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Superman’s Last Stand: I’m Just Here for the Gasoline by Steven King
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hen it comes to Hot Wheels, I think I started out like most of the people that follow 3DBotmaker.
I would take the money I earned from mowing lawns (I had 4 lawns on the block I would take care of) and that would keep new cars coming into my ownership. I still remember the place I would go: Jerry's Toys and Hobbies in Saint Anthony, MN. It was the type of toy store we don’t see much anymore. Jerry the owner would get to know his customers; he always knew what cars to show me, cars I simply could not reject. still got used enough. I would watch car movies as a kid and replay the best scenes from the movies on my bedroom floor. Smokey and the Bandit, Gone in 60 Seconds (1974 version), Vanishing Point/ Duel, The Road Warrior; they all where replayed over and over again during the long Minnesota winters. Then one summer my life changed: the older kids down the block where selling their orange Hot Wheels track with a duel lane starter (almost 20 feet of track, to be precise). From that point on, the focal point was not simply re-enacting car stunts I watched on T.V. or the movies; now it was to challenge the cars with thrilling, death-defying racing. The first tracks were somewhat short, barely tapping into the over 18 feet of track I had bought. Starting off on the top of the chair and going a few feet, I would race all my cars. The cars I bought from Jerry's Toys and Hobbies started to change as well; I started looking for specific traits: faster, lower, heavier. The tracks started to grow as well; they moved from the chair and slowly got long enough that they would travel from the 2nd floor to the 1st floor. The cars would dance their way down the track. When I had a friend over, we took turns being at the starting line or the finish; when they were busy, I would bribe one of my sisters into starting the cars for me and, when no one was around, I would race them alone and do my best to figure out who won. Later on, I got the big flag finish line that rarely lied. The door to the 2nd floor still has grill imprints permanently testifying that these cars flew down the track and often came to a short stop. As I grew older I got more scientific about racing the cars, looking at weight and wind resistance. I didn’t race the cars as much as I was when I was younger but they 16 | Diecast Racing Report
Things started chipping away at my racing time: Boy Scouts then video games, High School then girls, all took me further away from my racing. From something I would do every day, it slowed way down; they got packed away at some point for months at a time (it is hard to impress a girl with orange tracks and Hot Wheels all over the place). But I never stopped collecting, and at least once a month I would introduce my new cars to the old ones by racing. I even got some of my high school friends into racing for a minute. Hot Wheels started to drift away from me, though. I had a real car now and I was determined to learn a few of the tricks I saw in the movies and recreated when I was a child on my bedroom floor. Then I meet a great gal, punk as all-get-out and with an eye for big stupid guys with Mohawks. We started talking and dating and, as things go, we grew close. Because winters suck in Minnesota, with long stretches of cold, she decided she was going back to the land of hot summers and warm winters. Given the choice, I chose to go with her. As I was going through my belongings, I came across my cars and, out of instinct, I packed them away - the idea of leaving them was too great to deal with. When I first got to Los Angeles I was the typical fish out of water. Our work schedules often left one of us alone for a large part of the day and one day in a fit of boredom I opened that box I brought from Minnesota. Each car I grabbed gave me a rush of memories: I remembered where I bought it, I remembered the time it won a race sliding down the track upside down. It was a
