Subsumed by the Nascar juggernaut, Formula One barely registers on the radar of most American motorsport fans, lending wheel-to-open-wheel racing a dose of underground cachet. It is so underground, in fact, that one Michigan man channeled his love of Formula One into a veritable basement fight club.
James Harlan, by his estimation, presides over the most elaborate slot-car racetrack in the country, which he built in his 1,000-square-foot basement and modeled after some of the Formula One race circuit’s most notoriously challenging track features. “I suppose I’ve taken it pretty far beyond what’s been done,” he said.
Named after his Michigan hometown, the White Lake Formula One Ring comprises left- and right-hand sweepers, S-curves, 20-foot straightaways and slots for up to four cars. The surrounding landscape is a snow globe of rocky terraces, skyscrapers, viewing towers, garages and tree-covered knolls.
Mr. Harlan was stricken early by the model-racing bug. “I guess you’d say I’ve always had a need for speed,” he said in a telephone interview. “In high school we used to run an R/C race series, where all our models had to be up to current liveries: the graphics, the paint, everything.”
He never cared for slot racing, where cars sit in a fixed groove and are propelled by an alternating electrical current. “I liked the full range that radio-control racing gives — braking, the acceleration power, whereas A/C just gives you throttle,” he said. However, after visiting an ex-colleague whose track current was governed by a lightly doctored Lionel Trains A/C transformer, spark plugs went off.
“The power delivery was really smooth, and you could more closely mimic the dynamics of a racecar, like coasting into the pit, without magnets or any tricks,” he said.
He ordered the transformer kit and track pieces from AC2 Racing, an outfitter whose track slots bisect one another on straights and even in curves, encouraging aggressive overtaking maneuvers. But whereas a casual hobbyist might just slap the track sections together, Mr. Harlan was compelled to tinker.
“I work in 3-D modeling, and I’ve done a lot of exhibition-design work,” he said. “So I designed curves using modeling software, then got a local mom ‘n pop milling shop to shape the track pieces to my specifications.”
While it has no set race season, the ring has witnessed some white-knuckle drama, including what Mr. Harlan called the .24 Hours of Le Mans, a 14-minute race during which track lights switched on and ambient lights, off, for seven minutes to replicate — albeit in heavily abbreviated form — the day/night race conditions of the famed French track’s 24-hour endurance race. Illustrious Michigan personalities have also manned the cars’ pistol grips, including executives from General Motors and Chrysler’s advanced design studios.
Primarily, however, Mr. Harlan keeps the paddocks open for the neighborhood children — and their parents.
With Formula One aiming at its United States return in 2012 on a brand-new track in Austin, Mr. Harlan’s road-trip plans are all but secured.
“I went to Indy when F1 was there,” he said. “Seeing the spectacle firsthand is breathtaking.” And while sketches for the Austin circuit’s design were released last month, Mr. Harlan is reserving judgment until he lays eyes on it. “I expect the track layout to be extraordinary,” he said.