[dgersh]

Sounds like fun Jairus! Definitely in the NorCal spirit with all those 300 foot high-banked tracks...

I'd say any Choti style body, any ceramic magnet vintage motor, maybe a 3-1/4" width limit and say 1mm clearance - but maybe track owners could chime in here! (or maybe limit it to D & B cans, but with any wind - C cans seem kind of modern to me).

I like the idea of just one or two tracks - these are definitely not made for endurance events! And it would make logistics a heck of a lot easier. But which Parma track are you referring too?

Now, where did I put that U-Go chassis and blue tires....?

Don

 

[dgersh]

Thanks Jairus,

I got my Parma and Parme mixed up, not to mention Parma Ham (prosciutto...).

Frankly, if you get one or two Blue Kings in the US that would be fine, and wouldn't leave out us Europeans (or expats) at all! It's just as easy to send a car to the US as to another country here, or even within France sometimes! I think it might even be appropriate to have the race at one venue in the US, where the whole Thingie thing started...

To answer a question that popped up in SlotBlog, there were actually two main Thingie tendencies: the super-lightweights in Northern California, under Choti aerodynamic bodies, and the not quite so lightweights at The Groove and other Midwest tracks, often based on Dynamic motor carriers and with Shinoda bodies... I'll see if I can find some articles on the NorCal cars, to show that construction style....

I don't think the Choti bodies were automatically lightweights either: the one that I happened to find many years ago has a brass strip chassis and a Champion 517...

Don

 

[dgersh]

Jairus,

The 3" width was a general rule back in the 60s for all slot cars - but not sure how often it was respected, especially for Thingies. The general overall rules were 3" width, 1/16" ground clearance, a driver in the car and at least 3 numbers - but obviously the last two wouldn't apply to Thingies!

My feeling would be to keep this width, but as you also pointed out, we've been running 3-1/4" in the last two proxies! (and I didn't even realize that - could you make my Derrière a little wider please?).

And basically, whoever runs the event, and whatever rules are decided, we'll go with them!

I think it was also pointed out that TrueScale has some 3" Choti bodies, and we haven't heard from Ray, John, Smokey Robinson and the Impressions yet...

Don

PS: for what it's worth, my original Choti is 3" wide, but the Swedish Flat Iron is closer to 3-1/2"!

 

[dgersh]

No swearing here Eddie!

I'll have to remove those naughty words next time, you've been warned.

Don

 

[dgersh]

Hi Z,

Not so unusual perhaps - I think the real aero bodies in that period were pretty limited to NorCal, and in all my years of hanging out on ebay, plus swap meets, etc., I have only managed to score one Choti body - and was darned happy to get that! I also wonder if these high speed missiles weren't destroyed at a greater rate than certain other cars...

I think we all tend to forget too that up to 67 or so, the open-wheelers were definitely the preferred type of car in most open competitions - wasn't till they started to get heavier that the sports/GT models really came into their own, and that was sealed with the anglewinder!

Don

 

[dgersh]

Great poster Jairus.

I wouldn't add any rules or change a thing - except for the dates! American style: Sept. 30, 2012

I know, it's all graphics, but I'm such a stick in the mud...

And those dates are coming up faster than I'd like, hope I have time to get building (of course the basic parts have been sitting on my desk for a year or so, but ...)

Don

 

[dgersh]

Beautiful construction and design Al, and the body goes well with it.

Well, as my mom used to say, guess my eyes got bigger than my stomach, and I'm not going to get an entry ready for this race. Actually, I kind of realized that 2 months ago, with all we had going on here, but was hoping against hope...

Good luck on the Proxy guys.

Don