1974 Chicago Coin Turf Club

Description: Turf Club, Chicago Coin, 1974, two players, shot ball to advance horses around track, 8-track stereo tape player sound. The tape has four tracks (with left and right channels), with the first track being the "call to post" theme. The other 3 tracks are the sounds of horses running. The call to post theme should play at game start, then switch to the horses running for the rest of the game. Note the 8-track starts as soon as the credit button is pressed, but the timer (nor the game) doesn't start until the first ball is launched by either player.

Single player plays against the clock and the two players play against each other. In single player mode, the 2nd player horse and the timer (which is a mechanical stepper unit) advance in unison, one horse length at a time (and timer in 5 unit increments.) The player1 patron must beat the auto-advance player2 horse to the finish line to win. Game uses a black light too as the background scenes are florescent.

The object is to get around the track the quickest (the yellow and red horses are light animated on a horse track.) The player launches the ball, trying to get the ball to fall into selected slots. The slot determine how far the horse moves (1,2,3,4 lengths.) At first this may not seem like a skill game, but it really is. Artful triggering of the ball can get a pretty consistent pattern of 3 and 4 horse lengths on each shot. ("Whiffing" is also possible yeilding no horse movement.) If either player gets to the finish line in under a certain amount of time (operator selectible), either replays or "extended time" are won. The extended time wording is really a farce, as all it means is you have one a free single player game, without advancing the credit unit. This was probably done to avoid gambling laws, opposed to just putting a credit on the credit unit.

Chicago Coin also made an identical game called Auto Race that was a car theme. The manuals and schematics are identical.

Please contact me if you have this game for sale at cfh@provide.net



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