If you lived in the Midwest of the United States in the mid-1960’s chances are good that you knew about slot car racing. It was the craze back then for hobbyists, car enthusiasts, boys, and the girls with brothers!
And if you were into performance slot car racing, then you would have selected either a Mura, Champion, or Dyna-Rewind motor to win. Not familiar with it? Check out these pictures:
A slot car racing enthusiast in the mid to late 1960s would bring his best cars in a wooden gear box to a local track. For about $.50 he (or she) could rent a lane and race whomever showed up that evening for 30 minutes. Competition was always fierce with fans and racers taking turns spotting cars around the track that had spun out or flown off in the heat of the battle. Each car had rubber tires, an electric motor, chassis, body, and plastic tongue-with-flat-metal-brushes on the bottom. The cars ran on a track with a groove in the middle of the lane and tiny metal or wire filaments on either side of the groove (which conducted the electricity as it made contact with the metal brushes). Each “driver” held a controller by which he (or she) could adjust the speed of the car by squeezing or releasing the lever on the handle. If you went too fast your car would either spin out or fly off the track! While the latter was quite spectacular it would often damage the car beyond repair — at least until the next Thursday night of racing!
Formal competitions and even professional drivers became legendary. In 1966 one racer in particular began beating the pants off of everyone in the Detroit area and carrying off all the trophies with his car powered by a special motor. Ted Lech had discovered how to make the motors faster by employing the adhesives, balancing principles, and rewinding concepts from his work at the General Motors Tech Center in Warren, Michigan. Soon others were clamoring to purchase the motors. Ted and his co-worker, “Bud” Stordahl created Dyna-Rewind and were quickly overwhelmed when orders came in from just about everywhere (including the UK and Japan) with each successive motor. In an interview with Pete Hagenbuch in the Car Model magazine of July 1967, “Mr. Motor” as they called him reveals the genius behind Dyna-Rewind motors. All was well and very exciting, however the slot car racing industry was beginning to diminish when toy manufacturers could not keep up with the performance output of the small-shop car guys. But the small-shop car guys couldn’t support the overall industry either. Then suddenly Ted Lech absconded with some of the business assets and vanished in 1969, never to be heard from again in the slot car racing world. Bud Stordahl closed Dyna-Rewind.
What happened? Well I guess you could say that not everyone handles success well. Ted Lech was my father: born March 30, 1937 in the Detroit, Michigan area. He married my mother, RoseAnne, in 1959 and I was born 9 months, 2 weeks, and 3 days later. We were living in a trailer park when I was born: a red and white mobile home at the beginning of the block. There was a sidewalk out front in which I rode my red and white tricycle with a bell and streamers on each of the handle bars. I loved riding my bike. Life was good for a 3 year old!
We moved into a house that my dad had selected in a new subdivision in Warren sometime in 1963. Michael was 2, I was 3, and Robert was on his way into the world thus necessitating the move up to a 3 bedroom ranch. We didn’t have much furniture so there was plenty of room in which we kids would play. The best spot was the basement: we could make all the noise we wanted to ’cause mom would just close the door at the top of the stairs into the kitchen! We had the coolest toys with which to play down there too. I remember a wooden train set on wheels that my dad had made where the cars hooked together and were big enough to hold each of us kids in our own train car. When we were lucky dad would whoosh us around the basement, carefully navigating around the black metal poles supporting the house upstairs! And if he would open the hamper shoot on us as we rolled under the hinged box he made in the ceiling, well that was really cool! Splat!
My dad built Dyna-Rewind in the basement of that house. I have come to understand that some of the operation was at the home of his business partner, Bud Stordahl, but I do not have any recollection of him or seeing the part of the operation that was in his garage in Birmingham. After all, I was a young kid back then. What I remember is all of the wooden tables that my dad had built and the increasing amount of tools and machinery that filled the basement. I remember playing with most of it, especially the rewinding machine, drill press, semi-circular magnets, black plastic display boxes with a clear lid, and even the motors. On a good day my dad would take us with him to race at “The Groove Raceway” in Royal Oak or perhaps another local track. In time he would take Mike and Rob more than me; perhaps I had developed other more girl-y interests too with my best friend who lived next door (Tammy Orlando). My brothers had a blast during their time with my dad. Mike became quite good at slot car racing and his ability to beat most anyone in games of all kinds continues to this day!
