Fantasy World - Old Weird Herald - Daytona West

1999 1/32 Scale Proxy Race II

October 16 / Nov. 6, 1999

Official Rules

General Rules (These apply to both classes)

1. All cars must use a box-stock, unopened Plafit Cheetah or Fox motor. Lead wires may be changed. This is the only allowable change to the car's motor and wiring.

2. Chassis (including guide flag), wheels, and tires must be covered entirely by the body when viewed from the top.

3. All cars must have an interior tray with an appropriately-painted driver figure consisting at least of head, shoulders, arms, hands, and steering wheel. The interior tray must fill the entire cockpit opening so no part of the chassis or track is visible through the cockpit opening. (No Monogram skull heads, please)

4. Vacuum-formed clear parts and interior trays are permitted.

5. The required minimum ground clearance, as specified in the class rules, must be maintained under all parts of the chassis, including gears. Bodies may be mounted loosely, provided the required ground clearance is maintained at all times.

6. Chassis may be constructed of any material with the following requirements: Laser or EDM-cut parts are prohibited, except for guide tongues. All materials with any spring quality to them, except steel wire, are prohibited. (Chassis made of limburger chesse or radioactive isotopes are discouraged.)

7. Cars must have only one guide flag, which must be mounted on the centerline of the car.

8. Working steering is allowed. (It won't make your car handle any better but it might be worth a few concours points.)

9. All tires must be made of black material. Any type or compound will be allowed, provided it does not damage the track or adversely affect the condition of the racing surface. (We've already tried black licorice -- it doesn't work.)

10. No ball bearings are allowed. (Except the big ones we throw at the official drivers every now and then to keep them alert.)

11. Controllers: In the interest of keeping cost and complexity somewhere within reason, we will apply the same controller rule that we enforce in our own series. That rule limits controllers to one resistor, located inside the controller handle (double-barrel resistors are OK) and prohibits any kind of chokes, external resistors, adjustable features, micro switches, or electronic circuitry. In other words, a stock Parma Turbo is about the limit of what's allowed. We don't want people to have to buy a Ruddock to be competitive. We will have an assortment of controllers in different ohm ratings here at the track, so if you don't want to send a controller with the car, either specify the number of ohms you want us to use (we will use the closest available controller) or let us pick the best controller for your car. (Last time some of the cars got driven with a different ohm controller every heat, depending on what each driver felt comfortable with.)

12. There will be an entry fee of $10.00 for each car entered. This will cover return shipping of the cars, plaques/certificates, and other costs of putting on the race. (Like pizza, Cokes, and other junk food for the official drivers -- gotta keep their strength up, after all.) Entry fee must be sent in with the car.

13. Entries will be accepted up to the day of the race. Production cars will race on October 16, 1999. Prototype cars will race on November 6, 1999 Entries will be shipped back as soon as all photos and articles for media coverage of the event are completed. (We'll try to type as fast as we can.)

14. There is no limit to the number of cars each person may enter in this event. (Send lots of entries -- that way we get more pizza, Cokes, and junk food)

15. Send entries to:

Bob Ward
C/O Fantasy World Toy and Hobby
7901 S. Hosmer
Tacoma, WA 98408

(Bob's Note: The reason we're having you send the cars to FW this time is that I may be moving during the time the entries are arriving and I don't want anybody's cars to get lost in the mail due to my possible address change. FW will make sure all the packages get to me.)

16. Each entry must be accompanied by a completed entry form. You can print out the form from the OWH and FW web sites. (Please print clearly or type -- last time we had trouble reading a few of them.)
 

Class Rules:

Production Class

1. Elegibility.

A. All cars must be clearly identifiable as 1/32 scale models of cars that have raced in American production - car road racing series, 1946 to present. The class is intended to include cars that might have appeared together in Sports Car Club of America Regional or National races for past or present upper-level production and GT classes, specifically A, B, and C-production, GT 1 and 2, A-Sedan, Touring 1, and American Sedan. It also includes SCCA TransAm, IMSA GTO / GTU / GTS, and cars from foreign series that might fit into any of the above classes.

B. Specific makes and models eligible for this class include, but are not limited to those listed in the Eligible Models List. Any make or model not listed must be submitted in advance for approval by the organizers. (The Chevy Suburban will NOT be approved -- don't ask.)

