My friend Rodney started racing slot cars in the "dawn of slot car time" (early 1960s). He grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area and raced at many of its commercial tracks. One of his favorites was the Oakland Speedway. This ongoing thread will be dedicated to that raceway and Rodney's cars and memories of it.
Take over, Rodney. 
My first 1/24 car is this Cox Cheetah. It has a Ram endbell assembly, slightly hotter armature, and taller gearing. AJ's silicones are used along with smaller Cox fronts.
Check out the current day lap time at Eddie's Slot Car World on the Motherlode track. It also drives nice on the King.
The car was built for the Oakland Speedway Telegraph upstairs track. In the track picture below, the right side of the photo shows parts of the upstairs track. The dimly-lit main straight and the return straight from the dogleg turn are shown.
This ten-lane monster track was a dogleg oval. The track was not well lit, so the Cheetah has headlights. The track was so big. The main straight was 90 feet long! The controller panels were located at one end of the oval. You would see the cars travel down the straightaway from the controller panel. The car would fade away into darkness until you hit the middle sections of the straight that seemed to be lit with a couple of 40-watt light bulbs.
Then the car would disappear again, continuing down the long straight reaching the monster bank turn. Luckily, the bank turn was lit. The drivers would instinctively clutch for the bank turn. If your timing was right, the car would continue down the other straight that had the dogleg. If your timing was off, your car would de-slot and fall off the steep track and hopefully end up in one of the catch nets. If your car missed the nets, there was a chance your car would end up on the parts counters located on the floor below.
The return straight was lit in the middle were the dogleg was. The driver would let up for the dogleg and continue down the straight until you reached the controller panel starting area. ou would stop your car for a while in front of you and catch your breath, knowing you survived another lap on the Oakland Speedway upstairs track.
The downstairs track is a story for another day.
what a behemoth!
