Ran across this from another site.

http://www.henryharnish.com/high/index.htm

God were old!

Thanx for the refresher.

Hey thanks for posting that. It was a cool read.

hey tyco arm good job on that post,you guys have some history that's for sure...i started out on an old strombecker when i was a kid in the 70's,came from a poor family so imagine my surprise.my older brothers literally had tea towells around the controllers they got so hot!ended up melting big holes in them if i remember correctly,but the electrics still worked,so wth?i was busy with my lionel train at the time..thanks mom and dad!love you both!anyway,it kinda reminded me of getting back into the hobby after 20 plus years away...i guess we all forget sometimes how to be kids again...luckily my boy is going to carry on the legacy as it were,who inspired me to get back into the hobby after all this time...

thank u that was great

Thanks for that link Tyco. Very enjoyable reading. Dave.

:thumbsup::thumbsup: rr

Great piece.

My own Model Motoring layout was a present for Christmas of '66, the summer of '67 saw my brother and I racing on an oval on the porch of our house on a hot Texas day....

http://i192.photobucket.com/albums/z262/FresnoPete/MVC-424S.jpg

I had that set until my late teens and then my step mother sold it in a garage sale. I remember one of the cars got stepped on (polly mine) and we used to take turns after that racing for time.

Greatly enjoyed that!

But what kept popping up in my mind is how did we ever get away from all that enthusiasm! Its amazing that a manufacturer would put so much effort into an event and fanfare.

It seems that so much of this neat hobby related zeal went away with the 1960s never to return.

Could you imagine such a national championship today?!

Jim Norton
Huntsville, Alabama

really enjoyed looking thru that site

The bits and pieces of 60's tv advertising that I can recall was all enthusiastic.. They could even make cans of spagettio's and spam exciting! TV advertising was still young, and with the baby boomers coming of age, all was a upbeat scenerio.. of course with the cold war booming with the constant threat of atomic weapons pointed at us from Cuba, and Vietnam on top of that, the Government and TV stations wanted it all happy and cheery, just to get our minds off our worries..

This was a great upbeat look at our cool hobby when it was in it's heyday. Heck, I was looking through my old Tjet manual and there were three retailers right here in town!!! And my town is only like 3 square miles... There has to be tons of old Tjet stuff tucked away in attics and cellars. Too bad they never make it to the yard sales!! This was a fun trip to the past!!

UtherJoe

It's easy to forget the effort that Aurora expended to build the HO slot racing hobby. They had good assists from Tyco, Eldon, Atlas, Faller, ect. They offered a large selection of cars and trucks. They were willing to improve their product. They had some pretty extensive advertising campaigns. Without this work, we probably would be old slot heads now.

We should all be grateful that Henry's mom preserved all of this info. Now we can look back at our hobby's roots and see where this wonderful hobby started. We can't gauge how far we've come if we don't know where the journey began.

IMHO,

Russ the Hutt :drunk::hat::freak::dude:

It was Henry's site that gave me the inspriation for my Ford Aurora DVD. I contacted Henry and he gave the info for his Today show appearance and Bob Beer's info. With that info in hand, and with Bob's extra materials, I was able to put together the DVD.

And dig that T-bird,probably a 390 tri-power.

Henry Harnish still races HO slot cars today.
:thumbsup:

Henry Harnish is a great guy. I contacted him via email... he kindly sent me a 8x10 poster autographed.
After reading his story, I felt there was a lesson to be learned. Don't let the past ruin your passion for a hobby.
Chris

Wouldn't it be interesting if Henry posted here. I would like to know what he has thought of the evolution of our hobby and what he likes running today. Dave.

Wouldn't it be interesting if Henry posted here. I would like to know what he has thought of the evolution of our hobby and what he likes running today. Dave.

Henry is a fray/vhors t-jet racer, having bumped into him at the last couple of frays. He can still race like hell and has absolutley no issues with taking you out of the slot if need be. :)

Not like I have room, but I like the Mille Miglia layout. Anybody got a good picture or shematic of that? nd

BTW: Was there a shortage of fabric in the early 60's? Any of our older members care to explain what the deal is with the pants??

I met Henry at a Parsippany, NJ HO show last year. I had a poster of him with T-Bird &
trophy that he autographed. Henry, "Good racing" to you also. :)

If you have a MM service manual handy, it's layout # 20. My manual is from '63,so I don't know if its different for other years. The scanner is on the TM's puter, so I can either scan it for ya tomorrow AM (her majesty is asleep) or I'll PM the track configuration to you. It would be easy enough. This is the total needed track...

14-9" 1/4 curves
14-6" 1/4 curves
54-9" straights
2- 9" terminal
14- 7" straights
18-5" straights

total L + W 58" X 108"
All I would really need to give you is the outside lanes, the inside follow along with it...

UtherJoe

By request, here is a copy of the mille miglia track plan..

http://i417.photobucket.com/albums/pp251/slotcarman12078/9646869d.jpg

Hope it came out legible..

UtherJoe

Thanks Joe. I really like some of the old layouts. nd

Keep in mind that the Mille Miglia was actually a single lap of 1000 miles. It ran through dozens of cities and towns through out Italy. Follow the link below to a site dedicated to the event and click on the "history" button. The site has the route map and event details for all of the historic events as well as the vintage revival evants that started in recent years.

http://www.1000miglia.eu/inglese/home.html

While it is prohibitive to capture the course in scale due to the vast length, one can capture the charater of the event in a HO layout. The old diagram above is a good start. The event would have a lot of straight sections between cities, towns, villages, etc. However, it also featured seroius elevation changes, runs through urban streets and a bewildering variety of corners. A railroad crossing would actually be an accurate detail.

One could look at the Carrera Pan America and the Targa Florio events in the same way as the Mile Miglia. All three were covered long distances and each ran through a unique area, Mexica, Sicily, and North Central Italy, respectively). Any of the three would give one an opportunity to go wild in land scaping in attempt create the "feel" on the event.

And yes, this big Hutt does love sports car racing and does tend to get way obsessive about it. Sorry if I beat this topic like a rented mule. :drunk::hat::freak::dude:

Don't worry, Russ.. Your secret is safe!! We'll never tell Budget rent a mule this is how you treated their rental!! :jest: This is the type of racing that got me hooked on Gran Turismo 4... a few years ago anyway..

UtherJoe