4 replies to this topic

[don.siegel]

Just picked this up on ebay and it's a slot racing magazine I'd never heard of before! It's the Introductory Issue, with "rec'd Sept. 5, 1964" written in ink at the bottom, otherwise undated. It also has the name "OPENSHAW" written in ink at the top, so I assume this was Squire Openshaw, who briefly did the Racing West column in Car Model, and must have been well known at the time... It's pocket book sized magazine, and about half of it is a listing of tracks in Northern California/Bay area.

Neither the editor or publisher's name is familiar to me: Jack Bowers and Lloyd Stateler.

Those dark photos of the new Oakland Speedway are fascinating - they don't make tracks like that anymore! And there's also a column by a woman, Sally's Alley, rather uncommon in our hobby....

Anybody know anything about this? Did a second issue ever come out?

Don

[TSR]

Don,
good find. Not sure if there was issue # 2 and never heard of any of these characters, but the listed raceways are also listed in other mags.
Openshaw being an unusual name, it may indeed having belong to Square Openshaw, a known entity.
1964-1/2 was still a relatively dark age where people had to buy bits and create their cars from incomplete chassis kits, poorly vacuum formed clear bodies, brick-like modified model-train motors and tires from hell.
It got better before it got worse.

[Pablo]

Thanks for showing us, Don
The Bay area guys will flip out when they see it !

Can I get Sally's cell # ?

[Duffy]

This was precisely one block outside any of my regular routes at that time, and I never saw it! I was racing in Santa Rosa at the time but visiting my Dad here on weekends...Four years later, when I'd drifted into music and was no longer doing Slots, I happened upon a track on Telegraph, not really similar to this IIRC (I remember it being on the opposite side of the street), and was bitterly disappointed to see nothing like a recognizable race car in the place.

Duffy

[dc-65x]

Don,
good find. Not sure if there was issue # 2 and never heard of any of these characters, but the listed raceways are also listed in other mags.
Openshaw being an unusual name, it may indeed having belong to Square Openshaw, a known entity.

It's quite possible the magazine belonged to Squire E. Openshaw Jr:



He was a Bay Area racer and I've got lots of his old stuff along with Model Racing and Model Car Journals which were addressed to him. He loved to mark up the old journals with his comments and measurements. He was a mechanical designer by trade. You can see that in his printing that accompanied these arms:



Interesting guy.....