1441 replies to this topic

[Larry Mattingly]

Mike

The P-O series consists of: two flat tracks, a reverse orange and two Kings (one a redecked original American). The other King is an early Ogilvie.

No super speedways out here...

Four of the five require untreated rubber to go 'fast'... You would be out to lunch on Wonder rubber.

Now, if the tracks mandated treated rubber as a 'spec' tire some savings might happen...

But, we all know the evils of 'spec' tires...

A $10 savings to our racers, who can now use undersize .790" tires on their F1 cars, is huge.

LM

[slotcarone]

I suggest Medium Alfa wonder rubber treated a few times with Zip Grip. You should let it soak in at least overnight. When you first put the car on the track it will be loose but after about 30 laps it should work well and then stay stuck after that. Give it a try.

IMO the style/layout of the track shouldn't matter as much as the surface and condition it is in.

[Pablo]

Meanwhile, a comment from the "silent majority" :
The BoD is making perfect sense. The rules are very clear.

So I called Swiss and ordered some fresh tongue.
Now, where is that doggone minitorch ?

[Phil Irvin]

Who cares anymore.

I CARE....

Aaa... What am I caring about??? If I cut it out of a flat piece of brass and beat the heck out of it to the shape I want... like I used to when I was a youngster... That's RETRO...

I know we have to have a semblance of rules... BUT... COME ON, GUYS HOW MANY PAGES THAT SAY THE SAME BUT SPELLED DIFFERENTLY...

PHIL I.

[jimht]

It's not the money, it's the time.
Time is money, participation will not be increased by catering to a few participants that have the time to chop up old junk Flexis.
That's just the old irritating policy of catering to the Raceway Rats that have been negatively dominating the Hobby forever and making it incredibly difficult for the newbie to be competitive.
Chassis building by beginners is usually copying what's successful, using readily available parts, regardless of cost.
Chassis parts: what's readily available over the counter is what makes it easy.

I built thousands of "really retro" chassis using production brass and steel parts.
I had and still have absolutely no desire to make something by hand that I can just buy...why bother?
A butchered Flexi does not promote easy chassis building.
The Board may have had the foresight to see that not allowing cutting up Flexis would lead to Swiss's piece, (or not ), but that item is better than a chopped up bendomatic chassis besides being waaaay cheaper in both time and money.

Tires: 1965-1970...used to buy Associated by the box, $2/pair, 5 or 6 pair at a time, used a couple of pairs in a race.
Inflation calculator indicates $2 then is $11.25 now, no big deal then, no big deal now.
Just buy from the counter whatever's suggested and you'll be competitive.
If you've got some anal thing about having to win and needing to try every tire made to do it, don't expect an organization that considers you to be an irritating (albeit vocal and respected ) minority to cater to you.

Retro is probably the cheapest race program that allows competition between raceways that we've ever come up with.
Quibbling about "savings" by using junk chassis and recycling tires is a red herring that will not get more racers involved.

[tonyp]

Clap!

[Cheater]

Bullseye, Jim!

[Larry Mattingly]

...

Doesn't really matter at this point.

I'm tired of explaining our reasoning on the matter.

The IRRA™ has made its decision...

the Penn-Ohio Series has made its decision...

All the parties involved feel their viewpoint is the 'right one', and no one is going to budge an inch.

So be it...

Race on, and let the chips fall where they fall.

LM

[S.O. Watt]

OK, after wading through 37 pages of "stuff" to see if my question had ever been broached to the BoD, only took four daze and two migraines.

So here goes,
Rule as written- 3h. Main chassis rails constructed of round steel or brass wire maybe ground or sanded flat on the bottom, but no more than 20% of the rail diameter may be removed.

This must be the hardest way for a chassis builder to accomplish this. I have found that it is much easier to file down the top of a rail in a chassis than it would be to remove the rail, file the "bottom" down, then re-install said rail. Is there something driving this wording that could be shared?

My suggestion for wording would be "Top OR Bottom, not both, of rail may be ground or sanded flat...."

Thanks for reviewing...

[Rick]

Here is my yearly proposal the the IRRA™ BoD, to allow non metalic/conductive TAPE to the BOTTOM of the chassis. Zero discussion is required, just a simple yea or nay.

Rules are written for safety of the participants or the track surface or to keep a level playing surface, IMO? Tape on he BOTTOM of any chassis does not fall into any of the above reasons...

[Jay Guard]

Tom,

Normally a builder makes the chassis and then sands the bottom of the chassis flat, that is why we wrote the rule that way. In my opinion the rule should probably read "not ground more than 20 percent total".

[Bill from NH]

When we ran C1 cars in the days of CASRA, one of the top local racers used to flatten his chassis on a Sears 6" X 48" stationary belt sander. He doesn't run Retro cars but his technique would still work.

[S.O. Watt]

Jay, that verbiage sounds reasonable. The reason sounds reasonable, too. Up until about a month ago, I could count the number of non-steel plate cars I've built since 1971 on one hand. But I still don't sand the bottoms, I build them flat enough.

Now that begs the question -

Do the tech inspectors know simple math?

I am looking at this rule for when I tune a car in the future with my mill, it will be easy taking metal off the top of the rails of a chassis, just by popping off a couple of parts.

Bill, I also have a 6x48, but it's a Dayton. And that's a heck of a way of getting clearance!

[MSwiss]

Tom,

Jay is correct. The verbiage in the rules is just to allow guys to run the bottom of chassis over sandpaper.

It's probably more to polish the brass and remove excess solder vs. "flattening" the chassis.

In the case of using something like a JK nose piece, it's almost inevitable the wire gets touched a bit and it gets a slightly flattened look (probably nowhere near 20%).

