SAGER’S RACEWAY
by Ed Sager
Remember Sager’s Raceway? Many people tell me what great memories they have from the slot car track. For my thirteenth birthday my parents, William H. ‘Bill’ and Mary Sager, offered to buy me a ham radio receiver. This was my dream come true. It was March 1965 and I was anxious to buy one. The store closest to Sebring was in Orlando so Dad and I took a trip up there one morning. When we arrived at the store it was not open yet so he decided we’d ride around that area a bit and check things out until it opened. We drove through the parking lot of a shopping center that was almost entirely empty. When we came on a sign in a window with a slot car track for sale he was interested and jotted down the phone number. He found a phone booth (remember those?) called up and bought it. It was the beginning of Sager’s Raceway Slot Racing track. To get it moved to Sebring was quite a chore. It came apart in about eight pieces. I think it also had eight lanes and when installed at the store he rented at 510 North Pine Street where Bill Dixon’s Copier Repair business is currently located. I pastor the church next door now, Highlands Grace Reformed Church. The track was probably about sixty or seventy feet long by about twelve to fifteen feet wide.
Dad had purchased the Western Auto Store franchise on N. Ridgewood Drive in late 1962 and our family moved here from Philadelphia February 1963. So while he operated the Western Auto he simultaneously had the Sager’s Raceway business around the corner behind the Post Office beside the Walker Chevrolet car lot.
Dad hired Mr. Tanner to manage the business. His son Ken Blount is still here in Sebring and is a guitar luthier that is very renowned. Dad also had a man named ‘Ollie’ that worked there, a short, older man with a neatly trimmed mustache that wore glasses. That’s him in this photo from about 1966.
No comments:
Post a Comment