2. Bodies:

A. All bodies in this class must be made of injection-molded plastic or of resin, fiberglass, or wood. Other materials may be submitted in advance for approval by the organizers. Vacuum-formed bodies and metal bodies of any kind are not allowed. (Origami, anyone?)

1. Material may be added to the bottom edges of the body provided .0625" ground clearance is maintained at all points. Material may not be removed from the lower edges of the body.

2. The wheel openings may be radiused for tire clearance. Fenders must cover the wheels and tires when viewed from directly above, and may be flared or extended to cover the wheels and tires out to the maximum allowable width as specified below.

3. Body sides may be straightened so they are vertical between the bottom edge and the widest line on the body.

4. No non-scale aerodynamic devices are allowed. Determination of what is scale will be the decision of the organizers. We will allow anything that looks like it could reasonably be found on a legal car for any of the race series mentioned above as long as it does not give the car any kind of performance advantage.

5. Material may not be removed from the inside of the bnody nor may the thickness of the body be reduced by any means.

B. All cars must have clear windows as on the full-scale car. (Tinted privacy glass optional)

C. All cars must have a racing number appearing on the front and on each side.

2. Chassis, wheels and tires:

A. Chassis must be in-line (motor shaft parallel to the centerline of the chassis)

B. Chassis must have no hinges.

1. Any feature that serves the function of a hinge is prohibited.

2. Sliding, rolling, or moving components are prohibited (No shaker plates, etc.)

3. Chassis may flex, but it must flex as a single unit.

C. Either scratch-built chassis or conversions of production chassis may be used. (Yes, yes! Carve up that irreplaceable 60s vintage chassis! Yes! Do it, do it!)

D. Minimum front tire diameter is .740". Minimum rear tire diameter is .790". Minimum front tire width is .250". Maximum width between outer edges of the wheels and / or tires is 2.5". Minimum ground clearance is .0625" at all points. (You probably think this rule is meant to keep the cars scale. Actually, we're just trying to make sure nobody tries to enter a lowrider.)

3. Motor and gears: All cars must use a stock, unmodified, unopened Plafit Cheetah or Fox motor. All cars must use 48-pitch gears.

Prototype Class

1. Bodies:

A. All cars must be clearly identifiable as 1/32 scale models of sports-racing or sports-prototype cars that have competed in Group C, IMSA GTP, or WSC (USRRC, ALMS, ISRS) races 1982 to present. Current LeMans GT and prototype class cars are also allowed.

B. Either "hard" bodies or vacuum-formed bodies, including Lexan, are allowed in this class. (We'll even allow bodies that are hard to vacuum-form)

C. All cars must have a clear windshield and windows as found on the 1/1 scale car. (Some cars, of course, have just a cockpit surround with no windshield.) All bodies made of clear material must have all areas painted that would not be clear on the 1/1 scale car.

D. All cars must have all bodywork and aerodynamic devices used on the 1/1 scale car. In the case of cars that raced at various times with various combinations of wings, spoilers, etc., entrant may use any configuration with which the 1/1 scale car actually started a race. Documentation may be required.

E. No non-scale aerodynamic devices are allowed. (We keep wondering when some slot racer who also has a 1/1 scale race car will put a huge set of clear Lexan wings and side dams on it for one race, thus making such appendages "scale". Oops...forget we said that!)

F. All cars must have carburetor/injector, exhaust, and roll bar detail where visible on the 1/1 scale car.

Note: We are not going to be zealots about D, E, and F above. We do not want to get into a debate about whether some team ran a wing of a certain height and width on its Spice-Fiero. As long as wings, spoilers, etc. look realistic and in proper proportion to the car and don't, in our judgment, give the car any kind of unfair performance advantage, we'll allow them. This gives you some room for creativity, but keep it within the bounds of reality. Also, we're not going to measure the diameter of your exhaust pipes, but please do try to include the required details in some reasonably realistic-looking form.

G. All wheel openings that were open on the 1/1 scale car must be open. Those that were covered on the 1/1 scale car (such as the rear wheel openings on the Intrepid) may be either open or closed. No wheel openings may be masked off and left clear.

2. Chassis, wheels, and tires:

A. Any chassis design is allowed -- inline, anglewinder, sidewinder. (How about rear motor, front drive?)

B. Maximum chassis width and maximum width between the outer edges of the wheels / tires is 2.5". The heads of body mounting pins will not be counted in the car's overall width. If pins with heads of excessive size are used they will be replaced with standard pins. (Yes, somebody actually asked us about this last time.)

