I have a lot of respect for anyone who can scratch build anything. Carpenters rank the highest on my list, as right now they have the greatest personal impact alongside of brick and stone masons. This all has to do with the work on our house in Rougemont, which consists of a new project about every five feet or so. In the automotive realm, Detroit has employed hundreds of designers over the decades who

Cobra legend Dave McDonald along with Eddie Sachs died in a lap two accident during the 1964 Indianapolis 500, the first Indy in history that USAC officials stopped the race. McDonald was driving the Thompson-Sears Allstate Special, a rear engined car built by Mickey Thompson in 1963 and updated with more aerodynamic bodywork for the 1964 outing. Unfortunately the car was poorly built and handling was horrendous. Behind the scenes on Carb Day, the rookie McDonald was told by Jim Clark to "get out of the car mate. Just walk away." According to Chris Economaki, McDonald never even practiced with a full load of fuel due to Thompson's focus on high speeds. "The Clown Prince of Racing" Eddie Sachs, driving the rear engined Halibrand-Ford Red Ball Special had three loves: his wife Nancy; their small son Eddie Junior; and of course the Indianapolis Motor Speedway.

Roebling Road was built as you perhaps are aware on a bathroom door from my Mom's house which my brother and I grew up in. After her return from Rex Rehab my wife and I removed the bathroom door to her master bedroom to make the head a bit more accessible and reduce her chances of falling again. With her permission I commandeered the door as the perfect base for my home-away-from-home layout in Raleigh. Despite careful preparation on my part, the Valspar Dark Meadow I choose to represent that oh-so-1960's olive color lifted due to oxidation on a previous layer of paint. Back to square one. At any rate three afternoons of sanding removed all vestiges of the older paint layers and the door has been returned to bare wood. This was done with my late father's Porter-Cable belt sander in which the vacuum dust bag was not doing it's appointed duty, so I pretty much looked like a one-man tour of Iraq during a sandstorm protecting the ruin of Babylon from looters.

Serge has requested more photographs of the slot cars from an enthusiast collection that recently surfaced. Quite remarkable representations of actual period cars in lexan and modified factory bodies, made all the more noteworthy as they were done years ago by a rather knowledgeable young hobbyist. God Bless! TonyMGBBrown

For those of us past the half century mark, let us go back to what I am arguably calling The Golden Age of HO Slot Cars, circa 1968-1973. I remember Susan Cable, my High School sweetheart who rode out to New Mexico with my parents to pick my brother and I up from Philmont where I was working in my first archeological field crew and my brother was guiding groups into the backcountry. She was quite a trooper then, and is a cancer survivor with four children now. My father in 1969

I happened to stumble upon an auction today on ebay that indeed is the Holy Grail for Aurora's Thunderjet eight car compartment Pit Kit. Never mind that I was at work and things were slow which is a rarity, but the patients almost to a man had gone outside to the softball field except for a couple of guys who were still relapsing from their heroin use and glued to their beds, so somebody had to stay on the ward and that somebody was me. For those of you who are familiar with this accessory, the tan ones were the most common followed by yellow and then the scarce as rocking horse guano red and black ones, with the earlier Thunderjet black and yellow version not to be confused with their later AFX yellow and black brethren. The last red one I saw perhaps three years ago cleared the three C-Note hurdle with no problems. The weak point on an early Aurora Pit Kit is of course the lid hinge which is no more than a thinning of the plastic during the molding process so that it would be a bit flexible. The same applies for the two lidded interior rear parts compartments.

I get teased from time-to-time regarding my copious use of vintage decals on all of my slot cars. As  boys we plastered the best water slides Aurora had to offer on virtually all of our cars as they emulated real race cars and we could not even drive a car much less. For the most part we steered away from the Rembrandt crowd as my twin brother and I resisted painting-up our cars with the exception of the driver on my Tyco Pro Cobra. As a rebirthed slot car guy I have continued the practice, perhaps in not the same fashion, desiring to portray an actual historical racer by using vintage Auto World, Aurora, or Russkit decals. Back then we thought it was just cool as kids think things are cool. I guess it adds to the dimension that play is boy's work and the same play can become work at times to us older folks. One thing for certain is that some boys were better at playing than others. I happened to see this Thunderjet McLaren Elva on those often unwanted emails that ebay sends to lure you back into the seller mode, not that they have made enough money off of your hide to start with and just want to remind you albeit less painfully of that fact.

Las Vegas, Nevada is the home of the Kastleberg Raceway, a two lane Tomy track with custom made sections to replicate a road course in the Ardun Forest. Taking the owner over three years to build, the layout was recently auctioned on ebay for the reserve of $2500 US dollars- a modest sum in my opinion. No Las Vegas glitz here. I saw this on the Doyle Racing Products site.   God Bless! Tonymgbbrown