Photo by Ben Slowey
Lucky Bob's Raceway - Slot car racing track
A slot car track at Lucky Bob's Raceway in Milwaukee (2026).
In the 1960s, there were some 3,000 slot car raceways across the country. For those unfamiliar, slot car racing is a type of competitive racing using powered miniature cars along grooved tracks. Though it would decline in popularity beginning in the ‘70s, slot car racing has retained a devoted community of enthusiasts determined to keep the hobby alive. Opened in 1996, Lucky Bob’s Raceway (5822 W. Forest Home Ave.) is Milwaukee’s only slot car raceway, owned and operated by Bob and Gail Thelen.
Photo by Ben Slowey
Lucky Bob's Raceway - Workshop table
A workshop table where enthusiasts build and work on slot cars at Lucky Bob's Raceway in Milwaukee (2026).
“This is the world’s fastest motorsport,” Bob says. The skill in slot car racing lies in keeping the car on the track at high speeds. Professional 1/24 scale model cars can reach well over 100 scale miles per hour. Cars can be purchased or built from scratch, and they can be upgraded with different motors, gears, tires and bodies.
Lucky Bob’s features four HO (“half-O,” or half the size of O-gauge, commonly used for model trains and cars) racetracks as well as a drag strip in the basement. Between the two, Bob and Gail have hundreds of cars from their collections on display around the room as well as parts in stock from various manufacturers. “Rent a car and see which scale you like,” Bob remarks. “We have all the cars available!”
Bob has been slot car racing since he was a kid. “I got a race set when I was 10 years old,” he recalls. “There was a local race I played at for a while but never competed. I got away from it till I was 35, then I started going to Hank’s Raceway in Kenosha. Us and our kids raced there for six years, then we decided to open here.”
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Making a Comeback
Photo by Ben Slowey
Lucky Bob's Raceway - Slot car racing
Enthusiast race slots cars on one of the race tracks at Lucky Bob's Raceway (2026).
Decades ago, slot car racing fizzled out as a hobby due to multiple factors, from increased rents on spaces housing raceways to the introduction of other hobbies like remote-controlled (RC) cars and video games. Now, Lucky Bob’s and Hank’s are the only two remaining public slot car raceways in Wisconsin, though many hobbyists maintain their own tracks at home.
“Covid brought a lot of people back into it,” Gail notes: “The dads and grandpas got their sets out of the closets and attics, and then they would contact us because they needed cars or parts.” Lucky Bob’s hosts a number of competitive events throughout the year with October through May being the busiest; 25 to 30 racers may be racing on any given day in winter. At the time of this interview in June, Lucky Bob’s was hosting an HO championship race that brought out competitors from as far as Florida, Arizona, Colorado and Pennsylvania.
Lucky Bob’s is open Thursday and Friday from 4 to 9 p.m. and Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Slot car rentals start at $5 for 15 minutes on the track, while those with their own cars may book an hour slot for $10. For more information, visit the Lucky Bob’s Raceway website or get in touch at luckybobsslotcars@gmail.com.