C. Minimum tire diameters: front .700", rear .790" Minimum front tire width is .375".

D. Minimum ground clearance: .040" under front edge of chassis, .0625" at rear axle.. Bottom of chassis must form a straight line between a line directly below the front axle centerline and a line directly below the rear axle centerline.

3. Motor and gears: All cars must use a stock, unmodified, and unopened Plafit Cheetah motor. All cars must use either 48 or 64 pitch gears.
 

Race Procedures:

1. Each car will be inspected for rules compliance and tested before the race to make sure it is running properly and, as far as possible, will be "dialed in" for the track. If a car has problems with either legality or performance the owner will be contacted and we will, if possible, correct the problem before the race in consultation with the owner.

2. Concours will be judged before the race. We hope to include persons from both 1/1 scale racing and static car modeling among the concours judges. Cars will be judged "on the tech block", which means they will not be picked up and the chassis will not be a part of the concours judging. Cars will be judged on the following criteria:
 
 

Authenticity / Creativity -- How accurately and convincingly has the builder modeled an actual car OR how well has he done at constructing, painting and detailing his car so it looks like it could be real?	0-40 points
Finish	0-20 points
Detail	0-20 points
Overall impression and general quality	0-20 points

2. There will be 8 official drivers for each class. These will all be experienced racers who will drive all the cars as consistently as possible and do their best to avoid damaging them. (That's why we need the pizza, Cokes, and junk food -- to get top-caliber drivers.)

3. The cars will be placed by random draw into a round-robin race rotation in which each car will be raced an equal amount of time on each of the track's 4 lanes and will be driven by each of the official drivers. This means each car will run on each lane twice. Heats will be 3 minutes long unless we get a very large number of entries, in which case we may shorten the heats to keep the total time needed to run the event within reason.

4. After the race each entry's lap total will be added to its concours score to determine its combined score for the event. Prizes in each of the two classes will be awarded on the basis of the combined scores.
 
 

Useful Information

The governing principles for this event are as follows:

* Keep it simple. (for both the entrants and the organizers)

* Keep it inexpensive (as much as possible)

* Keep it scale.

* Keep it fun.

* Put 1/32 scale slot racing's best foot forward to the public (through  magazine and Internet coverage)

*And, within those parameters, give lots of room for creativity.

Track:

The track is a 70-foot 4-lane road course with 8 turns, 5 right and 3 left. The smallest inside-lane turn radius is 4.5". The largest outside-lane radius is 28". The distance between lane centers is 3.5". The two tightest turns, both 180 degree hairpins, are right-handers. The largest-radius turn, a 180 degree sweeper, is a left turn. There is a 6" difference in elevation between the highest and lowest points on the course.  There is no overpass. The longest straight measures 16 feet. There are 4 other straights of 8, 6, 5, and 4 feet. The track is made of plywood with a marine polyurethane finish.  Power is supplied by a 60's era commercial raceway power supply, rebuilt several years ago with a large bank of capacitors. Backup and supplementary power is provided by a 12-volt deep-cycle battery. Contact strips are copper braid. The slots are 5/32" wide and deep enough to accept any commercially available guide flag.

Tires:

 Any kind of black rubber is allowed. The tires that work best at DW on our I-32's and Demons are the Parma 678 MX tires and the PSE 70932 Euro Tires. Both are .790" in diameter, too.  The really sticky natural rubber tires tend to be too sticky.   The two winning cars in Proxy I both used Parma MX tires.  Bob Ward's  Demon conversions use either modified Cox mag wheels with tires made from donuts from Sonic, said to be the same compound that used to come on Parma I-32 RTRs, or JK black sponge stock car tires.

Before Proxy I we tried silicones on the track.  Our experience is that they simply don't work on the Daytona West track surface.  However, if you want to try using silicones you can.  We will test them for you before the race, and do our best to make the car work with them.  However, we strongly advise that you also send a set of sponge tires with the car in case the silicones don't work.

