After I made a particularly snarky Facebook comment regarding some newfangled electronic rider aid, a former editor sent me an email asking why I always slag off electronic controls. He asked if I had ever ridden a motorcycle equipped with traction control, wheelie control, engine power selector toggle or one built after 1971.
Usually my emails run to the “Are you still here?” variety so instead of my stock comeback (“Catterson’s hair is prettier than yours”) I played it straight. The truth is, I haven’t ridden a modern, electronic superbike. But it seems whenever new technology comes along my default mode is “No.” I have a hard time making the junky old motorcycles I habituate ignite fuel, why add complications?
There’s no sense having me ride a modern superbike because it takes skilled crashers…I mean riders to determine if the buffering of the improved, Datacom-7734 chip inside a Yamiguchi ECU has really increased corner exit speeds a hundredth of a second, or perhaps Ducatazzi’s PMS 7724 chip is more like butter? We’ll never know because I accidently connected the battery backwards and fried the circuit board.
It’s not that I don’t like going fast, it’s just important to me how I get up to speed. I blame my Luddite ways on HO scale slot cars. Long ago, when a steady hail of meteors bombarded the earth, kids raced slot cars. The track was a two-slot, snap-together, plastic roadbed. Plated-metal rails paralleled each slot; these metal rails supplied low-voltage power to the cars via a driver-controlled rheostat.
Underneath the slot car chassis was a guide peg that fit into the track and spring-loaded contact brushes (on Aurora cars) or troublesome foil brushes pivoting on the slot assembly (on the much faster Tyco cars). These brushes conducted the rail power to a tiny electric motor. Untold hours were spent modifying the little motors and experimenting with different brands of tires. My friends and I spent many enjoyable hours racing against each other and the physical limitations of the system.
Since the rails in the track were plated steel, one of our tribe came up with the bright idea of gluing a magnet to the car’s frame to help hold it onto the track. Straight line speed suffered but cornering speed increased dramatically. Overnight, the worst driver of a magnet car could easily beat the best driver of an un-magnetized car. If one magnet was good then two had to be better. Magnets kept going lower until thin sheets of paper were used as a shim to space the magnets as close as possible to the rails.
The cars got faster. Aurora itself cut away the frame and lowered the motor magnets in their vertical-shaft HO cars to take advantage of the steel rails. The final iteration saw a dropped-motor Aurora with huge, front and rear mounted magnets nearly scraping the rails. This car could run upside down if you cared to build an upside down track. Driver skill, once the most important factor in our races, was extinct; all one had to do was hold the rheostat wide open. Soon the rheostat was unnecessary and we hard-wired the track for full power all the time.
The cars were incredibly fast. It was hard to keep them in sight as they blazed around, gripping the track so tightly the plastic corners would shift as they flew through them at top speed. The cars never jumped the slot.
It wasn’t long before we tired of racing and built ramps to jump the cars. From there things devolved into smashing the cars headlong into walls, then to pouring lighter fluid on the Auroras and setting them on fire to see how long they could circuit the track ablaze.
I loved slot car racing but making it foolproof turned it into that detestable thing: boring. In his email, my old editor told me a modern 1000cc sport bike would be nearly unrideable without the electronic aids. I believe him. So far active-electronic motorcycles still require rider skill to pilot at race speeds but the future looks grim. As for me, unless an electronic aid drastically improves my riding experience I’ll keep defaulting to “No.” I love motorcycling too much to risk losing interest.
Ask Joe Berk about Mr. Churchill Clark and the slot car track he built for us back stage in the auditorium back in South Brunswick High School. The best part is that we still have two slot car tracks in our area back here in NJ and I still stop by with my cars for about an hour of stress relief.
Great blogs!!!!
Clark was the real deal. Lots of good times in those days. Had you ever heard of the magnet trick? That one was news to me!
I think Aurora called it Magnatraction.
Magnatraction. I like that.
I still pop in to the Slot Car place on Route 33 outside Freehold once a year or so. Smells like victory.
As for electronics, I have no issue with them. I prefer analog, but I also prefer to get on my bike and ride these days. These days. F Jackson Browne.
I loved my Aurora slot cars. That orange Can-Am racer is missing it’s white rear spoiler – I had that one among the huge number of different styles I had accumulated. Yes, the magnets took ALL the challenge out it. The original set I had used metal pins and plastic clips to hold the track sections together. I had so much track in my main layout that it took three transformers to operate – one for each lane and one for the accessories like the lap counter and the plethora of street lights.
If I remember correctly, there were pre-magnet Tycos that were WICKED fast (I’m from New England). I also had a set that consisted of white track and snowmobile bodies on the regular chassis. Cool (pun intended).
Thanks for pulling up some great memories Joe!
Have no f Clue what your all talking about but was fun Reading it joe
I took that spoiler off around 1971. Too much weight up high.
Also the Orange car body was my favorite so it never got crashed or burned. It’s a pure slot car: no magnets.
The Tycos had a metal base plate the put their weight down low. The also had motors that were not built into the frame like Aurora. They were much faster but had traction issues (too much power! Needed electronic limiters) and the brushes were fiddley and wore through fast.
Auroras could run 24 hours a day.
An inside tidbit: the tires had rotted off the car in the photo so I used a bit of cut tubing for rear tires. The tires are only on one side.
I pre-dated the magnet trick apparently. Mid-60’s all we used was some glue-like material to help the foam tires grip better in the corners. Goopy, sticky mess on the track, but you could sure go faster! But overdrive a corner and your car would be flying across the room and you’d be yelling at someone near that area, “Blue track, blue!” hoping they’d get your car back in the slot quickly enough you might have a chance of catching up. Can’t remember exactly what track time cost at the commercial place I went to, but probably something like 50 cents an hour. Good times…
We had a track at the hobby store in my hometown in Indiana. I remember the Auroras and Tyco brands but not in reference to slot cars, however I do remember the Cox Sidewinders where the motor was mounted horizontally, eliminating the rack and pinion, and guys would hand wrap the armature very carefully. They would also electrically overdrive 3-volt armatures for more power. Kinda reduced the life of the motor, but they did run faster.