To judge by the period magazines, slot tracks were surrounded by pretty young women, passionate about racing, and irresistably drawin to the 14 year old nerds like us who were racing these cars...
Just picked up a couple European magazines from the boom years of slot racing: the Italian car magazine Quattroruote, July 1966 (280 pages - those Italians took their cars seriously); and De Lach, a Dutch man's magazine from January 1967 ("het blad voor de man van nu" - loosely translated, "hot blades for naked men" - Tamar, help!).
First, Quattroruote, and pay attention to the next page to last, where you'll see a couple of very familiar names... And note the couple historic photos as well: Marklin from 1937 and Sila from 1950!
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And now to the Dutch, "De Lach", maybe a weekly or biweekly, because it's dated January 13, 1967. A very gentle men's magazine, with sexy drawings, girls in bikinis, features on films, sports, hobbies, etc.
Ciao baby!
(this wasn't a uniquely European phenomenon either - some of the US magazines used the same approach - remember Nicole at Model Cars Illustrated?)
Don