Notes:

1.  If you have a trick you want to do on your car and you aren't sure it's legal, e-mail us describing what you want to do and get a yea or nay on it ahead of time.  If we decide what you want to do is legal we will reply privately to you so your demon tweak remains your secret (although someone else may think of the same thing).  If we decide it's not legal we'll post it on OWH and also on the Slots DL so anyone else thinking of the same thing will know it's not allowed.

2.  We want all the cars to be as realistic-looking as possible.  This is why we are awarding the prizes based on the combined scores of both concours and the race itself.    We will be awarding the highest concours scores to cars that look the most like something you would see in a 1/1 scale race.  That means you need to look at some books and magazines or on some web sites to see where numbers, sponsor decals, and other markings are placed on the full-size cars.  On the cars we're running this time there's usually one number on the nose and one on each side.

In addition to the detail items required by the rules you should try to incorporate realistic details like hood pins, fuel fillers, window nets, window clips and straps, windshield wipers, and rivet or other fastener detail where appropriate.  You should try to paint the drivers realistically with details like uniform stripes and patches, seat belts, helmet designs, and so on.

You don't have to do an exact replica of a specific 1/1 scale car as it appeared in a specific race, but you should try to do a car that looks like it could be real.  You might, for instance, like to paint and detail your car the way you would do a 1/1 scale car if you were a team  owner.  That gives you a lot of room to be creative while challenging your modeling and chassis building skills.  One thing to keep in mind--this is a slot car race, not a parade for static models with motors in them.  The cars will be raced and, within reason, raced hard.  You will need to examine carefully each element of your car's design and construction to get the best combination of scale appearance and on-track performance and reliability.  The car that achieves the best balance  will be the winner.

3.  We want to encourage everyone to enter, even if you think your building skills are not very good or you think your car will not be competitive.  All entries are welcome whether you are a beginner or an expert. No one will be made to feel embarrassed if their work is
not contest-caliber. Remember that the camera is very kind to slot cars.

We realize that everyone has different  preferences in how they build. Some build for local racing series with more restrictive rules than apply elsewhere. Perhaps you like to keep your cars simple, inexpensive, and evenly matched, even if that means they are not particularly fast. Send a car in anyway. Someone else may be interested in seeing how you build simple, inexpensive, and evenly matched cars.  You may be interested to know that in the first proxy race about 3/4 of the cars managed to do at least 70% of the winner's lap total, and most of the ones that didn't could have done it with a little more development.  (And keep in mind that the winners in that first race were a pair of computer-designed laser-cut spring steel cars that won't be legal this time, so even more cars should be competitive)

If you need help or advice on building, e-mail us and we'll give you as much assistance as we can.  If you get discouraged, e-mail us and we'll give you some encouragement.  Don't worry about whether your car will be good enough.  Just build the best car you can and send it in.  You may be surprised at how well you do.  Several entrants in the first proxy race did much better than they ever thought they would.   Every car has something interesting about it. Your car is probably more interesting to others than you may think. You are almost certainly your own harshest critic.

4.  Once again OWH will cover the event with pictures and descriptions of all the cars.  We want these events to be a showcase for all the entrants' approaches to car building and we want to place as many different designs on display as possible to give racers around the world a wide variety of ideas that may help them design and build cars for their individual needs and preferences. This is as much about seeing what everybody has created as it is about seeing whose car is the fastest, perhaps more so.  Every car has something interesting about it. Your car is probably more interesting to others than you may think. You are almost certainly your own harshest critic.

Also again there will be awards for appearance, innovation, originality, and all kinds of things besides winning the main.  Last time we made up some awards as we went along to give recognition to cars that had special qualities to them.  We'll be doing that again.  We plan to photograph every car and put the photos in OWH, as well as other publications as the opportunity arises. We encourage you to send as much information as you can on your car, the kind of races it normally runs in, and your approach to racing and car building. This will help us write interesting articles on all the cars in the race. An information form will be provided to help you list relevant information on your entries.

As before, we hope many of you will enter and all who enter will find it a rewarding experience.  Everyone who entered last time enjoyed it and expressed a desire to participate again this time around.

Several people have asked if they can attend the event in person.  We welcome anyone who wants to come by and watch the race, meet the organizers and drivers, and get in on the fun.  We can always use more turn marshals and volunteers to help with a variety of tasks.  If you would like to attend, e-mail for the schedule and directions to Daytona West.  (You probably won't find the place without them.)

5.  Above all, have fun!

For more info:

email: bobward@oldweirdherald.com