52 replies to this topic

[ravajack]

The time machine this time returns to 1974 and a visit at Ken MacDowell's Parma International.
Meet the people behind the scenes in this legendary slot outfit in Cleveland, OH.
Story by Bob Rule (aka "Mr Yo-Yo" and ex-Champion of Chamblee), article from Car Model, January 1974.

INSIDE PARMA INTERNATIONAL. By Bob Rule.


Ken MacDowell proud owner of the Parma complex.

Model racing is magnetic, so magnetic it draws people from all walks of life into the sport. Within our industry we have race drivers, IBM technicians. Service Station owners and on and on. One of the most interesting and most successful of the group is Ken MacDowell, of Parma International in Cleveland, Ohio, After nine years in the business, "It feels like all my life," he says.


Ever wonder who does all those Pro-Controllers? Gary Zrimec, that's who.

Ken was first introduced to model racing as an enthusiast in late 1963. It all started with a
Strombecker and now Ken's latest track, "The Parma King", is known the world over. Most
pro-racers agree that you really don't reach true pro status until you have competed and
won on the famous "Parma King".


Confined in his own little room is Ed Gall. He coats Parma resistors and does the winding.

Ken wasn't always a model racer. He liked the big ones, too. During high school and shortly after, Ken could be found on weekends at the local drag strips, dragging a Chrysler powered "B" roadster. His basement recreation room holds proof of his skills, with trophies lining the piano and shelves.


Bernice Cassano is Parma's packing girl and also does assembly work.

When he got out of the service in 1963, he went looking for a hobby. He found two: one is called "slot racing" and the other is Joyce, (his lovely wife of the last 13 years).


If you want it done. Julia Styfurak does it all!

From the Strombecker home set, Ken went basement racing at a local club. He and a friend went down to the club for the first time thinking it would be all kids. What a surprise they had. There were 65 or 70 adult racers. All having a ball. Now the bug set in. At the time Ken was painting "Wierdo Shirts" and punching louvers in the hoods of cars at auto shows all over the Midwest. He also had a novelty concession at a local oval track.


Jane Gebo, she's around to keep Parma ready and looking sharp for everyone?

He sold everything, went down to the bank and got his life savings, and went into the slot racing business. Three months later, no money left in the bank, Parma Raceway was born (the term Parma International came later). The store was an immediate success.


She's "Girl Friday". Fannie Zito does it all!

Being a creature of curiosity, Ken was not happy with just operating a raceway. He went into the mail order business. This was actually brought about by racers all over the Midwest writing Parma for parts. The Parma fame spread. Soon orders were going out coast to coast and inquiries coming in from all over the world. (Parma now does mail order business in 17 countries.)


Mary Sabo, you can tell by that happy look, she's a member of the Parma family.

Then again in 1968 he became restless. The urge to dive into something new. But by now he loved the slot racing business, so he took up manufacturing. He began by rewinding a MRC resistor (everyone else was rewinding motors). Then he read an article in Mike Morrissey's old Model Racing Journal. Mike had been a member of "Team Russkit" and the article was "How to Modify Russkit Controllers." So, Ken picked up on the idea and started selling modified Russkit controllers. Shortly after Ken began modifying the controllers, John Cukras came to town. Saw Ken's controller and liked it. John took a new Parma west with him, spreading the good word about Parma.


Louise Addison, from controller cable to who-knows-what!

Ken was selling his controllers through his raceway, through mail order, and to a few shops in his immediate area. Then Bob Haines, of R.E.H. Distributors, began getting calls for Ken's controllers. Haines had started in the distributing business in the same manner Ken had started. For over three months Bob bugged Ken to sell his control through R.E.H. Distributors. At first Ken could not sell through distributors because of limited production. Then he took the big step, and began selling R.E.H. Distributors. Then other distributors inquired and the rest is history.


Resident Hippie - every company has one - Dan Bloodworth.

According to Ken, he owes much to Bob Haines. It was Bob's persistent hounding that motivated Ken to increase his production and to become a bonafide manufacturer. Ken also credits Jim Russell, owner of the old Russkit Company for helping him along in the early days. Ken bought the assets of the Russkit Company when Jim Russell sold out. From controllers to drill blanks to guides to braid, Parma International is today one of the leading manufacturers in the sport of model racing. And it all began back in a basement in Cleveland, OH, U.S.A.


Ever wonder who keeps Parma International mail order division on its feet?
Mr. and Mrs. Tiger, that's who (Al and Gladys MacDowell, Ken's parents).

[TSR]

Only missing is Al Gombach's picture...

[Ron Hershman]

Yeah... isn't he the "guy" who designed the Parma Turbo controller??

[TSR]

The very guy!

[Ron Hershman]

And Al only came in on Fridays. LOL.

[TSR]

Never better than to take credit on Friday for what was accomplished from Monday to Thursday, I guess!

[Ron Hershman]

Al was the "glue" that kept the place together.

[TSR]

A sticky personality, eh?

[Ron Hershman]

These photos of the Parma Factory are from the W 130th St location and NOT the raceway that was on Pearl Rd. Not sure if the raceway was still open in 1974.

