Announcing the ‘Lucky 13’ International Thingie Proxy Series.
Utilizing the lessons learned from the SunChaser and Dynamic series, we’re on our way around the world again. Firm destinations at this point are London and Newcastle in the UK, Mentor, OH and St Louis, MO in the USA and Sydney, Australia. More will be added before the series starts in April 2013.
The theme this time around will be Hot Rod culture and art and with this in mind, flame paint jobs on the car bodies will be requirement #1.
My plan is for a minimum of 10 cars (and a maximum of 20) to do 12 races with a concours competition, judged by Edo – the Thingie Kingie, providing additional points to bring us up to the Lucky 13 mark. The expressions of interest from builders that I have received so far leave me confident of meeting the minimum number of cars. Entry is open to all on a first come, first served basis until the maximum number of cars is reached.
The emphasis in this series will be on shorter, flat (for the most part) ‘club’ tracks rather than commercial raceways so gearing choices for the cars should be simplified to a degree. One of the lessons to be taken from earlier international proxy series is the intention here to condense the time the series is on the road as far as is possible. With this in mind, the cars will have more ‘spec’ parts than in previous series to enable car servicing to be done when necessary at the host venue rather than having cars mailed home between rounds for the owners to repair them. Specified parts will include motors, which will be screw mounted only, 3/32” rear axles and 48 pitch gearing. ‘Retro’ standard .800” wide x .820” diameter rear tires will also be required. The logic behind this is that a smaller pool of spare parts will then be needed to travel with the cars.
The cars themselves will be based on inline ‘Retro’ cars with certain extra freedoms of expression. Specified motors will be the Evil 9 from Trinity and the Demon from Fast Ones. These are FK motors with shafts from both ends and, to the best of my knowledge, are the same motor with only the labels to distinguish between them. In deference to the views of Tony P, the race heats will be limited to 2 minutes duration at all the venues to help lengthen motor life, but replacement of faulty units should be a simple job with no vintage parts this time to consider. ‘Evil’ and ‘Demon’ fit well with the Lucky 13 and Hot Rod ethos I’m aiming at with this series so no other FK motors will be permitted at this time.
The car’s chassis must be built from brass rod, plate and tubing and steel ‘piano’ wire. Three-sided motor brackets (with provision for screw mounting the motors) and purpose designed guide tongues from commercial sources may be used but no Retro chassis kit based cars, please. Departures from the Retro norm will be the permitted use of O-ring front wheels, freedom of front axle design and no restrictions on chassis hinges and movement. The car must rest on four wheels without the guide for support and maintain a minimum .015” front ground clearance when so doing. Building the chassis with the motor flat in a straight mesh bracket plus the use of .820” rear tires should enable the cars to start the series with .062” rear ground clearance. When each car falls below a minimum rear clearance, to be determined by the host venue, the rear tires will be replaced from the series pool of parts.
The Retro maximum chassis width of 3.125” will be maintained.
Bodies should be generally recognized as Thingies. Newly created bodies are particularly welcome. Flame paint jobs, as mentioned previously, will be mandatory. Creativity in body choice and decoration are strongly encouraged, along with originality in chassis design, and, at Edo’s discretion, concours points should reflect this.
Round 1 will be held at the North London club in early April 2013.
Gentlemen, to the workbench ...
