ParkRNDL
12-12-2004, 08:26 PM
A story before my question...
I grew up on Long Island, and for a little while when I was in college there I raced 1/25 scale slot cars. Thursday night was "hard body" night at Islip Miniature Speedway... there were about 5 different classes of cars. You started with a Parma Womp and cut it in half and used metal tubing or rod to stretch the wheelbase to fit whatever 1/25 scale model kit body you wanted to use. I remember that Late Model class was ponycar size... Mustangs, Camaros, Cudas, and so on. (I still have my JoHan AMX :D ) Charger class was mid-size cars like Malibus and Torinos, and then there was a class for full-size cars called Blunderbust. In Blunderbust, I had a Hasegawa Cadillac, and I remember seeing a couple of Impalas and Galaxies and someone had a JoHan Eldorado.
Different classes allowed for different chassis construction and motors. Late Model was the fastest,and you could do the most with the chassis: removing weight, using flexible stuff like piano wire to give the car "suspension", and some other little tricks. I think the hot motor for Late Model was called a Super Wasp. Charger class was more restrictive--you could only remove a limited amount of chassis material and not as much flex was allowed. Motor was a hopped-up 16D. Finally, Blunderbust had to be like a "showroom stock" car... one cut to the chassis to stretch it, no additional material removed, and you used huge brass tubing with no flex whatsoever for frame rails. These used a stock 16D motor, which is kinda like the 350 2-bbl of large-scale slots.
Now with the introduction of the JL Bowties, I was thinking that the '59 and '62 on stock Aurora chassis would make perfect Blunderbust racers, so I did a Google search on Blunderbust to find out what kinds of rules the 1:1 class has. I assumed that since Late Model is a real class anywhere that 1:1 stock cars are raced, then Blunderbust must be real also. Well, now I'm not sure, and that's what my question is finally getting to. The only 1:1 racing references that Google turned up were connected with Riverhead Raceway on Long Island, near where I grew up. Here's my question, and it's for people in places other than New York: Is Blunderbust a real 1:1 class anywhere other than Riverhead Raceway?
thanks for the read--
--rick
I grew up on Long Island, and for a little while when I was in college there I raced 1/25 scale slot cars. Thursday night was "hard body" night at Islip Miniature Speedway... there were about 5 different classes of cars. You started with a Parma Womp and cut it in half and used metal tubing or rod to stretch the wheelbase to fit whatever 1/25 scale model kit body you wanted to use. I remember that Late Model class was ponycar size... Mustangs, Camaros, Cudas, and so on. (I still have my JoHan AMX :D ) Charger class was mid-size cars like Malibus and Torinos, and then there was a class for full-size cars called Blunderbust. In Blunderbust, I had a Hasegawa Cadillac, and I remember seeing a couple of Impalas and Galaxies and someone had a JoHan Eldorado.
Different classes allowed for different chassis construction and motors. Late Model was the fastest,and you could do the most with the chassis: removing weight, using flexible stuff like piano wire to give the car "suspension", and some other little tricks. I think the hot motor for Late Model was called a Super Wasp. Charger class was more restrictive--you could only remove a limited amount of chassis material and not as much flex was allowed. Motor was a hopped-up 16D. Finally, Blunderbust had to be like a "showroom stock" car... one cut to the chassis to stretch it, no additional material removed, and you used huge brass tubing with no flex whatsoever for frame rails. These used a stock 16D motor, which is kinda like the 350 2-bbl of large-scale slots.
Now with the introduction of the JL Bowties, I was thinking that the '59 and '62 on stock Aurora chassis would make perfect Blunderbust racers, so I did a Google search on Blunderbust to find out what kinds of rules the 1:1 class has. I assumed that since Late Model is a real class anywhere that 1:1 stock cars are raced, then Blunderbust must be real also. Well, now I'm not sure, and that's what my question is finally getting to. The only 1:1 racing references that Google turned up were connected with Riverhead Raceway on Long Island, near where I grew up. Here's my question, and it's for people in places other than New York: Is Blunderbust a real 1:1 class anywhere other than Riverhead Raceway?
thanks for the read--
--rick