[TSR]

I was there in 1972 and I don't think that it lasted much longer past the Nats...

[Ron Hershman]

Yup... Ken lost the lease on the building on Pearl Rd. While he was upset over it... he said it was the best thing to happen, as he then had to go out and get a bigger building for manufacturing.

[Steve Deiters]

I remember the first iteration of the controller. It was called the "Gombach Ice Box", eliminating microswitches and with better heat sink utilization. I wrote it up after a big race at Parma (NCC Nationals ?) in the early '70s and was in a small article featured it in Mainature Auto Racing I believe.

Ken called me up latter mistakenly convinced that it was going to kill the sales of the regular controllers, but it didn't and production versions of it came out some time later after additional development and imput from others. He eventually realized it wouldn't and it didn't. The net result was that controller technology for the masses moved up a couple of notches and set the stage for continued controller design improvement for slot racers that operated at a much higher level.

The "Icebox" prototype and its subsequent evolutions was just another example of the constant evolution of the technologies and techniques that made the slot racing hobby what it was and still is. Something that moves forward by constant improvement.

[tonyp]

Ken was good at taking other peoples ideas like the microswitch controller (Emott) and making money from them.

[Steve Deiters]

Long before Parma offered an assembled microswitch controller as part of their product line they could only be bought by racers from custom builders like Gorski, Cotton, and others with availability limited to how much they could produce and what people were willing to pay. I assume they would probably be the first to give credit to its point of origin with Bob Emott.

I think that Parma offered a microswitch kit upgrade with the mounting plates, switches, and wiring diagram, but not an assembled controller for the longest time. At the time they couldn't build it cost-effectively since it was so labor intensive. Their manufacturering techniques improved and the threshhold of pain that people were willing to pay kept going up and they were able to offer a microswitch controller complete that was commercially viable.

What Parma did was commercialize and upgrade the basic concept of the controller as well as many of the other products they offered and move them along at each level as the technology evolved. I guess if you wanted to split hairs, you could trace it back to Jim Russell and his technical people when they came out with the pistol grip/finger-actuated controller that wound up being the preferred format all these decades later, but a long road has been travelled and all the controllers from then till now are part of a family tree with each being a distinctive branch.

[TSR]

I remember the first iteration of the controller. It was called the "Gombach Ice Box" eliminating microswitches and better heat sink utilization.

Steve,

I assume that Al Gombach never told you where the prototype actually came from?

Here is how it happened:

In 1970, I designed an HO racing set for Al Riggen, using a three-lane track derived from the Revell track sections, the world's first slot cars using an added magnet for traction as well as 'dual-microswitch" controllers. This was shown at the 1971 Chicago Hobby Show and the prototype set was shown on an issue of MC&S as well as an issue of Miniature Auto Racing. But Al was ferociously against the concept of magnet cars, and eventually we had a dispute about this and other issues, and I left Riggen.

Al never produced the set but purchased part of the Revell track tooling and made a set using both 1/32 and HO cars that was still sold by REH until relatively recently. Here is a picture of the controllers in question, that used contacts instead of microswitches for brakes and power:



In 1971 as I began my brief pro racing career, since there were no Gorski controllers available on the West Coast, I purchased a Parma "Tiger" dual-micro controller. It was, as all pro controllers of the time, a modified Russkit steel frame with a brass plate soldered to it and holding the two microswitches for full power and brakes, basically a copy of the Gorski design originally conceived by Bob Emott. The metal trigger was mounted on a steel cotter pin and the whole thing was simply too hot too handle under power, and the solder joints in it kept melting from the heat, the brass plate then falling inside the handles. I simply had too many issues with it.

So I put my thinking hat and got a piece of 1/16" aluminum plate and formed a one-piece frame to hold the resistor, made a stainless-steel pin for a new magnesium trigger with a plexiglass finger rest, with the trigger receiving the Russkit wiper blade, and assembled it with machine screws. The trigger was ball-bearing mounted. The one-piece frame had an extra heat sink bent over the Parma dual-barrel resistor. Bob Green gave me one of his "Green bolts" (an aluminum bolt with finned nuts) to hold the resistor.
I decided to replace the power microswitch by a simple pressure contact by-pass and used a standard wiper button mounted on a small 90-degree bracket bolted on the frame to do so, this first unit retaining the brake microswitch. Here is a picture of it, next to the prototype controller I built for Al Riggen:



This controller was so light, so good, so cool, and so efficient that I never used another for the whole of 1971 to 1973. I called it "The Ice Box" and many pros at the time were rather envious of my little project. I built a couple more for friends plus another with more heat-dissipating fins that I never completed.

Ken MacDowell showed up at the 1972 Western States championship race at Speed & Sport, in Lynwood, CA, along with Oscar Koveleski, Bob Rule, and other industry leaders. I had showed the controller to Oscar and he thought that this was so good, it should go into production, but without a handle mold, he simply could not do it, so he showed it to Ken. Immediately after that race, where Team Mura's Earl Campbell and I fought hard for the win, Ken sat me down and made me an offer.

