281 replies to this topic

[rmjlmartin]

I hope this is the right place for this post. If not, someone please point me to where it should be and I'll repost it there.

 

I'm just getting back into slot cars after being out of it for probably 25 years or so. (I mostly just drove at a local track as a teenager in the early-mid 90s.) My recollection is that the track I ran at pretty much had only Parma stuff (Womp and Flexi 1) and wing cars, though I do have a Champion Thumper that I bought there, so they must have had at least some Champion stuff. Now, getting back into it, there have been quite a few different flexi chassis that have come and gone.

 

The internet seems to believe that the original Flexi-Kar came out in the early-mid 80s. But now there are 5 different Parma Flexis, and there's Champion, Mossetti, Trinity Sotworks, a number of different JK chassis and probably a few others.

 

So I'm curious what an approximate timeline for some of these are. Not necessarily exact dates, but what the progression was from the original Flexi-Kar to the JK and Mossetti chassis that are the common standards today.

[Dominator]

Parma Flexi-car (Flexi 1) mid-late 80's

Racer Products spider chassis early 90's

Champion ASTRO around 91-92

Slotworks/trinity chassis around 92-93
Modified slotworks/trinity chassis with removed nose guard about 6 months after thr above.

Slotworks/Trinity chassis with lightened pan about 93

Parma flexi 2 around 93.

JK Chettah chassis with .032 and .025 pan around 94.



Slotworks Trinity spider chassis (all black) around 95

Champion Turbo flex around 95.

Parma Flexi 3 around 96 or 96

RJR storm around 95 or 96

Parma Flexi 4 around 99 maybe?

JK Cheetah 7 around 99 or early 2000's

JK cheetah 11 around 2002 or 2004

Parma flexi 5 around 2004 maybe?

Those are the ones I'm fairly confident about. The later JK chassis are the Cheetah 21 and Aelios.

If anyone has some of thr scale auto or slotcar bulletin magazine that would be a good source for a time line also.

[MSwiss]

Flexi 5 was 2005, because I remember them being new when my team used one in our 24 hour enduro.

Cheetah 11 was either late 2005, or 2006.

It definitely did not come out until after the Flexi 4.

[mreibman]

I believe we established in a previous post that the original parma Flexi was from 1983.

 

I found it, and stand corrected. 84-85.

http://slotblog.net/...1-release-date/

[Eddie Fleming]

In early January 1990 Ga. Hobby hosted the Parma chalenge race. Ray Garner recruited me to run Carl Fords new Champion flexi (Astro) chassis. I had been running RC's for a time. With the new chassis I won the box stock race beating Greg Wells Parma Flexi by a nose, and finished 4th I think in outlaw 12. Before the race Carl told me don't hit the wall hard it will fold up. It was a final prototype chassis that was some soft steel. Carl said he would send me a production version in a few weeks or days. That chassis never got built into a car and may still be in some of my old stuff. 

[Dave Crevie]

I might be able to nail down the timeline for the JK cars a little better. I was racing at Dave Fiedler's DJ's Hot Slots when Chuck Gambo brought his first, hand cut designs for the three-piece Cheetah chassis. This was just before Dave closed. I had just re-established my relationship with Jerry at this time. I brought pre-production samples of the Cheetah 11 to Chicagoland while Mike was still in LaGrange. He had just finished building the flat track. I did most of my testing on that track. Several versions of the center section and pans were produced in the following years. The Aeolis chassis was introduced just after Tim Homola took over JK Products.  

[Dominator]

I also forgot about the Mossetti Titan that came out sometime between 2005-2007 I think. One more that can out was the Proslot Speed FX chassis somewhere around the same time frame as thr Titan. Kelly also had a copy/version of the Speed FX but I don't remember if it had a different.

[Danny Zona]

I believe Toytech made a flexi chassi 1991-1993 ballpark.

Jk Scorpion 1 and 2 . They were around and used by many racers when I started back racing in 1999.

I remember seeing a Gambler flexi chassi on the walls of raceways but never seen one actually used.
2003-2005 ballpark I believe.

Jk, Parma and Champion made 4.5 flexi chassis also.

JK made a 4.5 heat treated chassi that was pretty interesting.

[Dominator]

I forgot about the scorpions.  I used a Scorpion 3 (maybe released in 2000-2002?) when scale racing started up in New England.  The Scorpion 3 was stainless steel and much stronger than it's previous versions.

[Bill from NH]

Dom, I still have the Scorp 3 setup tips in my OWH mail that you sent me in the early 2000's. 

[rmjlmartin]

Thanks, all of you, that's interesting stuff. Especially that it seems that everything but the JK Cheetah 21 and Aelios and the current Mossetti are a good 15 years old or more.

