Mike and Jeff Burghardt have been covering drag racing for as long as they can remember as photographers for multiple publications, including CompetitionPlus.com. The father-and-son duo has helped document some of drag racing's most incredible memories.

However, it might be some of the greatest memories of drag racing they create in the confines of their living room of the California-based home.

For lack of a better name, it's the Burkhardt Motorsports Park moments that set the stage for their drag racing entertainment. And, as far as the Burghardts are concerned, they have created something a person of average creative skill can pull off in the confines of their home or shop. All one needs is a track and some Autoworldstore.com slot cars. 

Racing slot cars has become a passion, addiction, and tremendous fun all wrapped into one. Slot car fascination is something they blame wholeheartedly on the COVID quarantine of 2020. 

"When we couldn't go to the drag races for real, we had to find something to replace our need for the real thing," Burghardt explained. "It turns out we had a few of these cars sitting around, my son had, and we didn't really pay much attention to them before then. So we took them out one day, said, 'Well, we got to do something." 

The Burghardts had one of the Autoworld-produced John Force Champion's Challenge featuring the 16-time NHRA champion and multi-time championship-winning teammate Robert Hight. It was a simple slot car set featuring the two cars, a starting line, and a finish line where red lights and win lights were the extent of its capabilities.CLICK HERE TO ORDER AN AUTOWORLD DRAG STRIP

"We had actually had it for several years, and my son messed with it, and then we just kind of put it away because we got busy with a lot of things, obviously, going to the real drag races," Burghardt recalled. "Then we bought these cars, and then we had to buy another track just to run them on. And from that point, I was kind of hooked. It's kind of like the real thing. Once you go, you got to keep going."

What started with a simple slot car set of six cars turned into a collection of more than 600 Autoworld.com cars, a custom-created track (they built themselves), and a timing system mounted into a racing surface that measures everything from reaction times to every incremental down the drag strip. 

For them, Burhardt Motorsports Park runs from the living room and ends in the kitchen, and regretfully, they only run a scale 1000-foot course.

"Unfortunately, that's all the room we have," Burghardt said. 

What they do with the 11.5-foot racing surface, which has nearly six feet of shutdown area, is incredible. The Burghardts have a Trackmate timing system That delivers a reaction time as well as scale incrementals for 60, 330, and 660 foot readings. There's also a speed trap. The live timing can be hooked up to a computer, and with the right HDMI cables, it can give live timing on a modern television. 

"It pretty much fits how NHRA tracks are at the national events we go to," Burghardt added. 

The Burghardts have created an atmosphere with the 1/64th scale (HO) cars where they can control how the class presentations come. By way of a special voltage controller, the Top Fuel dragsters are the kings, followed by the "fuel" Funny Cars. There's also Pro Stock, Pro Modified, Gassers, and even a Top Sportsman category where the cars can race off a dial-in. 

 

 

"The bracket cars aren't as consistent as the real cars are and sometimes can break out by a tenth," Burghart said. "But the fuel cars definitely steal the show."

Burghardt said their inspiration came from the CompetitionPlus.com Slot Car series, which uses a similar format but with a different timing system, but over the years, the two parties have come together in an attempt to unify their efforts.

"We're trying to come up with a guideline so that all the different groups can work together on the same common ground," Burghardt said. "Initially, we'll run ours in our house, and we'll get our neighbors over and their kids over, and the families come over. We've got enough room to do that. Eventually, it'd be nice to take it in on something like an NHRA track and do it for real there. 

"That'd be really kind of cool. And maybe even get some of the real drivers with an opportunity after, say, on a Saturday or something, Saturday night, to race against the fans, and the fans bring their own cars, or something, and race."

Burghardt believes while his slot car drag strip is largely played out to the extreme, he encourages race fans and even racers to channel their inner kid into slot car racing and Autoworld.com provides an excellent launching point with their multiple drag racing sets and plethora of cars. 

Autoworld.com's Marketing Director Chad Reid believes drag racing works well for his brand, and that's why the company is so immersed in the straight-line sport.

