46 replies to this topic

[dc-65x]

I thought I'd put all the Rod & Custom race reports together in one place starting with race number 1. Enjoy













Race number 2:













Race number 3:











Race number 4:












Race number 5:
















Race number 6:

[tonyp]

The Rosetta Stone of Scratchbuilding

[Mike Steube]

Rick, a big THANK YOU. This jail door race is for you, ole buddy. Good things come to those who have good ideas. It took over 3 years for this idea to come to life.

[The Bugman]

hmmmm very strange,in all those R&C races,i see NO CHASSIS that look like the ones that are being built today by ALL,,,,and you wont let a guide widget be used but youve ADDED soooooo many rails to them,,if youre gonna do it DO IT RIGHT,,LIKE IN 66',or dont fudge over a small part like that guide widget,just my opinion,sounds like a"do as i say not as i do"

[dc-65x]

Hi Oscar,

The 5th race has the heavy weights. Lots-O-rails as I remember. I'll make sure to post 5th race tonight.

[slotcarone]

Anyone else notice the "Long Island Expressway" sign at the second race above the track---isn't that a joke!!!!!

[tonyp]

Yup. Gene made a big point about how heavy Morrissey's cars were. It even looks like one of the cars is even built with 3/32 brass rod for rails or at least that is what I have thought for 43 years. LOL. The white 2D I think...

These cars worked really well as designs for me. Probably the last stuff I copied before kind of figuring out the whole "what works" deal.

[Mike Steube]

Oscar, the 4th race was the first race I entered. I finally worked up the courage. My car was a 4 railer with lead on the drop arm. It was a sled by that day's standard. I weighed a reproduction 3 railer car that Bryan built. The car is a perfect replica of this era. Bryan and I were blown away. The car weighed 99.1 grams. My guess-ta-mation of the weight of my car then, after weighing Bryan's car, would be 110 to 115 grams. I think we have a good blend of "1966 to early 1967" rules to launch the beast. Dude, looks like a 10 gram chunk a lead on that 4 railer's drop arm to me.

[TSR]

The Rosetta Stone of Scratchbuilding

And Champollion was not even there...

[HarV Wallbanger III]

Cool pics! Gets me warm all over..... darn I spilled my coffee again!

Growing up in So Cal at this time in the 60's was all about Slots, Surfing and Desert racing dirt bikes. Girls where still 3-4 years away! Seeing all the old mag pics is just like yesterday never really left. Keep putting them up for all of us to see!

[don.siegel]

Yep, as you say Rick, the 5th race for GT cars has all the heavyweights - I've been looking at it since yesterday! Not only are there a bunch of rails on just about all the cars, but they extend in front of the front axle, etc. The story explains that the boys were all adding extra rails to keep from launching - it's a Red King I believe, kind of notorious for the launch ramps on the straight! Maybe Mike and the others remember this one - American Hobbies in Hawthorne...

Don

[dc-65x]

Race number 5 is up and I wonder how much some of these babies weigh

[Toremeister]

Race number 5 is up and I wonder how much some of these babies weigh

WOW Mr.Thigpen,THANK YOU VERY MUCH for these posts ! Yessir,that race #5 was my very first BIG win with the BIG boys ! I had turned my Ferrari into a "roadster" by cutting the roof off ! If one looks closely,you can see that I replaced the roof with some plastic held in place with body mounting pins !

[Mike Steube]

Hey, Anderson and Warmack. Remember when we were practicing at the red track (5th R&C race) and that car launched in the bank and ended up in the coke machine? Here's what happened:
I forget who it was but, they were jetting around practicing. This track was the one with two big bumps in the main straight that made you drive them. Sorta of a, let off and then back on the gas type of thing. If you didn't time it right you de-slotted in the straight and lauched in the bank. Most of the time you landed on the floor or hit the shop wall. They had one of those coke machines that you would open the glass door on the front of the machine and pull the coke bottle out of the round coke rack holes. Remember those old machines? Anyway, this guy is pulling a coke out of the machine at the same time this other guy is launching in the bank. You guessed it! The car dives into the coke machine exactly in the same hole that coke boy just pulled his coke out of. Never have seen anything like it since.

