While we were rummaging around with dad looking for photos of his old race cars to throw up on our message board we stumbled onto an old toy that had once kept us both occupied for hours at a time. It’s a Kenner Red Line. The game is a handheld drag racing simulator that came out in 1980 and ours, by some miracle of the Speed Gods, still works like a champ.
It’s brilliant in its simplicity. You use the dial at the bottom to choose your class, everything from Stock to Top Fuel is represented. Choosing your class is basically the way you set the max rpm you’re allowed to rev to on your run.
Once your class is chosen the Christmas Tree in the middle of the game lights and counts down until it hits green and the you leave. Holding the right hand button with your thumb accelerates the car and hitting the shift button on the left rows you through four gears.
The key is to run your lap on the knife edge of the RPM limit of your chosen class. Assuming you don’t overrev and blow the thing up, once you finish your lap the small (ok tiny) screen displays your ET and MPH. Lather, rinse, and repeat…for hours at a time.
The real charm of this game is the insanely loud speaker than plays the race car sound (which is actually pretty good, especially when the motor is at idle). It will annoy any female member of your family at a range of more than 100 yards.
My mom bought this for my dad in 1980 when he fell and broke his elbow. Stuck at home with nothing to do, he completely mastered this thing. Sure is fun trying to knock the old coot off though!
There can’t be many of these toys left floating around. Anyone else have one?
