Bally’s Le Mans Speedway: Crossroads Shopping Center

One of a short-lived but fondly remembered family fun-center concepts, **Bally’s Le Mans Speedway** started in the early 1970s as an indoor go-kart “mini-Grand Prix” attraction and morphed—almost accidentally—into a video-game arcade brand that Bally Manufacturing chose to keep alive even after absorbing it into the Aladdin’s Castle empire.

Le Mans’ maiden lap was run at Del Amo Fashion Center (Torrance, CA) in August 1972, when casino impresario Jay Sarno’s Diversified Leisure Inc. spent a reported half-million dollars installing bright red karts, high-fence guardrails, and a scoreboard straight out of Circuit de la Sarthe.([sbhistoryblog.wordpress.com][1]) Mall shoppers lined up to drive, but the venue quickly noticed that quarter-eating video games (PONG had only hit the market that same year) were an easier maintenance play. Small game corners sprouted next to the track—an omen of things to come.

By the late 1970s Bally Manufacturing—already knee-deep in pinball, slots, and its Aladdin’s Castle arcade chain—acquired several Le Mans sites outright. At St. Louis’ Westport Plaza, for example, the karts were ripped out, the floor leveled, and rows of upright cabinets marched in under a tweaked marque: **Bally’s Le Mans Arcade—“A Playground for the Mind.”**([stl-style.com][2]) That hybrid naming (half legacy, half Bally-branded) let the company capitalize on local nostalgia while signaling new ownership.

Oklahoma City’s Crossroads Mall branch tells the longer story: opened as Le Mans Speedway in the late ’70s, re-signed as Bally’s Le Mans in the early ’80s, studded with octagonal brass tokens, and—despite the 1982-83 video-game crash—operated continuously until 2007 / 2008 before finally giving way to a tutoring center.([robohara.com][3], [reddit.com][4]) Locals still swap memories (and tokens) on forums, swearing the air smelled like burnt rubber and buttered popcorn at the same time.

Most other locations were folded into the Aladdin’s Castle network or shuttered by the mid-1980s, but a handful kept the Le Mans badge until long after the checkered flag fell. Today the surviving ephemera—kiosk photos, eight-sided “Playground for the Mind” tokens, and crimson racing jackets—serve as mile markers for researchers tracing Bally’s experimental foray beyond straight-up arcades.

References

1. Opening-day coverage of Le Mans Speedway at Del Amo Fashion Center, Torrance, CA.:contentReference[oaicite:3]{index=3}
2. Rob O’Hara’s eyewitness closure report on Bally’s Le Mans Arcade, Crossroads Mall, OKC.:contentReference[oaicite:4]{index=4}
3. Bygone Brand oral history of the Westport Plaza (St. Louis) location and its Bally takeover.:contentReference[oaicite:5]{index=5}
4. Reddit collector thread detailing token design and late-era operations at Crossroads Mall.:contentReference[oaicite:6]{index=6}

[1]: https://sbhistoryblog.wordpress.com/2015/01/03/aladdins-castles-video-game-kingdom-at-del-amo-fashion-center/?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Aladdin's Castle's video game kingdom at Del Amo Fashion Center"
[2]: https://www.stl-style.com/product-page/lemans-arcade-bygone-brand?utm_source=chatgpt.com "LeMans Arcade - Bygone Brand - STL-Style"
[3]: https://www.robohara.com/?p=1163&utm_source=chatgpt.com "Bally Le Mans Arcade — Closed - RobOHara.com"
[4]: https://www.reddit.com/r/Arcadetokens/comments/zgbn76/20221125_ballys_le_mans_brass21mm_for_trade/?utm_source=chatgpt.com "[2022-11-25] Bally's Le Mans [Brass][21mm][ For trade] - Reddit"