[Tex]

,,,,and you wont let a guide widget be used but youve ADDED soooooo many rails to them,,

From what I've read, not true. Some(one?) have campaigned against the widgets but the power-that-be(Mike Steube!) hasn't said you couldn't use the widgets. It may be true that the pros didn't use them, but the "widgets"(as they have come to be called) were period pieces of hardware that a geek such as myself may have used at the time. Don't be fooled by merely "loud" voices.... listen to the voices that were there at the time; they've not said you can't use the widgets.

[4laneron]

Mike you mean like this

[Mike Steube]

Ron, that's it exactly!

[TSR]

Few of the R&C series cars have survived. Thanks to Bruce Paschal, the two Steube cars used in the 5th race did. One in completely original condition (Billy's) the other (Mike's) went through a restoration process.



This is Billy's car.



And its chassis.



This is Mike's car after restoration.You can see its picture in the article.

[Hworth08]

Hey Philippe,

Is it too tempting to change the body and rear tires tires, and turn a few laps with Mike's original car?

[Mopar Rob]

Is the Jack Beers in the concours points the Jack Beers (Olderracer) from Chicago?

[TSR]

Yes it is. Jack also kindly donated a whole slew of his old cars to the LASCM.

Is it too tempting to change the body and rear tires tires, and turn a few laps with Mike's original car?

I did when I restored the car. Steve Okeefe did a superb job of repairing the chassis that had been damaged in a severe crash. It ran great with Cox "gray" donuts on repro Russkit wheels.
I did not drive the incredibly original Billy car, because it is one of the very few totally intact pro racing cars left extant. I simply cleaned it up and removed the minor corrosion it had built over the past 40 years. The motor was opened and cleaned, but no parts were replaced.

[Prof. Fate]

Hi

The second race is on one of the very unusual Mille Miglia tracks.

Brian, do you remember if it had the original "sandtex" surface, or had they fixed that?


There was one 40' longer here in Utah up in Ogden. Run by a couple of nutty brothers who walked around with guns on their hips because they feared being robbed!

Anyway, when we were about to enter the "dark ages".....They decided to promote the track by having a serious money summer series that totaled some 5000bucks. The worm is that YOU guys had good power. These techno-idiots thought that their 18volt MRC powerpack was BETTER power. My partner and I were commuting up and back in an microbus trying to figure out the track. In normal times, they weren't worth the trip.

Anyway, by irony, I ended up having 3 cars dominate the series and make us a lot of money. All the racers were running modern early 70s anglewinders in the 180 gram range with 25 singles. With the gated array, they looked good running alone and amp sucked like crazy with a full track.

I merely resurrected my mid 66 era cars which I knew flew on no amperage(they were pianowire not brass). The same basic Hemi 300 65/30 motors from the first arco. They STILL had the sandtex surface, and one added advantage was lack of tire wear for our cars.

Fate

[Mike Steube]

After reviewing race #5, Morrissey's heavy weights, it seems I was wrong to put the weight limit at 110 grams. I'm going to do some thinking here. From the look of those cars 120 or 125 grams would be more inline for a car built late in 1966 or early 1967. Morrissey was a pioneer in chassis developement. One of those heavy weights would probably do pretty good on the BPR Kingleman. The 110 gram limit won't cause a problem on the BPR King but, it will be hard to get them to handle the Flattrack and Kingleman track at 110 grams.

[tonyp]

The car Mike Morrissey ran I made a lot of copies of and it was excellent at the time on our Engleman tracks which were pretty bumpy with the surface mounted copper tape instead of braid.

I ask copied the car you used at the race before with the dropped front axle and on our smaller tracks it was killer.. Thats you guys getting me started..

[dc-65x]

I thought I bump this back to the top. Pick a car you like and build the sucker