Art & Inspiration Drag Racing in the Basement?

I got that same Eldon drag strip. It was my dads. Unfortunately the mice ate the side of the box , but everything else seems intact. I also have a much older figure 8 track that has model A racers on it to, still in box. Think it was called American racer or something


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When we lived in California. I was a small lad we were there till 1963 or so I remember going somewhere, maybe San Jose or Sunnyvale with my brother who is 5 years older than me to race his Stone woods and cook bodied willys drag slot car. It had a pittman . I think DC 85 A motor in the back I remember it had the sponge tires and spun aluminum wheels and a br*** tubing ch***is with a swinging pickup. He still has the motor the axle was thru the motor and was threaded had knock off's locking the wheels on. I believe the track was 36 volt he said. I think the track was 25 feet. I remember there was no return you had to walk down and get the car. They had some things that resembled the old Ice cube tray inserts, remember those like flaps to stop the cars. Wow, long time ago. Odd the things you remember. Lippy

 

Here's a A/FX 3-gear ch***is that has the 4-gear dragster front end attached to it...
I plan on doing some experiments with this one like different armatures and rear wheel and tire changes..
The magnets are the super 2s...

 

Here are a few of my collection of hand built Magwinder Dragsters from 1965.


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Rod &Custom magazine covered all the races and builds here in Southern' California from '62.-'65! Here is a page from '65. All of these beauty's were crafted from 1/16" Magnesium plate with hand cut lightening holes. Powered by Ram 850 motors with balanced and epoxied 6v 7 pole armatures and run on a jolt of 36 volts to ET's of the low 1 second range with the fastest dipping into sub 1 second runs. !!![emoji15]


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Here is another shot of my California Magwinder dragster collection circa 1965. ENJOY.


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We had heaps of slot car tracks around us back in late sixties/early seventies but no one set up for drag racing. We used to soak the tyres in Methyl Salicylate (spelling might be wrong) which smelt like the stuff in Deep Heat muscle rub. Got it from the local chemist (drug store).
(Just found out when I checked the spelling that it's oil of Wintergreen)

 

I use oil of wintergreen to free rusted bolts. Yes it smells STRONG. Get it at the healthfood store.

 

Wow I forgot about oil of wintergreen for traction compound. Out here in So Cal we had slot car drag racing tracks every where. The best black Formica tracks were where the big races were held at nite. These were the huge events that Rod & Custom covered every month during the whole 1965 year and regularly from '63 and '64. It was Fun and exciting times for young gear head boys and really was a special period in time in the world of electric slot racing.


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Bump.....

 

1/24 Scale 1/4 mile was 55 ft. And you are correct about 36 volts.


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This Orange crate was later build possibly from the '70's when wheelie bars became needed and common.


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Hey QSA,
Wow, what a fabulous collection and array of different drag racing stuff. We used those cool front wheels with bearings after they were brought to the general market at the time. Prior to that, we put in small bearings inside of the br*** tubes to act as a front axle housing on our custom frames.

We did not use "oil of wintergreen" inside of our houses on those linoleum floors. The smell was just too powerful and wasn’t needed when drag racing in those unofficial tracks that we made. Oil of wintergreen was available just about everywhere. But, I noticed that over time, when it was used in a medicine bottle with a rubber eye dropper for those exact measurements on the tires, commutators and where ever…something happened.

The purpose of the wintergreen was to melt the rubber, putting it on those sanded down slicks on the rear of drag cars, just before the run. We also used a different mixture compound to clean various parts of the motor. The side effect was not noticed until later.

But, the slightest solution that got up into the rubber end of the dropper made it dissolve, too. That, I am sure caused the wonderful aroma of wintergreen floating around the wooden, multi drawer slot car holding box. We were all children of wintergreen inhalants, in and around those hobby shops with drag racing lanes. A small amount was also used in cleaning the copper commutator to make better contact in those high speed runs.

We just happened to have two eye dropper bottles of the stuff, one wintergreen straight for the tires with a red label and one with a yellow label that had a mixture of alcohol/wintergreen for cleaning. Sometimes, it did not matter which one you put where, the modified motors just moved these little racers fast.

Today, smell oil of wintergreen? Immediately think of slot cars of all kinds used for drag racing at those hobby shops and slot car tracks. The mind wanders quite well. We have all been trained by a wonderful smell from way back then. Ha!

