That Jim Hall creation was a pig with earrings.
People threw crap on the track which got sucked up, damaging the fan. It got banned pretty quickly.
I had a Cox Chaparral 1/24 scale slot car when I was about 12, I think. There was a place called Tom Thumb raceway and they had 5 tracks. I don't remember how much they charged for track time but I rarely had enough money to stay on very long.