ridiculous front wheels, the O-rings of wing cars, make that there is no more "scale" left.
Number of international scale meetings in the world remains extremely restricted. There are the annual ISRA World Championships, taking 8 days or more for only 4 races. Whilst in any sport a world championship is only open to a restricted number of entrants, ISRA accepts everybody at the start.

Since 1999 the USRA organises yearly its USRA Division II Nats. Since 2000 there are also the so-called German Masters at Minden. And only in 2004 the EuroCup was added to the calendar, with races in Gotha, Zlin, Minden and Pardubi-ce. At a more regional scale we know the Baltic Open (in Latvia; Lithuania and Estonia). For the rest scale racing is restricted to national championships with the BSCRA Nats (GB), ANSI Nats (I), NSZCA (NZ), SAMCA Nats (RSA), Swedish Nats and Finnish Nats as best known events. The Czech Nats, over several rounds, disappeared. In France, Belgium, Holland, Spain, Norway, Slovakia, Bulgaria, etc. number of scale racers went so sharply down that no national championships are any more organised.
Although G12 scale racing has by far the most adepts, ISRA organises no races for G12 cars. That is typical for the extremely conservative structure of an organisation, having even no proper web site. From 1999 to 2003 Raymond van Campenhout organised the EEC (European Endurance Championship) for G12 cars with races in England, Belgium, Holland and France, but G12 cars are too expensive to be raced at other races than sprint races. Other important G12 races were organised by Minden (D), at the 1/24th BSCRA Nats and by IMCA (2002 to 2004).

Although scale racing is a typical European activity ISRA organises its Scale Racing World Championships once every two years in Europe and once every two years in America (USA or Brazil). That results in a situation where once every two years a world championship goes nearly exclusively with Europeans. In 2004 at the ISRA Worlds in Lund (S) there were 111 entrants, a majority from Scandinavia and the Baltic States, and exactly ...2 non-Europeans.
The level of such ISRA Worlds entirely depends upon the organising clubs. Some events as Helsinki 2000 and Lund 2004 were organised on a very professional way, others like Ribera 2001 were pure disasters.
Number of active scale racers in the world seriously decreased since 1985. That year we noted still 8,896 active racers in the world. In 1995 this figure was already down to 5,993 and in 2003 we counted 2,981 racers (Russia and the Baltic States included). Main reason for the withdrawal of so many racers is that ES32 and 132F1 are extremely expensive and need a thorough technical know-how to come to a correct set-up of the cars. An international sanctioning body with an open eye for what changes in the sport, should have restricted the ISRA Worlds to ES24, PR24 and G12 with events restricted to maximum 4 days. However, under influence of its conservative leaders, nothing changed within 10 years.

In some countries, especially Italy (once the #1 in scale racing during the highdays of Sergio Maresca and Alberto Capra), Spain and France (once the motor of the UES in the days of Francesco German Domingo, Miguel La-borda, Josep Armengol, and Gérard Cau-pène), number of scale racers returned to nearly nihil. In Holland, Belgium, Canada and Bulgaria scale racing belongs definitively to the past. In the USA number of scale racers is only a small fraction of number of active wing car racers, despite the fact that Paul Gawronski is one of the best scale racers in the world. Scandinavia discovered scale racing very late, and it are typical (ex-)wing car racers who came in. In England and Czechia, New Zealand and South-Africa, the erosion of scale racers could be limited, but the number of newcomers stays low.
A typical step-in class for scale racing is PR124, where the Flexi-cars could maintain their popula-rity. Unfortunately number of races for Flexi-cars, outside the USA, remains very restricted. Never-theless only this class fits well in a postmodern society with youngsters swearing by ready-to-use products. A handicap for the Flexi-cars is that they are not equipped with nice bodies. End 1999 hope was great that Philippe de Les-pinay could find an opening in the market by launching his TSRF scale cars, being true scale products. The new TSRF, however, suffered from too many child diseases, to convince. Quality was sacrified in order to keep the prices low. So the expected success story could not be materialised.

