by HomeRacingWorld » Thu Feb 21, 2013 10:03 am
In the small town of Highland Il, we had a Schwinn bicycle shop. It was also the hardware store AND Official Aurora dealer. You could buy your track and get the lumber to build your table. The "old" guys that worked there knew as much about slot cars as they did the tools. There was official races there every Friday night.
I would work at the farm across the road during the week in the summers. Shoveling you know what from stalls, stacking hay bales, cutting grass...etc. All for the lucrative fee of $5.00 a day.
Boy...with $25.00 WHOLE dollars you could get some cool new cars. I would wear my "official" Aurora hat when I went there on Friday. That was the day Mom and I "went to town". All the cool kids had that hat you know. She would throw me in the back seat of our 65 Toronado. 455 CID front wheel drive, 11 MPG monster.
She would drop me off there and she would go out doing her Mom stuff. Next door was a Drug store complete with a soda fountain. If you were smart, you would walk down the curbs looking for nickels people would drop near the old meters. This way, you could get a good fountain without dipping into your precious slot car poke.
I would spend all day listening to those guys talk about speed secrets, look through catalogs, and finally get the hot rods I had been thinking about since last Friday :)
Once a month I was allowed to race. Dad and Mom went out to dinner like they are supposed to do, and I was ready. IF I did my "duties" fast enough I could race in the "stocker" class. Duties consisted of making sure the older guys had plenty of beer, whiskey and smokes. That meant going over to the package store and getting what they needed in a box that was packed and ready by the owner. I would pay him and out the door I went.
What? I was 10. Double digits...that was big stuff man.