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Armchair Racer


gazza

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Managed to get around to Armchairs new site at unit 1 / 18 - 20 Hotham Parade Artarmon and grab a few pics .... the two new routed tracks are great to drive and i think there will be standing room only on a Tuesday night.

 

Here's a brief history of Armchair Racer

 

Armchair Racer began in 1995 in Lane Cove, 9 km north of the Sydney CBD. The store consisted of a small retail showroom and a 24m 6 lane Ninco track. In 2005 the business relocated to Artarmon, one suburb closer to the CBD. This site provided a larger showroom area and a new 33m 8 lane Carrera track was built to compliment the existing Ninco track, which was retained in the move. Over time it became evident that Armchair Racer had also outgrown this site, and during late 2009 the hunt for a suitable new site began. In mid 2010 Hotham Parade was “discovered” and proved to be an almost perfect site for a slot car business. Rather than having a large space with slot car tracks and the retail area wrapped around the tracks, Hotham Parade has allowed each area of the business to be clearly defined.

 

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There is now a larger showroom area which will allow all products to be displayed, which was proving difficult at Dickson Avenue. Two new 8 lane flat board tracks have been built using Ferrador. There was some discussion as to what surface to use but as the Ferrador appears to be the “standard” used by 1:32 commercial slot car centre’s this was a leading reason behind this choice. The 31m track (the tracks have not yet been correctly measured) is a quite technical track and is only available to those using their own cars. The 22m track is also available for those with their own cars, and hire cars can be rented to use on this track. Still to be built are work benches, which was lacking in the previous two centres.

 

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As birthday parties and corporate events are very popular there is now a dedicated room for these functions. This room has an 8 lane 20m Ninco track, private seating area, a large balcony and private kitchen and bathroom facilities.

 

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The private collection is still packed away but will be re-displayed hopefully at the end of the month. As the collection is larger than the space in which it can be displayed, some of the collection will be rotated so that different models are on display at different times.

 

There is still a tonne of work to do as in any move, When this process is complete products will be displayed in category type rather than by manufacturer, and over time the range of products will increase.

 

Armchair will also soon recommence with their workshops and plan to have more endurance race evenings.

 

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Quickly read this post before it is deleted or i turn grey again

Gary

http://www.facebook.com/Rallyproxy2017

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Wow! New premises is super impressive.

 

Thanks for grabbing the photos for those of us that deal from a distance.

Computers. They'll never catch on.

 

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Tiny Tyers Targa - The build saga continues - Aging wood - A recipe for staining wood - Don't take a fence - Step by step paling fence - An old shed for my new cars - Wooden garage under construction

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I must say its world class and does Australia proud. Im sure this is probably one of if not the most modern, well laid out slot shop worldwide. Congrats to Jim and Cathy, I know its been a long time in the making. And well done to Pete for making the tracks. They look pefect. Displays are coming up nice and plenty of room to move around too.

 

 

Rick

Smoke, mirrors and obsolescence. It’s a jungle out there.

www.scorpiuswireless.com

 

 

 

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I was just bitching to the missus that I don't like him moving 'cause I don't know how to find it now. She said you don't know your way around sydney - I can could find the old shop though..

 

..not happy with the pictures though - the place looks far too clean & not anywhere near grubby enough..

Captain's log: We are enroute to some planet whose name I cannot pronounce to do something really complicated that I don't understand.

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Here you go dog ..... next time your in Sydney

 

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I must say its world class and does Australia proud. Im sure this is probably one of if not the most modern, well laid out slot shop worldwide. Congrats to Jim and Cathy, I know its been a long time in the making. And well done to Pete for making the tracks. They look pefect. Displays are coming up nice and plenty of room to move around too.

 

 

Rick

Yeh i've got to say that Pete (RePete) has done a fantastic job on the track builds

Quickly read this post before it is deleted or i turn grey again

Gary

http://www.facebook.com/Rallyproxy2017

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I called in on Saturday to check out the new place.

 

Its actually quite easy to find coming from Chatswood direction, its the first turn left after you cross the Expressway and then all the way to the end of the street.

 

I wasn't quite prepared and half hungover. I walked in checked out the stock and ummmed-and-ahhhed - then bought nothing :D . I had no cars on me, so didn't turn any laps either.

 

Maybe next time.

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Was lucky enough to be with Gaz on Saturday when he took the pics . I was very impressed with the whole set up and believe it will look even better when it is complete. Thanks Jim for a run on the track even if it was with your car and throttle. Had my boys with us as well and they enjoyed themselves as much as I did. Was also surprised with the first kids party Jim had there , noise was down from the last place and didnt have to dodge the kids. Good Idea to have them upstairs. By the way first time I've seen 6 cars come off on an 8 lane track with magnets and at 8 volts :o .Kids, dont you just love them. :aussie: Well done to Jim and Cathie and to all those who had a hand in the move. It couldnt have been easy. Looking forward to seeing the add ons as I travel down there for cars and parts. 95 was the first shop, I remember going there a couple of times and parking the truck up the alley way with a few dirty looks. Wow ,where have the years gone.