"I think [it works well] because it's a unique take on it," Reid said. "When it comes to slot car racing, the way that we do our drag strips, and the whole idea of slot car racing and tuning is similar to drag cars in that way, where you do want to tune your car up and see who can do it the fastest. It's fun to have that extra ability to do it at a scale and still have the realism of the foul lights and having the electronic drag strip and everything."

The story of the Burghardts and others such as the CompetitionPlus.com Slot Car Series are, fortunately, not new to Reid. He's heard time and time again how a car set turned into a full-blown passion. 

"Every day, we have people call in and talk to us about their collections and the size of their collection," Reid said. "It's fun to collect and see which one you can make faster, or get all the different cars throughout the years as the real drag cars change. We've also had some people who like the drag strip because it's an easy setup, and they'll do them at community events, so they might do them at car shows or Boy Scout events or have them similar to Pinewood Derby. So, we have had a lot of that, too, people who pick it up. Another thing that has been interesting as far as growing the hobby is we've been doing different bodies that you can paint and customize and pick kits so you can put together your own slot car."

Burghard estimates as many as 70 percent of his collection is derived from custom-painted entries featuring drivers of the past and the present.

"We brought back drivers, past and present, and put them in our Top Fuel car teams, like we got Joe Amato, Gary Ormsby and Jimmy Nix," Burghardt said. "We custom-built a lot of these; we produced the cars from the Autoworld parts. We custom-painted them and stuff. So we got quite a few cars that way—same thing in Funny Car.

 

"We have Steve Torrence, we have Billy Torrence, we have Brittany [Force]. We even have Courtney [Force] still driving a Funny Car. Ashley's [Force-Hood] still driving a Funny Car. They don't know that in real life, but they're still driving one. And, of course, we have all the cars out there, and Autoworld helped produce a lot of the cars. Many of them they paint up front, which is nice for some of them that are really tough to do. And other ones you strip the paint off, or buy an unpainted body, and then you repaint it and decal it yourself. So the key was [Autoworld] made the bodies."

Tony Karamitsos, Autoworld's slot car brand manager, said creating drag racing slot cars is natural for him because he's a drag racer and understands the passion of those involved in the sport. He races a 7.9-second 1969 Camaro in drag and drive events, among other styles of drag racing. 

"We've always been into drag racing, and we produced these items for the teams," Karamitsos said. "I'm actually a big drag racing fan myself."

Watching his passion play out in the customers has Karamitsos excited about future projects. 

"It's always fulfilling, and it's great to hear,"  Karamitsos said. "I mean, we're here for the collectors and the racing enthusiasts, and we want to produce those items. So hearing this makes you feel really good. We have a really good team here that works on everything, and it's just an awesome feeling when we hear this stuff."

The CompetitionPlus Slot Car Series started with five tables and now has plywood cut to fit the table and with sheet metal guides screwed into the wood top to ensure the track stays straight. What started as a simple John Force race car set has now blown into a track with a timing system that reads incremental timing and can be projected on a television screen. The CompetitionPlus Series started with a Dragon System and has since advanced to a Trackmate to mirror that of the Burghardts. 

Steve Brock has been racing the CompetitionPlus Series since the early 2010's said the slot car racing is a perfect way for adults to get away from the grind of reality. 

"We really have a good time with this stuff," Brock said. "It has really advanced over the years, and I am certainly grateful for the folks at Autoworld, who made this stuff for us to enjoy."

Burghardt said he looks forward to the day when all gets unified between his track and the CompetitionPlus Series and also adds other drag racing fans into the mix. 

"We used all the theories for electrical and stuff to make their cars run better and smoother and faster," Burghardt explained. "So they go faster than they went before on the other tracks. But we hope to get Competition Plus out. The East Coast area is doing things, and we're doing out here, and we're making everything just like NHRA, kind of a standard. So when you run a great number at your race, speed and the laps time, it's valid. The same thing here, just like the NHRA track. Like in real life, you set a national record at Gainesville, then come out in the West, and they're trying to go quicker out in the West - it's all valid."

And as Burghardt sees it, nothing validates fun like racing his slot cars. 

 

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