Flash forward to 2013. Out of the blue, my brother Mike makes contact with a French gentleman, Philippe de Lespinay, who was writing a new book to expand on his first publication, Vintage Slot Cars. Mike met with Mr. de Lespinaly, and shared the wooden gear box he had gotten from our dad containing a collection of Dyna-Rewind motors, slot cars, and my dad’s own hand-painted favorite too. Within a year from now the LA Slot Car Racing Museum is scheduled to open in California. I’m glad Mike didn’t sell out the family mementos, caving to Mr. de Lespinay’s repeated requests to both of us! I have one motor with a wire still attached to it. This was my memento actually from my brother Robert’s mobile home in Monument, Colorado when we were settling his affairs after he passed away in 2003. I displayed that motor where I could see it each morning for a long time. I already had several empty black plastic boxes like the one pictured above. A couple of them still store my unused gum wrappers from my 300+ foot gum wrapper chain tossed out long ago. Sure wish I had some of those magnets used inside the metal motor housing. We used to see how high we could stack them up before tumbling over and . . .
My brother called me about the book after his interview with Mr. de Lespinay a couple of weeks ago. So when Mike offered the opportunity for me to fill in my own details of this story I jumped in too. Mr. Stordahl had misreported some facts and perhaps was still a little sore about the sudden closing of the business in 1971. Evidently my father stole some of the business proceeds when he left with his technical genius as well. I am sad about that. The details of his leaving left scars with me too for a very long time. He had gone to California with another woman and did not return for a few months. The heartache for my mother and us three kids continued after his return to the Detroit area, through their divorce, and deepened when he left a second time: for decades. No one really knew where he was when he finally left Michigan. When we did discover that he was in Florida (and I later learned that he had also lived in Texas for a time) there was really no need for me to contact him. I had grown up, gone away to college, and moved to the Chicago suburbs to start my career in occupational therapy. Life had moved on. Sure I missed him. But life had to move on you see. My Heavenly Father filled in the gaps.
Flash forward about 30 years and our father has since reconciled with Mike and me. In 2007 my mother passed away and would never have contact with him before she died. She had moved on as well so I am not sure that it would have mattered to her anyways. Thaddeus Lech Jr. died in his 30-foot travel trailer along the Gulf Coast of Florida in 2011. He had become a renowned local fisherman; I can prove it with a few hundred photos I inherited of him holding up virtually every kind of fish that either spawned or was native to the Florida panhandle region of the Gulf of Mexico. He was also renowned in the automotive industry: inventor and co-inventor for Borg-Warner Automotive, holding over 20 patents for various types of clutch assembly and drive train components. His genius had continued! It makes sense that it would. When I was a kid he’d crafted the most phenomenal gerbil cages you could ever imagine for our pets Agatha, Ralph, and Dee. If I insert the word “sundeck” here you might be able to imagine the other rooms, elevated walkway, and security door too . . .
Everyone has a “past.” Everyone makes mistakes. Sometimes there are reasons for those mistakes and sometimes it’s simply the manifestation of sin in our lives. My childhood is filled with a few more sad stories than happy ones yet gratefully the sorrow has faded away. There is much more to the story of my father that could be written here to fill in the details. Others have attempted to share the sordid details perhaps to give the retelling of Mr. Motor’s story a little more spice. I do not believe that is necessary at this time. When my father contacted Mike then me before my father passed away, we were able to both get re-acquainted and speak words of regret, words of forgiveness. I got to hear stories I never knew about myself as a girl and about this adventurous, brilliant, complicated man. His smile and sense of humor warmed my heart in a place I did not know existed when I had moved on so many decades ago. To hear the words, “I love you” was a salve I did not know I was craving for when they finally came at just the right time. Even my husband, Steve, was touched by my dad’s gentleness, incredible way of handling the characters of the travel trailer park he had managed, and sense of humor. They hit it off well: car guys always do.
I hope the sequel to Vintage Slot Cars is a success. I hope that racing fans from around the world visit the LA Slot Car Museum and talk about the amazingly fast Dyna-Rewind motors. As for the genius between my brothers and me in the photographs below: I will always love you dad. Thank you for the memories. With my orange motor labeled with the foil Dyna-Rewind sticker and stray wire hanging by a thread, I’m good.
Jesus is for the Wounded 
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