Model Car Racing 1994-1999: Lots of confusion
The situation of slot-racing around 1995 can be summarised as follows: wing car racing could maintain its position in the USA, Brazil, Australia, Scandinavia and Czechia, despite a sharp decreased number of G7 adepts. What was lost on G7 racers could be won back by Box Stock G12. Scale racing lost more than two thirds of its adepts in the world and moved more and more in the direction of "no scale at all". Model car racing is invaded by several thousands of new home racers having discovered 1/32nd RTR cars with plastic chassis. More and more former scale racers make the move towards 1/32nd plastic racing being restricted to simple club races.  Its hard to calculate in how far the 1/32nd plastic racers increased the number of competitive model car racers. There can be no doubt that the balance has been positive for countries as Spain, France and Italy, where the number of "racers" increased, but at what cost: nearly no "metal" racers were left after the majority moved in the direction of the "plastic" cars.
In 1994 and 1995 IMCA organised again a world championship for model cars, in 1994 spread over rounds at Brussels, Hardinxveld and Mörfelden, in 1995 in Mörfelden. In 1994 IMCA organised in Mechelen also a world championship for juniors. It was a financial disaster, since of the promised sponsoring money not one single dollar was received. For this race IMCA let make in Canada a special tri-oval track which was won by the nation with the best youngsters. The track went to Czechia after a gruelling combat with Slovakia.
Up from 1996 the model car racing situation was very confused. In most Euro-pean countries there was such a strong move in the direction of the 1/32nd plastic cars, that it was impossible to find decent national teams for a world championship with metal plastic cars.
Eventually the most 1/24th model car racers, having not switched into the direction of toy-racing with "plastic" cars, could be found in Germany, but concrete information on the spread of German model car racers over the several German clubs was hardly to find. It took until 1999 before it was possible to organise again a representative world championship for model cars. As ultimate preparation for it IMCA organised by the end of 1999 the famous Race of the Century, a 12 hour event with 18 teams of 3 racers each, and spread over 3 week-ends. The best all-rounders of the world were invited at it with racers from the USA, Brazil, Sweden, Holland, France, Belgium, Czechia, Slovakia, Germany, etc.

Essentially the race was a combat between America's Jan Limpach and Czechia's Vladimir Horky to decide who of them should finish at the first place of the IOC list by the start of the new century. This IOC list is the all-time ranking of slot-racers, based upon the 30 most important races in the world (10 for wing cars, 10 for scale cars and 10 for model cars). Horky had as team mates Jan Korec and Frantisek Poledna. Limpach had as team mates Geert Mertens and JPVR. One thing was sure, the winner of both teams should head the IOC-list by January 1, 2000. After 9 hours of racing both top teams were leading within ...the same lap. Eventually Limpach's team won the race ahead of Horky's. Other famous racers present were "Gugu" Bernardino (BR), Lasse Äberg (S), Anders Gustafson (S), Hugo Dekker (NL), Jozef Miskolci (SK), Dominique Bellenger (F), Marc Joyeux (F), Philippe de Lespinay (USA), Ron Hershman (USA), Ralph Klose (D), Thomas Hahnel (D), etc. The race was contested with 1:24th actual Le Mans cars fitted on PlaFit chassis and using the black Bühler motor.
The race was covered by the national TV network and got enough publicity in maga-zines around the world that several new and old model car racers contacted IMCA with the question to organise again a world championship for model cars. Such championship was scheduled for November 2000 at Roeselare (B).
Meanwhile several organisations had started their own model car series. That was the case for Dieter Jens, Matthias Parke, the Bartelmes Bros, Manfred Storke and Kurt Petri in Germany, for Josef Hensl in Czechia, for Tamar Nelwan in Holland, Belgium and Germany, for the Basas Bros in Spain, etc.
Major problem of his lustrum of high confusion was that all those series were raced under apart rules. Without unification of the rules - as was done by USRA and ESROC for wing car racing and by ISRA for scale racing - international competition among model car racers became impossi-ble. On the other side the "plastic" racers organised at their turn regional series, making that it was impossible to find free calendar dates for international competi-tion. Summarised one can put that during the period 1994-1999 model car racing - having most adepts in the world - was victim of the worst chaos. The world of model car racing was at once an accumulation of hundreds of mini worlds, all going their own way in total different directions.  An unifica-tion of those mini worlds was absolutely necessay if one wanted that model car racing could stay the third pillar of slot-racing. For IMCA such nearly impossible unification was the great challenge.