The negotiation was swift: Ken offered me to either pay me a pretty good cash sum for the idea and a workable prototype, or would give me $1. per controller sold when produced. Being rather naive and short-sighted, I stupidly took the cash. No contract was ever signed, only a handshake.

I returned home, built a new unit with TWO buttons for the brakes and power switches, made a plastic trigger that could be injection molded and mailed it to Ken. This prototype is in Mike MacDowell's desk drawer to this day. I signed it for him on the handles a few years ago. Steve, this is the one you saw in 1973.

The next thing I know, I read the Miniature Auto Racing story calling the controller the "Al Gombach Ice Box". I was a bit upset and called Ken, who told me something like "it made Al feel good to think that he had "re-engineered" the unit etc. etc." I basically never got any credit for the design from Parma.

The actual original controller I raced with was given to Dan Cooney in 1982 or so, but I got it back from him later and it resides today at the LASCM in completely original condition.

Parma sold hundreds of thousands of the new controller over the years, that they called "Turbo" ever since. While it is clearly obsolete today as an analog controller, its basic components were used by virtually all pros worldwide for many years to win national and world championships until the advent of the electronic controllers.

[tonyp]

Did you sign it above or below Al?

I loved my controller, I used it up until Cotton started building the external resistor model.

[TSR]

Did you sign it above or below Al?

I guess something I was not aware of is that my new controller effectively put Gorski out of business...

[Cheater]

I think that Parma offered a microswitch kit upgrade with the mounting plates, switches, and wiring diagram...

I can confirm your recollection, Steve, because I bought one of those microswitch kits. They only worked on the original steel-frame Russkit-style controllers. The kit was basically the microswitches, some nuts and bolts and a few pieces of rod and tubing, a pre-punched brass strip, and instructions. The brass strip was soldered to the U-shaped controller frame so it extended down into the handle and the microswitches were bolted to the strip. It was a bit fiddly to put togther and I can well understand why Parma didn't offer controllers with the kit installed.

Of course, when the Turbo frame came out, installing microswitches became a relative breeze.

I still have the controller I installed the kit on, as Jairus knows, for he borrowed it for a while a couple of years ago.

[Bill from NH]

I've had one of those Parma microswitch kit controllers in my box for 35+ years and it still functions fine. Funny thing is, I now have parts to build another, this time with a wet-wound resistor.

We used to use the liquid rubber trigger insulation so as to not burn our fingers when running them in Group 7.

[Cheater]

Bill,

I had a little glass bottle of Parma's rubber trigger coating, with a small Parma Spider sticker on it, for almost that long. Then one day a couple of years ago I knocked it off the shelf onto the concrete garage floor...

[Bill from NH]

If you need more of the stuff look for "liquid electrical tape" in a home center like Lowes or HD. It comes in black and several other colors.

[Cheater]

Heck, I never used it but once. I was just keeping the little bottle because it had one of those early Parma Spider stickers on it. The liquid rubber had long since hardened into one piece.

[TSR]

I must have had a more sensitive finger because even with the rubber coating and eventually a wooden trigger, after two or three 5-minute heats, I could not even drive with that thing as it got so hot. This is why I built the Ice Box, and the problem simply went away for me.

The LASCM has in its vault just about every production controller ever made, plus many hand-made "pro" controllers like the only known Gorski still in its original box, a Cotton, several Parma micros, and of course the original Ice Box. We are looking for an Ng (built by the brothers Ng of San Francisco) as well as any hand-built controllers in small production made before the Parma Turbo was issued in 1974. Cash waiting.

[Steve Deiters]

I think the reason they called it the "Gombach Ice Box" was that Al Gombach basically had control over it letting local racers, like Dan Bloodworth, play around with the prototype and try it out. It also had kind of a ring to it - Gombach Ice Box. When I was first shown it they called it the "Gombach Ice Box" and no other details were given. The name stuck.

In fact the secrecy or I should say lack of disclosure, I noted to myself at the time, but I could see in the simplicity of the design it was taking controllers to the next level. We took some pictures and that small article in MAR resulted. I think it was a very long time before the controller was offered as a production item by Parma. I seem to remember a year or so, but I'll defer to you on the exact date.

One of the other reasons that Mr. Gombach had the controller, aside from being someone highly trusted by Ken and in whom he had the highest confidence, was that he was a retired tool and die maker by trade. He was the one who would be responsible for converting the concept into a production reality as to the stampings involved.

I think it should be cleared up that any slight to you not getting credit at the time the article being published was inadvertant because it was unknown to me at that time. In susequent years when I would spend time with Ken and the subject of the controller or your name would come up he would always acknowledge that you had developed the prototype and there was a one-time financial transaction related to it rather than a royalty. You would even sometimes comment on it in passing when we would stop by the Stand 21 booth at the PRI show to visit you. At no time was it stated by anyone to me that Al Gombach came up with the concept or designed the controller either in the early '70s or to the present day.

I'd also like to add that whenever Ken and I talked about other products they made if there was a point of origin for it other than the Parma shop he would always point it out during the course of the conversation.