In Memorium: Tom O’Reily, Slot Racer, Builder, Competitor, Friend

by Paul Shoemaker

I was recently contacted by an old racer buddy from Louisville. I haven’t been in contact with my racing friends there for some time now. I moved away, got into other hobbies, the kids, the wife, life in general. Bobby managed to track me down through my articles on Slot Car Illustrated. He had some sad news to convey, Tom O’Reily had passed away.

I first met Tom in the mid 70’s at a small hobby shop in Dupont Circle in Louisville. The shop had an HO scale drag strip and held races on Saturday morning. Tom was the hot shoe racer/builder and a few years older than me. He always had the slickest cars and the fastest. The newest thing he did back then was build a rail dragster from a TycoPro. Man it was fast! I watched as he dusted every challenger in site. It even pulled wheelies! After the race he stuck around and helped us slower guys learn to get faster. He was always good at that. He said on more than one occasion over the years, that if he could help us go faster, that kept him challenged to go faster.

It would be about 6 years later that I ran into Tom again. I was working as the manager of a hobby shop (we specialized in HO slot cars back then) and Tom came in to see what this new place had. We remembered each other from the drag strip and Tom started talking about a club he started. Just a group of guys racing in his basement. We ran 2 classes: Sportsman, which was AFX Magna-traction chassis with slip on silicon rears and a clear body of the NASCAR Sportsman bodies. The 2nd class was Winston Cup: Tyco 440-X2’s with Slip on silicons and an HPS hop-up kit which had a hot stock arm, low profile front tires that fit the stock Tyco rims and a pair of slanted ceramic magnets and lastly a clear body Winston Cup Car. It was simple and affordable. Tom had a lot of kids racing with us. He also believed in passing the hobby on to the future. He always helped us get ready, gave us tips on how to run faster and he made the best damn clear bodies I ever saw. He always had the newest stock cars before any manufacturer had it! And how he could paint! I still have a handful of his original painted bodies I have saved over the years. I just couldn’t risk them getting damaged in a race. The races on Saturdays were always busy and always standing room only.

Tom started his own body business, TOP Products. He also helped me discover some talents in sculpting and painting I didn’t know I had. He was a founding member of the River City Racing Club in Louisville. He was a key force in getting us organized to the point we actually went to other states and raced. The Mr Sandwich Shop races. Ed Shockey’s and the HOPRA nationals when they were in Indy. Tom was amazing in the detail he did everything. His cars were always prepared and it was an unusual site to ever see him DNF. And he could drive as well, if not better, than he built the cars! I was lucky enough to be teamed with Tom on a 12 hour enduro we ran on my home track. We planned every pit, part change and driver change to the second. We won by over 60 laps. A tribute to his tried and true methods. I managed to only beat Tom once over the years. He was the first to shake my hand and tell me how well I raced. That meant a lot coming from him. Even after the RCRC broke up, Tom kept well into the hobby and keeping it alive in the area.

Some pictures of Tom, race ready, around 1988-89

I left the hobby shop in 1993 and kind of fell out of everything, let alone slot racing. But I kept my stuff thinking I like it too much to abandon it. But I didn’t keep in touch. Life kept moving. Kids, divorce, starting over, getting married again, moving across the state, building a house, just swept up all of my time. When I finally decided to build another track and started posting on my website, Slot Car Illustrated came along. I used to write for several hobby magazines in the 80’s and 90’s and offered my services to SCI. It didn’t take too long for Tom to recognize the writing and he PM’d me. We exchanged some e-mails and were planning to get together to try out my new track when it was ready. We didn’t get the chance. But in Tom’s passing, I did get back in contact with the other guys from the good ole days. I hope to get the chance to share some more adventures on the track, or in the very least keep in contact and not lose those connections. The hobby lost a great ambassador in Tom O’Reily. I will miss my friend, teacher and competitor.