The difficult unification of model car racing (2000-2004)
Early 2000 IMCA developed a rule book which tried to combine the essentials of the distinct model car rule books. Initially the accepted chassis was from PlaFit, but up from 2001 Karl Janda released his MoMo chassis, followed by Uwe Schoeler launching his Indumash chassis (late called Schoeler chassis). A liberalisation of the international rules became a first necessity. By 2002 the international rule book accepted any chassis but restricted the use of the motor to the Bison Mk3. In 2004 Thomas Spicker launched his own chassis, the famous Slotvision. Which chassis is the best is hard to say, everything depends upon the set-up, having become more and more professional the last years. Famous for the set-up of model cars are Philip de Vries (NL), Nick de Wachter (NL), Matthias Parke (D), Dieter Jens (D) and Thomas Spicker (D). Famous for the assembling of splendid bodies are George Kimber (GB), Pitter Schwaar (D), Jozef Miskolci (SK), Russell Sheldon (RSA), Christophe Boxus (B), Hugo Dekker (NL), Stephan Wiesel (D), Matthias Parke (D) and Harald Uhl (D).
Meanwhile it became more and more obvious that Germany was the n°1 model car nation in the world. Not without problems Germany came to standard rules for classic cars, called the DSC rules applied at the DSC series. Under those (simple) rules the little Fox 13D and Sakatsu F10 were the standard motors as used in the North of Germany. Another tendency was the use of heavier Bison Mk3 motors, installed in actual cars as applied by the FNS, a local federation around PlaFit distributor Kurt Petri.
That all resulted after sharp controversies in a workable international rulebook for model cars, published in 2004. At the IMCA Worlds and Mello Yello Junior Worlds 1/24th models of actual cars are raced on a free chassis equipped with a Bison Mk3 motor. A new series, the so-called Franco Gianotti Trophy, was created for classic cars equipped with Fox 13D or Sakatsu F10 motors.  The new international rules were a kind of compromise between the rules applied by the FNS and Nelwan's LMS on one side, and by the DSC at the other side, also a compromise between models of actual cars and models of classic cars.
Up from 2000 the Model Car World Champion-ship was again organised on an annual base. In 2003 a world championship for 1/32nd cars was added to the international calendar. Here the rules were made by Giovanni Montiglio and Josef Korec. Handout NSR-TSRF cars, tuned by Salvatore Noviello, became the international standard.
After the unification of the rules IMCA's JPVR decided to retire. It's obvious that in the future such persons like Tamar Nelwan (NL), Matthias Parke (D), Francesc Reyes (E), Dieter Jens (D) and others will play an important role in the post JPVR IMCA.

Summary of the actual situation in slot-racing
Slot-racing in the postmodern era differs thoroughly from slot-racing twenty years ago. The most difficult problem of actual slot-racing is that it is not attractive for the postmodern youngster, only interested in RTR products. That explains why only "plastic" racing at scale 1/32nd recruits so many young racers. In wing car racing only RTR box stock G12 cars have a certain success among youngsters. In scale racing the RTR Flexi remains popular among youngsters.
The main problem is that none of those classes - the one of the RTR cars - is popular among the "professional" racers. They hate racing with RTR cars. That resulted in a two-speed growth of slot-racing. Number of "professional" racers went down in the three categories: wing car racing, scale racing and model car racing. In the three categories, also in model car racing (!), racing became so technical that several racers work with specialists for the set-up of their cars. In wing car racing and scale racing only specialists are able to balance the armatures. In model car racing more and more "professionals" let do the set-up of their cars by specialists.

German model car racers are actually the best model car builders in the world. Here the Pink Stamps Lotus-Ford 40 as built by Daniel Gerecht.