fall inside a hole

Tomy Dead Heat downhill racing games

First written June 21, 2024

First released in the 1970s, Tomy developed a series of downhill racing games that used multi-lane motorized lifts and track sets that would lift up racers and let them run down the track. Most versions included a "game" where each player follows a racer around, with a lap counter to keep track of who was ahead, with the different performance of each racer and lane varying as well as the lift hill being inconsistent in how quickly it successfully lifts each rider each time they approach. In Japan there were sold as デッドヒートゲーム Dead Heat Game, seemingly coming from the phrase for a close race.

Downhill racing toys like this were somewhat popular in the 1970s - the era where children had to watch toys instead of television, and adults who were into horse races could not watch them on demand (this need also led to the development of multi-groove records and VCR board games). Other similar set-them-up-and-watch-them-go downhill racing toys include the Toy Town Speed Circuit and the mall-stand favorite Playful Penguin Race.

Variations

There have been a great many variations of this game, mostly with different racing vehicles and a few different track sets. It is hard to know exactly when some of these came out without finding a lucky photograph of the right panel of the box in a high enough resolution to actually read the date mark - unless I import about half a dozen almost-identical downhill racing games.

Year Set name Description Photo
1972 Dead Heat Game Early Japanese motocross set with separate lane picker
  Motor-Cycle Racing Set Colorful Woolco export of the motorcycle style set with seperate lane spinner and no sign  
  Dead Heat Game Harness Racing  Japanese horse chariot racing set. Exported as Kmart and Woolworth's Harness Racing Game(s)  
  Dead Heat Game  Japanese motorcycle set with all-black figure-eight track, orange motorcycles, and lane picker sign  
  Motorcycle Dead Heat Game Later Japanese motorcycle set with orange and white track and lane-picker integrated into lap counter sign  
1978  Dead Heat Game  Orange and black cycling Dead Heat set with moving rider legs and battery holder support. Exported as Kmart Moto-cross Racing Bicycles  
1979 Dead Heat American Truck Race Japanese "trucker" racing game with 18 wheelers racing around. Also exported to Australia as Sunny Toys Truck Racing  
  Skateboard Racing Game Woolworth export skateboarding set with red and white track and lift hill support  
1993 Super Mario Kart Dead Heat Game  Japanese Super Mario Kart licensed set with Mario, Bowser, Princess Peach, and Yoshi on the later track layout  
2002 Thomas' Race on the Rails Thomas the Tank Engine licensed racing game with Thomas, Percy, James, and Mavis on the later track layout   

Dead Heat Game (Japanese Motocross version) (1972)

In later 1971 or 1972 this Japanese motorcycle racing version of Dead Heat Game (デッドヒートゲーム) was released. This version uses the classic four-lane figure eight with D cell lift hill and four small motorcycle riders. This does appear to be one of the earlier Tomy downhill racing sets.


The M-20 mark on the side of the box signifies that it was printed sometime between October 1971 and September 1972.

The inside of the box lid shows some instructions and also shows the lane selector spinner, missing from this example.

Set contents
Quantity
Item
Photo
4 Motorcyclists
Lift hill
1 "B" track
1 "C" track
1 "D" track
1 "E" track
1 "F" track
1 "G" track
1 "H" track
14 pieces  Track supports (seven bases and different heights of stem) 
2 pieces Lap counter and sign
4 Flags (two of each color)
2 Trees
1 Lane decider wheel  

The racers in this variation are on motorcycles with two small metal rollers underneath. A metal strap holds the two sides of the bikes together.

The lift hills have two sets of rollers with four rubber belts between them, one for each lane. The belts are identical between lanes and have sets of protrusions spaced apart to catch the riders and lift them up the hill. As the instructions note, the unpredictable nature of the lift is part of what helps to randomize the racers as they go around, as they often drop down the conveyers or do not immediately catch the first set of protrusions that come around.

The belts are driven by a small metal gearbox inside the lift housing. A D battery hangs off the underside and powers the lift. Later versions made the sliding cover an additional angled support to hold up the lift hill.

The track sections are all lettered B to H with the lift hill being A and each half of each joint is marked with sequential numbers to help set the track up in the right order.

The B track includes a starting gate, and trackside accessories sit in the holes on the edges of some track pieces.

Support pillars sit under each stretch of track, fitting into cylindrical protrusions. A lap counter tracks the progress of each racer and a Dead Heat Game sign slots in to mark each lane. Later versions of Dead Heat often integrated the lane selection disc, which is missing from my example, into this sign. This disc matches the different riders up with different lanes - players of the game select a racer color and the disc dictates their lane.


Click for video with sound!

When the game it set up and running, each racer is released together from the starting gate. The racers will drift in and out of sync as they fall down the lift hill and take slightly different lengths of time to reach the bottom due to the track and the smoothness with which they roll. The lane counters only reach up to nine, so keeping track of exactly how many laps each player has done after a little while can be hard, but it isn't really that serious (or, to be honest, that good) of a game.


Click for video with sound!

I do quite like it as a toy - there is something mesmerizing about the way the litter racers all weave their way back down to rejoin the lift with the motor running and the little riders falling back down at random.