Cheers Craig

P.s Jim dont forget the sign for the front door ;):D

Craig

 

"You can please all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time”.

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We had our first club race last night which was very well attended ,,good to see some new faces there and all the old ones.

We raced on the bigger track ,,fantastic !!!! Smooth as silk and a good challenging drive, the night was over too soon for me ,,looking forward to the next one . Thanks to Jim and Cathy for putting this in place for slot tragics like us ,,and a big well done to Pete Hopkins for the great job on the tracks ,he put in a massive effort.

Did hear a couple of whinges but those guys will be fine when they learn to drive :lol:

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  • 1 month later...

I happened to be in Sydney for a few days for work last week and knew I would be done by lunchtime Friday. With a few hours to kill before my late afternoon flight home, I'd planned a visit to the new place. I must agree with all the earlier comments - the whole place is really well done. They are still sorting the 'showroom' out but I was able to pick up all the spares I needed. I naturally had to do some laps and had a go at the large track - it's great; smooth and challenging with a good mix of corners, curves and straights. I'll certainly be dropping in again when I am next in Sydney.

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  • 1 month later...

We do actually want review all the sponsors shops and I may get to one or two in the second week of my holidays. At the moment Sydney shops but we have been discussing the boys doing some weekends away to Melbourne, South Australia and Queensland to do a meet and greet and have a drive on some tracks. Plane flights are cheap.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Had the pleasure of paying Armchair a visit today and was very impressed, premises are certainly bigger than the old ones and some of those display cabinets just look outstanding, I absolutely love the wall behind the till, as it filled with all you could ever want to modify your car.

 

The display collection was partially complete which is a shame, very nice cabinets (sure they are new as the old ones had mirror shelves).

 

I even got to view the Blue Warsteiner which looked bloody impressive.... oh I'd like that one sitting in my collection (sigh).

 

Mark

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how bizarre! turns out I (sorta) know the fella who did the artwork on the front window! he lives bout half hour from here and is a fellow slotter!

Edited by gref

2 x australian ego champion

 

regards

Shane

 

 

Fulel racing in first track build --> https://youtu.be/nG1EyFkbJSs

 

 

 

My second track build --> 

raceday - https://youtu.be/8WXYQ528iKM

 

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  • 5 months later...

Well last weekend Sunday I had the pleasure of visiting Armchair for a kids party (8 little devils).

 

First 5 minutes was absolute bedlam - almost every car running at about 10 volts was de-slotted as the kids just went full throttle to the first corner of the 8 lane Carrera track. Another 45 minutes later and I was pretty sick of putting cars back on the track. Jason then decided to put a challenge to the kids to stay on the track over a couple of heats and it didn't take long for the kids to learn that it wasn't about running around at full throttle.

 

So after a couple of heats on the crash and your out a winner was finally found.

 

Then of course we did a team enduro of 2 minute heats on each of the 8 lanes with 2 drivers (1 driving and 1 putting the cars back on the track). There were 7 teams (can't quite remember how 8 kids turned into 14 drivers). After everyone had a turn we had a bit of an intermission:

 

During the break I got the chance to run the Slot.It F40 and NSR GT40 #3 and wow - wow - wow.... I really need to get to Armchair on Tuesday's, what great cars there are, nice to take them for a spin on a real track for a change. Interesting as well that I had a Porsche 997 sitting in bag but didn't get the change to run it (if anyone knows me taking a car out of a box is not something I usually do.

 

Not 10 minutes later and it was time for the 2nd enduro using the same format as the previous one. Even our host Jason got involved by teaming up with the birthday boys mother. They were a formidable team, especially as Jason spent most of his time ensuring that the adult team's car was never put back on the track on the very few occassions that it spun out.

 

The 2 hours disappeared in next to no time and I was very impressed with the fantastic racing (even if it was with the kids) and setup.

 

It wouldn't have been complete without a visit to the shop to buy something for the collection :) Some of the kids had their eyes on the NSR Porsche Slot-Landia (Pink) which I'll admit in the flesh looked outstanding.

 

I'd thoroughly recommend Armchair for a party - the kids wanted to spend more time there and I know we'll be back one of these cold and windy weekends to give the kids a go on the retail track. I don't know how but somehow we managed to not buy the kids a car (which is a miracle really).....

 

A bit thanks to Jason (ScalextricV8) who was an excellent host and event organiser.

 

Cheers

 

 

 

Mark

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