13 years old, riding with parents to Winrock Center (big shopping mall in Albuquerque, 75 miles away!), saw "Toys by Roy," the only toy store carrying slot car stuff. Was thrilled to see a Strombecker set. Parents noticed, bought a set for my birthday, and from then on it was rug racing with friends (no commercial tracks in my 7k population town, and 75 miles away was too far). Raced until college, came home one summer to find all the slot car stuff had been given away ("you weren't using it"), along with a whole bunch of comic books, including an original Captain America 3D comic with the original glasses (that I saw selling for $15K at a comic show in 1980). Pretty hard to forgive Mom for that. Slotless until around 1986 or so, when I found a Scalextric Formula 1 set for sale cheap in Santa Barbara. After that, it was buying a lot of Fleischmann stuff from Allied Model Trains in Santa Monica, until Fleischmann stopped making them, and Allied stopped selling slot stuff. Ultimately bought a bunch of Artin track from Slot Car World in Texas, built a huge 4-lane plastic track on my veranda in Palos Verdes, and then replaced the plastic with routed wood, which is what I have now.
After my play is over this weekend, I'll be back to racing as well. Looking forward to seeing you again, Monte!