18 replies to this topic

[Jaz]

Anyone have any pictures? 

IIRC, the 90 was more of a 45.

 

Thanks!

[Tim Wilkins]

small picture of it in the middle of the poster

 

 

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[Mr. M]

For those who raced on it, what was it like? Power, surface, etc?

[Steve Deiters]

Smooth as glass and plenty of power for the motors of the era. One of a kind literally and figuratively speaking.

[MSwiss]

Looks like the track was designed to fit in the space available.

That poster reminds me, for him being such an iconic figure in late 60' slot racing, there doesn't seem to be many good pics of Dave Bloom.

[elvis44102]

Smooth as glass and plenty of power for the motors of the era. One of a kind literally and figuratively speaking.

I agree..the track was custom built from the ground up and was five feet different in overall length to fit ken building making any lap records not "king" track records officially

 

i cannot remember any issue with dying power suppylies which i remember were becoming common at some raceways

 

EDIT MSwiss i was just seeing Ken of 50years ago in my head and remembering him running the races at Parma and i thought i miss him lol

[elvis44102]

Looks like the track was designed to fit in the space available.

That poster reminds me, for him being such an iconic figure in late 60' slot racing, there doesn't seem to be many good pics of Dave Bloom.

Dave Bloom set the standard for body painting..but my group of racers was cheap (we would brag about 2 dollar shoes) Bloom inspired me to paint my own copies which took hours of fiddleing with settings on cheap air brushs paint tones and such and discovering yes you can paint one body with the spare tire air lol

[Steve Deiters]

The track as you can tell from the poster the “finger” roughly parallels the track coming out of the bank.  On American King  the “finger“ is angled away from the straight coming out of the bank.

The 160’ Parma king vs. the 155’ Blue King. Ken MacDowell told me a couple of times he had the track five feet longer because he liked things to be just a little bigger and a little better. It was the promoter in him.  It was that approach to doing things that Ken made Parma the power house that it was for decades and frankly was the secret of his long term success.

[NSwanberg]

I remember the color of the track being referred to as "baby $hit orange" for selecting body color combinations.

[shadow]

Parma had a rack of batteries under the straight before 90 .Ken would have to change as they lost power

[old & gray]

From memory, I was only there for the race in 1970 (Graduation present to myself). I don't remember the store front as we came and when through the back door in the parking lot.

 

I seem to remember the batteries having a problem during qualifying, they dropped off and some complaining their car had lost 2/10s when they put the charger on his car was back up to speed; then there was a question of how many people should get a second chance because of the power drop. 

 

I also seem to remember a number of west coast guys having to blip the straight to keep from launching; not that it kept them from being the fastest. 

[mppicione]

I will ask this question because my memory is not the best and I only raced there one time.

Did the Parma king have a brown lane? I launched out of the lane next to black at the Nat's there, and I believe it was the  brown lane.

[DOCinCanton]

One interesting point about this track was that when it was brand new, I and many other local racers started practicing on it. The newness off the grooves wore out the sides of the guide blades. On one occasion I went down the straight only to slam into the high bank wall. I checked my car and found that the guide blade was missing. In order to survive this new track, I had to cement brass on one side of the guide flag. After several racers had slammed the high bank wall, Ken was giving away free guide flags and free track time!

[zipper]

Suffered from that flag problem on many new tracks during 30 years.. A braid clip embedded into the flag works - exept one time when it melted away...

[Steve Deiters]

I will ask this question because my memory is not the best and I only raced there one time.

Did the Parma king have a brown lane? I launched out of the lane next to black at the Nat's there, and I believe it was the  brown lane.

Not that I recall.  It had the standard lane coloring format.

[Steve Deiters]

I'll defer to the locals, but I believe Ken M. had two banks of batteries under the track that he would alternate.  One would be charging while the other set was on line. They were huge batteries like would be found on highway big rig.

 

Keep in mind the motors at the time were big wire, amp sucking monsters compared to what is being run today.

[elvis44102]

I'll defer to the locals, but I believe Ken M. had two banks of batteries under the track that he would alternate.  One would be charging while the other set was on line. They were huge batteries like would be found on highway big rig.

 

Keep in mind the motors at the time were big wire, amp sucking monsters compared to what is being run today.

it was a minor production changing battery's truck battery's sounds right...i ran a 25 wired wind at the "first nationals" in 1971 but the horrible east coast style of using more stick-it and never wiping too much areas made qualifying almost a joke when people could not complete one lap i qualified early to avoid glue and was top qualifier till that Stewart guy from Columbus beat me 160 enties...standing by the deadman i just wanted to shout "wipe that glue" for hours (whos gonna listen to the 15yr old kid) then dan bloodworth wins the race with my backup car lol....thats the poster for this race i believe

[Steve Deiters]

Thanks for your recollections.

That “Stewart guy”.  Scott Stewart.  Master chassis builder.

[Bugeye]

I was 7 years old when I raced on that with my dad. We were there one time a week or so before the 

big race. Jan Limpach was there testing. I remember he was so much faster than anyone there that

evening. Good times.