Discovering a Classic

This was the first DMD game that my friend and I played on location when we first started getting into pinball in 1997 (he had a Gottlieb Buck Rogers, and I had a Bally Hokus Bokus EM). Like most newbies, who I now watch play this game, neither one of us knew that we were supposed to take our hand off the flipper button to physically shift gears. It took several two-player games before one of us said, "The guy keeps saying to shift gears. How are you supposed to do that?" Duh! Because we were so scared to take our hand off the flipper button, we shifted for each other when it was the other player's turn to play.

Also, the game we were playing had the Super Charger diverter disabled. We didn't know that at the time, so we couldn't figure out why the game had an elevated oval track (after several days of playing, the ball had never gone that route). One of us pointed out that it appeared to have a diverter that opened up to allow the ball to travel through the Super Charger. Quite observant, weren't we? At this point, we became very intrigued about how to get that diverter to open and send the ball through the Super Charger. The idea of the ball going through the Super Charger was fascinating to us. Little did we know the Super Charger also had magnets to help propel the ball around the track several times. We were just hoping and expecting to send the ball through once by sheer velocity of our flipper shot.

Now, the big question: How do we get that diverter to open? We concluded that the only way to open the diverter was to reach the 4th Gear Award, which was aptly named, "Super Charger."

Well, as I wrote earlier, this was when my friend and I first started getting into pinball, so we weren't very good. After several different trips to the arcade, one of us finally reached the 4th Gear Award! Our joy quickly faded to confusion, and then disappointment. Nothing happened. Hmmm. We then concluded that it must only open on the 5th Gear Award: Red-Line Mania. Our hope was renewed.

A few weekends went by before we had a chance to get back to the arcade, but when we did, we were ready to try to tackle Red-Line Mania. We were going to find out what happens with that darn elevated oval track! We couldn't wait. We trashed talked about who was going to be the first to reach Red-Line Mania and get through that Super Charger.

When we arrived at the arcade, to our dismay, a Williams Roadshow stood in the place of our beloved Getaway. We couldn't believe it! The arcade had replaced The Getaway with another machine! How could they do that to us?

It was several months later when my friend and I discovered the true purpose and function of the oval track. We had attended an arcade auction, and a Getaway was being auctioned by one of the operators. During the auction preview, we managed to send the ball through the Super Charger on each of our first balls! Anyone watching us would have thought we had just discovered the cure for cancer! We were so giddy and happy, I think we might have even started jumping up and down, giggling like a bunch of school girls.