When I started back in, I rebuilt one of my old Flexi-Kars to current race specs for the Nascar/LMP flexi class that we run at the local track, as well as bought a Cheetah 21 and JK Indy car, and picked up a lot of half a dozen or so older chassis to build and play with to compare to the current stuff.

I'm looking forward to trying some of the older stuff too, especially after reading some of your comments. I have a Mossetti Titan, Champion Turbo Flex, Trinity Slotworks, JK Scorpion 3, and Flexi 3 and 5.

Are there any others you'd recommend, or am I just wasting my time with those?

[Dominator]

Hi Jason,

 

If your having fun and supporting your local track then you are definitely not wasting your time.  As for racing depending on what the local rules are you may want to consider one of the modern style stamped steel chassis.  The turbo flex chassis was probably the longest successful chassis of all the stamp steel chassis produced.  Unfortunately the cornering speeds of the more modern frames are so much better.  The advantage of the turbo flex over the modern chassis is it will hold up very well in wrecks.  The modern chassis have a lot more flex which gives them great handling but need to be careful as they can also bend easier. 

 

Talk to the locals on what size and type of rear tires they are using.  Bodies make a huge difference in any form of slot car racing.  Check with they locals to see what style they find works good as well as how the body is mounted. The front and rear height, front to back positioning on the chassis, and how much reinforcement (and where) it should be added will go a long to making the car handle.

[blue&orange]

There also was the Ferret with the 2 rivets for pivots.  Don't know a date.

[rmjlmartin]

Yes, I've seen the Ferret chassis online, but not in person. Does it actually flex? I was sort of assuming that it was riveted solid, but maybe it isn't. To me, it also looks like an original Parma Flexi-Kar center section with a minimal pan. Which really intrigues me, because I like the way my old Flexi handles.

Yes, I'm definitely enjoying it and supporting the local track. I didn't get the classic chassis from him, since that's obviously something that you pretty much have to come by used at this point, but I get everything else from him.

The track owner and regulars have been very helpful so far. I've had to ask lots of questions about pretty much everything. So much has changed since the mid 90s.

I really had the difference the body makes proved to me. I would have believed it made a difference, but I was surprised at how much. I bought a new JK Cheetah 21 from the track, and it was fairly poorly set up out of the box. The track owner helped me sort it out, but we were running it with the Nascar body that came on it, and it just wouldn't handle well at all. The owner said he would swap the chassis out for me if need be, but as a last resort, he put a Ralph Thorne Titan COT body on it from one of his personal cars, and it completely changed the car. I ran a full half second faster lap with it just from that. Lesson learned.

[blue&orange]

Yes, the Ferret "rattles."  I heard of at least one person who replaced the rivets with screws so the chassis could be tuned better.

[nicky 65]

Does anyone know what year the Parma Super Womp came out, also called the mighty womp, or shaker chassis,.?

[Dominator]

I'm pretty sure it was early 90's. Maybe 91-93? Thr international 32 came out shortly after I believe.

[Jay Guard]

Anybody have a picture of the Super Womp?

[rmjlmartin]

I actually have one that I ran across cheap on Ebay a couple of months ago and couldn't resist buying, since I remember seeing them for sale at the track I was going to back in the early-mid 90s. I never saw one run there, though, and I haven't taken mine to the track yet.

Here are a couple of pictures.

Attached Images

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[Mark Onofri]

The ferret chassis was unbelievable on the oval. I bought one in Rochester(fantasy raceway) and when I brought it to Syracuse I handed everybody ther ***. Originally they came with rivets. Someone drove all the way to Rochester to get one and it had screws. So it was not a owner modification. The ones with the screws were trash. So he literally got 😁

[Mark Onofri]

That(ferret) was in 87 or 88. Terrible chassis on a road course.

[Bill from NH]

Mark, is this the Ferret chassis you're speaking of? I never had one, but saw several, The major problem with them was the rivets hung down below the bottom of the chassis. This meant that when you measured race chassis clearance, it had to be measured at the rivet's location, resulting in a higher clearance for the chassis itself. They should have used a flat head screw in a countersunk hole, but I don't think they ever did. JK did that on their Scorpion 2 & 3.

 

 

 

This old photo came from Ferret's Speed Star Distributing site.

[Fast Freddie]

Bill, that is a Racer Products chassis.  I used them in GP12 (SS).  I did replace the rivets with counter sunk screws.  They worked quite well for me. I raced them in the early 90s.

[Mark Onofri]

Guys when I I saw one on eBay advertised as a ferret it kind of confused me. I do believe it was marketed as racers products.

[Mark Onofri]

Stupid phone cut me off. Anyway, Yes bill that's one.