"This page is for my personal items pertaining to my racing career(?)-The people that I met and raced with, the tracks, the way the hobby changed over the years. I hope you will find something of interest that you can relate to.
Yes, boys and girls, Grandpa Ray, Also known as Captain Hammer went slot racing. I decided that I needed to return to slot racing and blow off a little steam, have some fun and see some old aquaintances.Fun...well, I had fun. A lot of fun!! The only thing is I haven't yanked a trigger to compete in 8 years. Yes, I said 8 (eight) years. Just to set the record straight, I didn't fall off the planet, I just wasn't running wing cars with NorCal USRA. You know there are other forms of racing besides Wing Cars on a Blue King track with glue! Yeah, and the stuff that I ran was 8 years old, too. Did I have fun? You Bet! Was I slow? You Bet! The regulars beat up on me pretty good. I still had a ton of fun and got to talk with some old friends. If you follow this link, you can read about the ensuing carnage that happened. As a note-The Cobalt 12 car came through in a still-raceable condition, same with the flexi-12.
Here are some pictures of my (somewhat antique) race cars that I used that fateful day in March.....8-)
- My Flexicar, an old Parma Flexi2 with a new ProSlot X12 mill
- My Cobalt 12 car, 8 year old Slick7 chassis by Mike Peakes!, an Alpha Group setup with a Koford .480 dia. Gr. 12 arm. Thanks Mike!
ANOTHER BIG NEWS FLASH!....Date: August 21, 2004
Captain Hammer returns to USRA GLUE racing!!
OK boys and girls,you heard it here first..... Captain Hammer went glue racing @ Citrus Heights, CA on their pinched King track-and ended up spanking all the amateurs, placing right behind the pro's! How do you like me now?!?Here's a picture of my box 12 car, complete with Bonesy the driver. Yes, that is a Camen Corvette....I was hooked up big time!!
And Here's the Slick-7 Vampire III Classis, and No, I didn't run them big balonies, just there to keep the axle in place. That's an all-ProSlot mill with a M2 38 degree arm, Bubba! BTW, for my Daughter, that is a STEEL chassis! Yup, it's legal now. Note the HUGE amount of lead needed to get the car to 72 grams legal racing weight!! "Hey Rudy...Could you make the chassis weights a little bigger?"And here's a few shots of the Dodge Flexicar that Doug Marchese and myself wrecked during a 2 hour enduro @ Downtown's Slot Car Warehouse in Concord, CA. It was a brutal affair held on his (short) Kingleman.
Just click HERE to see the battered remains
Another picture HERE, the front got a little re-sculpted! Can you say "destruction Derby"? I knew you could!
This one's for those that wanted to know....
Here are a few shot of the famous (infamous?) Zapper that I have. It's an Indiana General Model 90 that will reverse cobalts, so I know that it can do the job-just ask anybody that has used my services.
Click HERE for a front view-that's my box 12 for size reference
Click HERE for a top view to see the overall size of itIf you wonder why I don't take it with me to the races, here's the answer: It weighs approx. 138 pounds and takes 2 men and a boy to move!! Just ask Doug Marchese!!
I gotta tell this: when I got it, it was making a wierd sound-seems the bridge inside was shot and it had been half-waving for the previous owners!! That possibly includes a rather famous parts manufacturer if I have my information right!! It was pretty strong before the repairs were done but it's got real horsepower now!!
The one thing that I do not like to do is zapping cobalts. It seems that if your magnets have 'flaws' in them, the ol' zapper likes to turn them into cobalt dust-must be too much for them or something like that. Anyway, just don't ask for cobalts to be zapped unless you really want to take a chance! Just don't say I didn't warn you.........8-(
Here's a LINK to a downloadable PDF file concerning Pro-Zap magnet services.
Here's A Gear Chart!
Yippee Skippee!!!
Here is a LINK for a downloadable gear chart in PDF format that covers most of the useable gear ratios that you may be using. I know that a lot of people have been asking for a chart, so here it is! Either print it out or just save it to your hard drive for later reference.
A little about the People...
As I have said before, I have been around slot car racing for a long time. I can remember a time when the San Francisco bay area had quite a number of tracks to run at. Oops-giving away my age again. I raced in the east bay with quite a collection of characters. A few of note:
- Charlie and Ruth Mespilli (hope I didn't misspell their name)-Finish Line Raceway in Fremont, CA. A real nice older couple. The track was near the old pickle factory, and when the wind shifted-look out! Had a problem with "launching" on the big track and ending up on another track! They moved to a nearby shopping center with a small Englemann (we think-had humps to go up and down hill). When you "launched" on the bank you ended up behind the Coke machine! Bummer!
