Forty years ago, Lou and Barbara DelRosario of Elmsford Raceway, Elmsford, New York, designed and built one of the most competitive 1/24th scale slot car tracks in the world. This modified Engleman was named after one of the greatest Grand Prix drivers of all time, Tazio Nuvolari.
The Nuvolari track has hosted national championships as well as the world slot car championship during its forty years of existence. Why not the Nuvolari in HO scale? Brad Bowman, the master HO scale slot car builder, rebuilt John Stezelecki’s “Lady Grey” track a few years ago. Could Brad build a portable six-lane Nuvolari? No challenge is too big for Brad. Benny Leyro went to Elmsford and took great pictures of the Nuvolari track. The pictures were then sent to Brad. Seven months went by before Brad could start the track. It took three hand-sweating months to build it.
The result was a beautiful, portable, six-lane HO track that was twenty feet long by five feet wide. Brad made some adjustments so that the track would be competitive for HO slot cars. He emphasized the esses, changed the drivers’ location to the long straghtaway and reduced the bank to thirty degrees. The result is still very much Nuvolari.
This past fall Dan DeCosmo and John Stezelecki assembled the six pieces of track. Dan also installed a light lap counting system. Brad had installed magnetic reed switches into the track, but they were abandoned to accommodate the new BSRT GJets that were adopted by MARC for the 2005-2006 race season. Dan also installed the Nuvolari’s LaneMaster and computer system.
Now that the Nuvolari is up and running, John Stezelecki hopes to put together the Nantasket Beach Race Club that was so popular during the ’90s. He also hopes to move the Lady Gray track into the garage facility sometime in 2006. He will run production, super stock and GJet classes. In April 2006 the Nantasket Beach Race Club will host a six-hour enduro using GJets. More details to come.
The track is located at 8 Front Street, Hull, Mass. Telephone: 781-925-4702. For more information, send an email to stez1970@yahoo.com. Special thanks to Dan DeCosmo, Bennyu Leyro, Lou DelRosario, Catfish Hayes and, of course, master track builder, Brad Bowman.