Jnaki

Here is another post from the old slot car thread, part 2.
Hello,

Sports cars had narrow Pittman motors that fit snugly inside the bodies. Some of the favorites were the green Lotus Cars like Jim Clark drove. The cars were controlled by plastic push lever controllers that made squishing sounds as you controlled the throttle. We changed over to direct contact door bells and drill trigger contact devices that made full throttle upon depressing the lever, like a click ****on contact…the drivers’ area sounded like a cricket convention with the multiple clicking sounds as the sports cars went around the track. But, everyone new made their runs using the squishy up/down lever controllers.

The contacts were swivel plastic guides with the two metal straps that made contact with the electrified grooves in the track. This was good for small 1/32 slotcars, but the 1/24 sizes threw too much weight round the curves and usually hopped out of the grooves. So, we utilized a separate br*** rod that attached to the back of the frame and allowed the electric contacts to stay in the groove and the car could lift up around the corners. This was good for road racing, but not for drag racing…instant wheelies upon contact. So, we had to put lead weights from our fishing tackle boxes to keep the car and contacts in the groove.

The motors for road racing were not good for the drags. The top winners in the drags used these larger motors like the Pittman DC85. Stock, the big motors were fast, but in order to be considered for top eliminator in your cl***, modifications had to be done to win. The main thing was to re-wrap the copper wires around the motors with larger diameter wires, but less footage of wire. Then to keep the wires from frying on the line when the electricity was applied, we had to put on clear epoxy all around the spinning armature wires. This kept the motor from exploding when all of the power was turned on to the strip. Some of our motors did not make it off the line because they would just explode from either bad wire windings, or bad epoxy coating, or not enough epoxy coatings. It was one or the other.

People started to buy German bearings to replace the stock molded br*** bearing housing. That improved the speeds. I was able to get some super high speed bearings that fit inside a dentist’s drill that spun at 250k per second. This made a world of difference in speed. Plus, the true bearings fit in the stock holes and made little to no sound. They were expensive, but dentists always threw away used bearings and replaced them with new, better ones as the technology expanded. So, free is better than high costs.

The final motor tuning tip was to clean the copper surface of the commutator (where the brushes rub for the connection) with cleaning material and if needed, sand the copper surface smooth. The cleaning solution was mish mash as everyone had their own version. We used wintergreen/alcohol for quick drying and great smell. We tuned it until it dried off the copper surface. We also used this compound on the shaved slicks for better traction. It was sticky, but dried well before the electricity was applied. Shades of a prepped tracks like today…

These motors were attached to thin br*** tubing flattened on the ends to make an attachment point with the front two screws of the DC 85 motor. The fronts could be arranged any way that made it under a plastic body or if a dragster was being made, narrowed down for brazing. The axle could be more br*** tubing. For our Corvette drag racer, we put on some small bearings inside the tubing for super high speed spinning. Finally some company made cast aluminum wheels with bearings inside, so that eliminated an extra br*** tubing. Sewing needles inside super small br*** tubes were used to mount the bodies onto this standard br*** tubing frame. The dragsters had narrow front ends with the width in the back as wide as the DC 85 motor. The sports cars and g***ers could have narrow front ends or totally square front ends like a stock frame. The only time a frame was seen was if a wheelie was done or the body was removed for servicing in the pits.

The scene at the big name tracks like J&J had their regulars that looked at you funny when you walked in with a wooden box. It was their turf and you are being watched. When the cars we made came out of the boxes, then people would come up and look at the interesting take on racing. It was like the old, wild western movies, the new guy in town is here to make some noise… actually, these racers made a slight whizzing noise for about a second.

Thanks,

Jnaki

JNAKI, AUG 9, 2016EDITDELETE!REPORT!SHARE POST#383+ QUOTEREPLY

 

It's been a while, but I've seen this (above) collection in person...VERY cool.

Mike

 

Yup I was there too . Built my own masterpiece at age 15 by copying the cars in Rod & Custom like Gene Husting, Bob Braverman, and tricks from all the other older builders. Magnesium frame, epoxied and balanced Ram 850 armature and fully ball bearing equipped. I Used my dad's Delta scroll saw to cut the frame rails and a little drill press for fairly precision drilling. My friends were all into road racing but I was hooked on the lightweight Magwinders and drag racing.
The last I heard the cars were running 1/2 second ET 's in the '90's with super strong rare earth magnet can motors. [emoji15]


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Bump....

