Memories of childhood excitement found me buying an old Tyco HO Slot Car set at a local garage sale. Five dollars later the Zero Gravity Cliffhangers with Nite-Glow set was mine!
This is one cool set. Zero gravity, cliffhangers, nite-glow. What is all this? We never had any of this fancy stuff growing up. Just oval track, cars, speed and excitement.
Anxiety was also mine waiting to see if a mostly complete set was to be found in the well-maintained box.
A few days later father and daughter had fun puzzling the track together. Piece by piece our anticipation grew. The track was complete (with a few overpass support pieces missing) and now together. Two complete cars are found in the box and look in workable order.
Cars go on the track. Feel the gritty motion of the controller, all seems well. Time to plug in.
We are off and racing. Spiral, cliff climb and descent, vertical loop and a straight-away in a tight layout.
Kids still love this stuff — girls and boys. Kids dropping by have to try it out. Of course the older, greener part of me worries that this is promoting gas guzzling muscle cars, but then I remember that I’m truly promoting re-use and that electric vehicles can be exciting. Here are a few pictures of our set.
Here is a similar set in action.
(Based on this video, I might need to adjust our track layout.)
Is all this silly? Of course, it is fun and can be therapeutic.
And when we’re done with it, I’m sure — after confirming on eBay — that there are others that would give this set more use in their home.