[Dan Myers]

Tires: 1965-1970...used to buy Associated by the box, $2/pair, 5 or 6 pair at a time, used a couple of pairs in a race.
Inflation calculator indicates $2 then is $11.25 now, no big deal then, no big deal now.
Just buy from the counter whatever's suggested and you'll be competitive.
If you've got some anal thing about having to win and needing to try every tire made to do it, don't expect an organization that considers you to be an irritating (albeit vocal and respected ) minority to cater to you.

I hate to dwell backwards. But your inflation math is VERY, VERY, flawed.

The following chart will prove my point.

That one

or here:

This one


It takes some time to load as it is large chart.

But if average pay for a production worker in 1965 was $19.61, and the average in 2007 was $19.71 looks like that $9.25 swing is a HUGE deal.

[S.O. Watt]

So, Mike, the rule means "flatted wire" or more appropriately "D" wire is out, unless it's only on the bottom.
On the D3 site you can see what Warmack has done on his "Twistamon". He has had other issues with that car getting it into an IRRA™ legal state. Issues I won't have, other than this one...

I could post a pix of mine (once I leave work, can't download camera phone pix here ...). I understand what it was allowing, but it's excluding all flat wire (OK by me) and some D wire applications that several people are using.

I'll be playing with flex also. And as the NW is on the cusp of adopting a set of Retro rules, we want to use a set that are "friendly" to experimentation. This rule, as written, is a stumbling block limiting some creativity.

I do not use a "mill" to do this, I use a mill file. and takes me about 10-15 minutes to flatten .078" rails down to .0625" while I'm building the frame. Future tuning on cars with or with out "D" wire will dictate I use the same procedure. I just want to make sure all is right with the world... first. (And not have to pull rails out to flatten them.)

Thanks.

[Noose]

For almost five years now, folks have been building frames without the use of flat or D wire and I honestly cannot see where any innovation or experimentation was set back as a result.

The rule was put in to kinda keep things simple recognizing that most folks, as Jay mentioned, do some sanding of the bottom of the car during a clean-up.

[Cheater]

And also acknowledging that most Retro chassis builders don't have a mill nor the skill to hand-file .078" wire to make D wire.

[jimht]

I hate to dwell backwards. But your inflation math is VERY, VERY, flawed.

Wasn't me, Dan. Straight from the -

CPI Inflation Calculator

About the CPI inflation calculator
The CPI inflation calculator uses the average Consumer Price Index for a given calendar year. This data represents changes in prices of all goods and services purchased for consumption by urban households. This index value has been calculated every year since 1913. For the current year, the latest monthly index value is used.

Besides, it jibes with what I feel the value of a pair of tires is, slot car-wise. Racers have been willing to rebuild motors to save a buck, but most don't bother recapping hubs, even though there's probably about as much work involved.

Maybe it's because it doesn't increase the odds of making the tires faster... and it's really more like real work.

[Larry Mattingly]

Jim

The only 'math' that matters to me is that the F1 fields have increased in the Penn-Ohio Retro Series since we permitted the use of recycled .790" tires last year...

Saving $12.00 apparently means 'something' to our racers.

Our competitors love the rule.

No tracks have been damaged, despite comments of naysayers...

LM

[jimht]

Might as well introduce a couple more classes, one using .875" tires and one using .760" tires.

If everyone's happy, what's not to like?

[Larry Mattingly]

If everyone's happy, what's not to like?

Atta boy, Jim.

Now you are starting to get it... LOL.

LM

[DOCinCanton]

Alright, I finally broke down and built a drop arm chassis (please dont ask why). Actually, maybe its called a plumber; the side pans are mounted off of the front of the drop arm. I vaguely recall that drop arm chassis is checked for clearance with the guide flag on the test block in a cut down area for the depth of the braid for the track being raced on. Is this still correct today?

[tonyp]

Yes, if the track braid is .035" recess, the chassis has to be checked on a block with this recess. This insures the drop arm does not drop below the .01"5 clearance specified by the rules when the car is on the track. Front tires still need to support the chassis so it has to also be checked the standard way.

[Chris Radisich]

As probably the only current East Coast racer who has raced at a Penn-Ohio race (you guys really should move about some more, there is great racing to be had in all these other series around the country). I fully understand the reasons behind the .790 tire rule in F1, and it makes complete sense for the format of their races in Penn-Ohio.

The key to the small tire rule is the order they run the races in, Can-AM first, then F1 then GT Flexi (stockar was actually the first race but is not an issue as it was on an oval).

I ran one pair of tires in all three classes. Started them out on the Can-Am car, after that race they were just about .795, ran them on the F1 car (one of my Retro East F1 cars with no chassis modifications, that passes Noose's stringent tech at .812 ties) and they were about .755 after that race and they went straight onto the Flexi GT car.

What is wrong with running one pair of tires all day, NOTHING! (from someone who does his own tires and always comes to a race with a nice big bag of every kind of rubber known to man)

One other thing, their tech procedure is different to what we see out East as well, cars are teched in for the next class while racing is going (no practice between classes), but Dan allows you to tech in on one set and change to the other set at the tech table and he then re-techs you for clearance. One side effect of allowing the tires to move for class to class is if you use the same set you always know what you have at the start of the next race, and of course you always have the option of not using the same set if you want to try something else.

All the nonsense about having got re-jig cars and rebuild things to run at .790 is just that, absolute nonsense.

My Retro East legal R-Geo, built by James Merriman F1 car was perfectly happy without any changes winning the F1 race at Bristolville. IRRA should be looking at this and doing something about it, as the feedback from the racers in Penn-Ohio that I have talked to love it, as there is nothing wrong with saving a few dollars while having fun racing.