- Don and his family, Don's Family Hobbies, Hayward, CA. Don had a track that had to be unique-it was an American Blue (Purple?) Sovereign 220 footer, with 2 fingers and a rectangular donut-if you launched on the main straight, you went for a ride up through the ceiling tile! he also had an American Red in San Leandro, CA. on 143rd and E. 14th that was very fast. He was the last of the tracks in the Hayward area in the 70's.
- Ron Oyler and his family, Fremont CA. They were a recent in and out in Fremont, having a very fast drag strip and a hand-made hillclimb with a hump in the track. Another launch-prone track with deeply recessed braid! I still miss the place!
- Fred "Crash Codger" Hood. Here was the guy that would drive the wheels off anything that ran in a slot. He had a Miniature Grand Prix Yellow track in his garage when he lived in San Jose. We raced there for years until there were new commercial tracks in the area. This was the birthplace for NorCal IMCA scale racing.
- Rudy Garriga-He is the owner of Slick 7, and the innovator of many new racing items. He made an Open group 7 motor with 6 magnets in the mid-1980's that he ran at Sacramento's Hagginwood Raceway, the original "Animal Joe" motor! This thing sucked the amps and tried to do wheelies on the lead-on!
- Mike Peakes-He painted the most "unusual" bodies on the west coast! You have to see some of these to believe them! Some were X-rated!!! He has lately been taming his work down and recently won concourse at a race with a 'G' rated body!
- Doug Marchese-Another Team Hammer driver. Doug has a driving style all his own-it has something to do with using Koford Lola bodies! His cars are real windshield wipers! Just don't ask how my daughter put his car out the back door @ Hagginwood Raceway, Sacramento-he's still sore about that one!
- Rick Draper-He's the owner of the newest track in the bay area, Slot Car Warehouse in Livermore, CA. He is a really nice person and is working real hard at creating a very good racing program, from beginner Group 10 Stock Car to Wing Box 12 racing. We have probably the strongest Box 12 program in northern california! Way To Go Rick!!
A little about the Cars...
When you have been around as long as I have (maybe too long?), you really do see things change. The cars have changed so dramatically that it is hard to believe where we have come from. Here is a little bit of history on the cars I have raced.I can remember when cars were weighed in ounces, not grams, and we piled lead weight on them as a matter of practice. We had practically no air controls on them (the NCC legal variety) and there were classes that no longer exist. Our cars were more scale-appearing than now, not the flattened wing car look today. The power was not as hot as today, mostly power packs back then. We had some of the most outrageous winds, how about a triple 31? (that one was bullet on low power!) How about a "Nylon" chassis? This one came out of England and was the M & M Jet chassis. I ran one of these in NCC Group 12 for a few years-it was very competitive against the brass & piano wire cars of the time.
Here's something to wrap your head around-in 1969, Group 12 meant that the car couldn't retail for more than $12.00, had no tag and wasn't balanced. It was a pretty rude car, with a few of the manufacturers putting 16D size motors in their RTR cars. The group 15 car usually had the same motor but had a better chassis. The short stack armature didn't appear until about 1970, if I remember right.
The Group 20 car was the first step that had a balanced armature with a tag on it and was usually found in a stamped brass chassis with floating bat pans and a droparm. Also there was a Group 7, not to be confused with open class, that was a machine wound open armature with a tag that said NCC GR7 on it. I think this may have been a 25 turn 25, as it had a lot of wire on it!
There were some real pioneers out there that helped to shape the sport, including a few in the late 60's that ran inline(!) cars in NCC Open competition. Care to try that with a wing car today? Our cars mostly resembled the scale cars of today, but they sure didn't handle that good. If you could do it, you could take a Parma© Flexi X-12 back to 1969 and probably win the NCC Nationals. I remember in the late 60's, John Cukras going 5.49 sec. lap time on a de-bumped American Red! Is that slow or what? At the time, that was Real Fast!! Nobody though you would ever go faster than a 5.50 on an American Red. I am just sorry that I can't remember where this took place. Any help here? I think that possibly this happened at Monaco Speedway, Buena Park(?), CA??
I will have to post some pictures of this old stuff so you can see and appreciate them. Come back soon as the links will be on this page. I plan to work on the pictures soon, so expect to see them in early 2005. I am currently rebuilding several to vintage specs, so please be patient, please.
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