 

The standard DC 85 motor used for drag racing.

from "Quicksilverart's" collection
Hello,
Getting started in those multi-turn slot car tracks in the living room was a lot of fun. but, as hot rodders, there was the "need for speed." So, we did as much as we could to modify those tiny little sports cars from the factory. When we took them to the slot car shops and their big tracks, we found out that there were fanatics that ruled the multi-car races around the huge, room-size race track. Our little guys were flying off of the race course. That led to other forms of racing.

(I sure wish I had my old slot car stuff back. But, somehow I feel justified giving all of that fun stuff to this kid in my old neighborhood. He actually had little to nothing to play with or to stay focused. He was also the recipient of one of my R/C cars years later.)

The most fun thing about slot cars was the actual building from scratch. All of the thin wall, br*** tubing was soldered together to form a sleek tubular ch***is. It was inside of a small wooden frame to make sure the whole thing was being put together in a straight line. The tubes were put in an angle to meet the front axle housing.

The rear was attached to the DC 85 modified motor and the rear ball bearing gear housing was attached to the rear bolts of the motor. Weight saving and direct contact from the tires to the gears to the motor. At the time, we were building a modified, scale model version of the actual "Sidewinder" drag race car we used to see at Lions Dragstrip.

The motors had multiple layers of epoxy covering the rewound copper wires. At first, everyone experimented with what they thought was the correct number of wraps and the size of the wires. It did not cost thousands of dollars if something was not right like in a real SBC drag racing motor. If the epoxy armature exploded, we screwed up and back to the drawing boards. More wraps with different wire gauge and better coating with the clear epoxy. The armatures were not very much, so we had plenty to change and experiment.

The excitement came when you put your dragster on the line against someone else. It was almost the same feeling when you are approaching the starting line at the real dragstrip. Staging is important. But, when both cars are all prepped and ready, the racing was a whizz moment. In a second or so, your DC 85 motor, br*** tubing or mag ch***is hit the pillow at the other end and stopped.


If you were running a sports car on another modified br*** tubing, ball bearing infused frame, the results were the same, just a little slower, but it was over in a flash. It was more fun to watch these sports cars or modified coupes as they actually could be seen going down the track.

Jnaki

After each race the jawing and shop talk began. What could be done to make it go faster? It did not matter, real full size, drag race cars or small modified slot rails or coupes, speed was the challenge. Those older “pros” made it a goal for us teenagers to get better and better in our own skills. It was all while having as much fun as possible.

“Besides road courses, slot car drag racing also had a strong following. Cars in 1963 were powered by the larger laminated open-frame motors such as the Pittman DC-85A and Ram 850. Most were sidewinders with swinging arm pickups and ch***is built using magnesium ladder type frames. The ch***is required a clear Krylon spray coat to prevent tarnishing. Drag strips were powered up to 36 volts for top eliminator cars. The Miniature International Racing ***ociation (MINRA) held its first International Drag Championships in October of 1963. The following year Car Model magazine sponsored their own 1st International All-Scale Drag Meet. For timing a Swiss-made Heuer Electronic Timer, accurate to 1/10,000 of a second was used. Rod & Custom magazine would also sponsor races with Southern California as the hot bed for drag racing.”

“Top drag racers of the period included Bob Braverman, author of "Here is Your Hobby Slot Car Racing" and a drag cyclist. Braverman actually paid his way through college by racing motorcycles. In the late 1950s, in Chicago, his first job was that of a toy designer, where his enthusiasm made him an early pioneer in slot-car racing.”

“Gene Husting who also raced full size cars, introduced the first rear-engined dragster to Don Garlits who then later perfected the arrangement after a near fatal crash. Husting also set a sub-one second time in a slot car drag racing meet that was said to have lasted 28 years. Interestingly after having always been considered a niche within a niche hobby, drag racing is growing with the popularity of bracket racing, it is currently considered one of commercial slot car racing's potential growth areas. National rules are provided by the Scale Drag Racing ***ociation. The Bracket 500 website contains a wealth of useful information regarding slot car drag racing.”

