Racing in the Sixties
by Lari Davidson

    It's more than passing curious how fate works. Just a couple of weeks ago, I was out in the shed bemoaning the fact I'd taken to piling cardboard boxes of books and outdated computer equipment on my old two-lane, 4' by 8' slot car test track. The lanes themselves were all but invisible beneath the clutter. I had built the track back in the sixties because I needed something nearby and accessible to test my 1/32nd club cars on. You know how it is after you rebuild or modify a trusty steed. You've just gotta try it out and see if those mods worked. Have you gone forward? Backward? Better find out before the next club meeting!
    Well, the old track was under there somewhere. Didn't matter that I hadn't squeezed a controller in years; I'd always kept the surface clear and all of my old cars lined up in the pits, just on the off chance I might be overcome by an urge to wire up an old car battery and go for it. Now, all that clutter meant that I had a mountain to climb before anything like that happened.
    Slot car racing was pretty much a way of life with me for the seven years between '63 and '69, When I wasn't at the weekly club meeting/testing sessions, I was building, repairing, or tuning for the next meeting . . . or one of the half dozen 1/32nd GP's held every year on Vancouver's club tracks. On top of all of this, for five or six years, I was also the Canada West correspondent for Car Model Magazine out of New York, so I regularly visited other clubs, hobby shops, and commercial raceways for news. It never seemed like overload then though it sounds like quite a task now. Ah! To be young again.
    But back in the shed that day, I had half a thought about doing some house cleaning and shifting a year or so's accumulation. Just clean that old track right off and by Gawd, so help me, one of these days I might just . . . but when I looked around I didn't see the room to do that (we're not going into my pack rat habits here . . .). In the end I hhmmphed and went about other chores. Another day maybe . . . maybe . . .
    So it might have been that incident, that procrastinating revelation, which came flashing back when next I turned on my PC, checked for mail, then brought up the browser and sat staring at a waiting Yahoo! screen. Why not? I typed in "slot cars" , hit 'Enter' and rode the crest of the wave. Surprise! There were quite a few sites and pages dealing with slot cars; some puzzling (just what the hell is a 'Mossetti' chassis,
anyway?), some curious (motors? I thought Parma made controllers!) but most of them intriguing. I felt the faint stirrings of deja vu . . . all over again, as the joke goes. Maybe, I mused, I should get a little more serious about clearing the old track off. Near the end of my browse I clicked on John Ford's Scale Auto Racing News site. Here seemed to be an enthusiast's attempt at giving slots their due, and what's this? Even a place dedicated to 'vintage slots'? Gotta check that out!
    Strange things pass through one's mind when the possessions you cling to and still love become 'vintage'. I went to my Senior Gage for a definition, wended my way past the wine references and settled for the adjectives - 'outstanding: excellent of its kind: a vintage year'. That put a different twist on it . . . excellent? outstanding? I'll buy that. I spotted the 'Send Me Mail' near the bottom of John's page and wrote him a brief note.
    John replied and asked if I'd be interested in writing a few lines and taking some pics of my old cars . . . he even remembered my old columns . . . I didn't think anybody was that old! (just kidding, John)

Which is where we are now. . .

    I've moved a few times since those golden sixties. Slot car racing was a thing of the distant past but for some unknown reason I always took my old test track with me, along with the cars and their bits and bobs. Once slot car racing gets under yer skin it burrows deep, and stays awhile. You know what I mean, or maybe you will in thirty years if you're just now getting into the sport.
    What I remember most is the people - Bob Lightfoot, Dick Armbruster, Peter Soo, Bob Woods, Bill Irvine, Bob Hankin, Bill McMillan . . . names unknown to you, but the faces still stick in my memory. And then there are a slew of faces without names attached (sorry, guys). Sure I've still got my old cars (with a few exceptions) and a controller or two, but I moved on and fell out of touch with the guys I used to race with, build tracks with, and just plain hang out with. It was never the cars, never the big race for points or the first place trophy for Sports/GT class. Nope, it was guys I rubbed shoulders with who made the hobby/sport what it was; the ones who shouted at you when they deslotted in a high speed corner; the ones who called you up on Thursday evening and asked if you wanted to drive 1200 miles to Edmonton for a twelve-hour 1/24th endurance race that same weekend; the hobby shop owners, some of whom couldn't even after the fact believe that slot car mania would last longer than the hula hoop; the new, often bewildered, owners of commercial raceways which in '64/65 seemed to be sprouting up on every corner.
    Even in the magazine I wrote for it wasn't because of the column. It was because I got letters (and of course the phone calls when the column was late) from Mort Waters, later Joe Oldham, the editors; to read other writers like Jose Rodriguez and Pete Hagenbuch and Bob Rule, and share a masthead with them even though i never ever really felt worthy to be on the same page. Those guys wrote great articles, too . . . detailing projects; how to build a brass pan chassis; how to build a fibreglas body. Nope, it was never the cars for me, it was all the people with whom I shared a great hobby.
    There may be some pics nearby of my collection of odds and bobs. Every piece brings back a memory and I can remember all the hard work that went into creating those FG bodies from a box of kid's plasticine, cheesecloth, and some glas cloth and resin (of course that, I was to find out, was the easy part,), soldering brass of varying thicknesses, some of which worked well in a racing environ but most of which did not. It all comes rushing back.
    In all of their battered glory...pretty much as they were put away in 1969. the FG Chaparrals; a Cox Cheetah; the FG Cheetah; the Honda FI; and a Lotus 7 w/controllers
    When I began this I was sorta kicking the idea around in my head that  I'd see about getting that track cleared off, hooking up a car battery and maybe hitting a few apexes with the old steeds. For some reason I've always thought it was all about the racing and the cars. But now I've worked my way down to the bottom of the page, I've changed my mind. I'm sure those old cars are still capable of strafing a few more apexes;
they certainly look eager and willing to do battle one more time . . . I doubt I'd have to do more than change some pickup braid and tighten a wheel or two.
    But you know, I don't think I will. I was wrong. It was never about the cars, it was the people I raced against, the bull sessions after the events. It was about chatting across a counter at the hobby shops, and
the raceways full of kids with questions, and wonder in their eyes. It was finally meeting the wives and kids of guys I thought I already knew well and discovering there was a whole 'nother side to them.
    Nope, it was never the cars. The cars served as an icebreaker, a way to meet new and interesting people; all of them in their multitude of incarnations. I can't remember the last time I saw any of those guys . . . late sixties, I guess, thirty years ago.
    So, let those old cars rest. They've earned their retirement . . . more than earned it a couple of times over. I guess I'll find them a better place to rest than covered with boxes on a forgotten track. I'll find 'em a place all of their own, on a shelf somewhere. Maybe even build 'em a glass case to keep the dust at bay.
    Instead of firing them up that one last time I think I'll get out the phone book and spend the evening doing some dialling. Some of those guys must still be around. At the very least I gotta give it a try.
    Wonder how many, like me, still have their old cars?