Cable Racing = Tether Cars = Spindizzies

Here in the US, we called them tether cars, sometimes know as ‘Thimble Drome’ racers or ‘Spindizzies’, but the concept was the same: Gas-powered scale racers attached to a cable that could circle a specialized mini track at incredible speeds. I found the video below from 1967, long after these little racers fell out of vogue in the US, but looked to still be a small hobby in the UK where this gentleman made his little ‘cable racers’ look similar to what we had in the 1940s and 50s. This film was shot at the last British track, at Mote Park, Maidstone, Kent, which closed a few years later in 1970, bringing to an end the running of cable racers in the UK.  According to the narrator, Bill Bennett made the chassis, bodies and the engines all from scratch! Wonder how many of his creations are left on that side of the pond?