I first met Victor in the mid 80’s at a Bellflower slot car track. Victor noticed I was running a realistic-looking Group C 1/24 scale slot car. We had a common interest in building and running realistic cars. We talked about the MESAC Club and style of cars and Victor’s membership in the club. A few months later, Victor invited Eric and me to run at his club track. I built the Lola T70 shown below to race on it.
One of the cars I raced was Victor’s silver Porsche 917 MESAC car. See the picture below of the two cars racing. Years later, Victor gave me the silver Porsche 917 body. It was badly damaged but restorable. I repaired the body and ran it with various chassis through the years. With our renewed interest in MESAC, I asked Victor if the chassis for the Porsche was still around. Victor said he would be happy to look for the chassis and give it to me. It would be nice to have it restored back to MESAC configuration.
We remembered the chassis having battery holders for lights in the chassis pans. Wheels and tires used were the normal Russkit wheels and 7/8” diameter front and rear tires. Victor dug up a handful of possible chassis. He held each one of them up to a 917 body and found a match with one of them.
Victor informed me the AA size battery holders are for the car lights used in MESAC endurance races. The class of racing was called the “Enduro Class”. Victor even found the schematic diagram for the lights. It also shows amperage draw calculations.
Victor shipped me the chassis and a box full of parts for the restoration. It was in great shape, with only a couple of broken solder joints. I glued some tires on the Russkit wheels and trued them. The rear tires are the magic MESAC ones that work with no traction compounds and seem to never dry out. I geared the car 7-34. The car is powered with a Mura C-can motor. I am not sure what wind the untagged armature is, but it is fast.
The plugged body mounting holes were re-drilled and the body pinned back on.
Incandescent light bulbs are used for the lights. A small switch is also installed to turn them on and off.
I was surprised that the car with the large batteries weighed in at only six plus ounces. The car is really fast, and you do not feel the mass of the batteries. Fast lap was the same as the Ti22 MESAC car. The Ti22 turns fast laps more consistently though.
This project was fun to complete, and many thanks to Victor. This one is Rick's favorite MESAC car. See the reunion picture of Lola and Porsche.
1987 Club Racing with Victor
The two cars now.
917 restored with the original chassis.
Grain of rice bulbs.
MESAC Enduro Class Car. AA batteries for lights.
Rear detail.
6.7 ounces with batteries.
