My introduction to slot cars came on Christmas day of 1963 (I think -- you know how the 1960's were.) My dad (Santa) got me and my brother a Lionel HO slot racing set. Wow! It had a really unique AC power supply with the ability to give each car it own power regardless of which lane it was on. Both cars could be in the same lane at once with individual control. The track included two lane changing sections that were cable actuated. Each driver had his own lane change control so racing was really interesting. The set came with a Corvette Sting Ray and a Mercedes SL. Needless to say, I was hooked. My friends would come over and we would race till our moms would call us for dinner. (Can´t miss dinner)
Soon my friends got their own sets but their´s were different. They had the much faster Aurora T-Jets but they didn´t have AC power setup that mine had. My addiction soon led to larger scales and commercial tracks. The slot car craze had spread nation wide and tracks were everywhere. I eventually moved on to motorcycles and then --- GIRLS. Slot racing is still in my blood and my wife has even allowed me to start an HO car collection. I´ve about 50 cars and about 200' feet of track. Now if I could just find a place to set up my track ... Woops - dinner´s calling (Can´t miss dinner.)
I am 41 years old and I have some HO memories. I too started with the Aurora T-Jets. I got pretty involved in racing in ....let me think ... how old was I...1968 thru 1970? We start by removing the drive train and drilling and filing all of the gears until there was nothing left. Heavy weight pans. Lots of soldering... Man I'm flashing back...
I remember buying an Aurora HO Motorcycle. It was way out of scale! I sort of remember that it handled poorly. I also remember spending hours re-winding armatures. Many times they would just sit and sizzle on the track and at other times they would actually haul! Man that was fun... maybe I should get into this again...
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