These two famous racers/builders were the top dogs in So Cal. We were surprised when they were at our "local" North Long Beach hobby shop/drag race course. But, they did not let their echelon status go to their heads. They actually answered questions and gave us tips for more speed. They also allowed us to look at their own race cars for build tips.

 

That was a perfect description of that period in time when electric drag slot racing was a huge hobby evolving at at a terrific pace from '62 to late '65. I was able to contact several of the well known builder/racers in the mid '80's from replies to a wanted ad I placed in Hot Rod magazine and acquired many cars and parts as well as havinggreat conversations with some of the guys that still had their cars.
Unfortunately I sold my personal hand built magwinder dragster and wood Tacklebox to one of my friends in 1966 so that I could buy a high compression head and expansion chamber for my Hodaka ..I still have all the Rod & Custom magazine tech articles and race coverage from those days. I will post some pages here soon.


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Gene Husting cracks the 1 second ET barrier !!! This is page one from a 1965 Rod & Custom showing how he built it.


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Fun times they were.
The drag race track I went to was in Covina (in the 60's). I've forgotten the name of the place, but it was owned by the family that ran the Covina Hobby Shop, which...is still in business today.

The SoCal Drag Strip is at the Buena Park Raceway.
I don't know the current records, but the FAST cars run the scale quarter in near .20 seconds...yes...2 tenths. The "Outlaw" cars are running in the .300 Bracket. I think the Funny Cars are (currently) also near the .300 second area.

Mike

P.s. - These are 1/24th scale cars.

 

Holy Fuk!!!!!! I have R&C race coverage from one of the big events at that Covina track.I forgot the name too but I will dig it out and post it tomorrow .


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Here's some stuff that I run across while looking through some old magazine's Rod&Custom February 1964 and R&C January 1967 ... didn't know if any of this info would be helpful or not.......

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Some more....

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I did the google for slot cars late one night. Showed a track in Japan. I guess they would be considered "off topic" slots. But they were simply amazing.Spent many hours with slot cars in my youth. No tracks around here now.Kids grown, hard to race yourself.But it wouldn't be the first time.

 

Hand rewinding...strictly forbidden in today's racing, at least in the road racing crowd. Not sure if one can wind his/her own on the drag racing side.
But back in the 60's most all of us did our own armatures as the market didn't realize that we wanted...MORE SPEED. Although...no one I knew had a armature holder like shown above. That would make the task a LOT easier to do.

We also experimented with epoxying the winding's in place. We were exceeding the laws of nature with the armature RPM and the faster motors were throwing the wire/winding's off the arm. Can't win or even finish a race when that happens. So, epoxy was used to coat the wire to hold it in place. Today, there's just a light coat to do the job. Back then we also experimented with a little aerodynamics and filled the whole cavity between the segments with epoxy so the "air flow" would be smoother. What it took a while for us to realize, that doing this also defeated the "cooling" effects of the air going around and thru all the pieces of the armature and many of us burned/cooked the armatures prematurely, also...not being able to finishing a race. So we learned that expensive lesson and went back to a much thinner epoxy coating, and the motors lasted much longer.

Mike

 

A few more pages of Rod & Custom showing the best cars from the '65-'66 period of Magnesium framed. Dragsters. Bob Braverman of California is credited as the first to build a ultra light Swiss cheesed dragster around a modified Pittman 85 a 6 V motor in 1963. After that everyone caught the magwinder fever and copied and modified his formula Young guys like Dave Bettger, Manual Moldonado , Tom Rightmyer, Ray Yates , Frank Varanelli and Gene Husting were the kings of speed and innovation in the top fuel dragster cl***.1963 through 1966 was the most active and innovative time for electric dragracing. Featured here are a few of the top builds from 1965 and 66 . Masterpieces of craftsmanship these cars are extremely rare today.
Also featured here is a photo of the big race at J&J Raceway in Long Beach with drag racing legends Gary Gablitch andTom the ****oose McEwen ..Still trying to post the ****oise vrs .Gary Gablitch photo..


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My "Magwinder" collection . I gathered this collection in the mid '80's by running a want ad in the Hot Rod magazine cl***ifieds. These were all from A few of the top California builder/racers from the '64-''65 period of Magnesium frame ultra light weight screamers.


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