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Circa 1970 Pete’s “Air
Force” Top Fueler Slot Car
by Pete Shreeves
A recent Hot Rod
Magazine editorial (Jan ’09 p. 12) suggests that professional
racing has come a point where technology is frozen and ‘unspoken
speed limits’ are the norm. The article points out the sharp
contrast to racing’s hotbed of engineering innovation in the late
‘60s. From Indianapolis to road racing turbos, turbines and four
wheel drive were being tested. At the drag strip multi-engine
rails, wedge dragsters and wings of all kinds were showing up.
Slot car racing in the ‘60s reflected this innovative spirit as
suppliers produced more sophisticated material from powerful
motors, sophisticated chassis, lighter bodies and better tires.
My friends and I were
building slot cars on Long Island (suburban NY) in the late ‘60s
and were trying to figure out how to apply any innovation we could
find. Real dragsters were tube chassis cars that were growing in
length about the time Don Garlits introduced the rear engine
dragster. Naturally, there was an advantage to using longer
wheel-base since adding length to the chassis tended to keep the
front of the car down. Dragster design in those days was a trade
between horsepower, tires and traction factors like chassis
dynamics and aerodynamics.
Our slot dragsters at
that point were an extension of drop-arm ‘springy thingies’, a
minimal chassis based on two parallel steel rods that started at
the rear in-line motor and ran the length of the car holding
everything together. If the rail had wheelie castors they were
also an extension of the frame rails. At that point the ‘open’
motors had gone out of sight in horsepower and even the stickiest
tires were more than a match for the traction we could get at most
tracks. We found that a dragster with a long enough wheelbase
could often avoid needing a wheelie castor or drop arm.
We experimented with a
long rod chassis which flexed the way the real rails did. The
challenge was getting the car hooked up and launched at the line
where the motor torque is the highest. The ‘springy’ flexing
simply absorbed torsional energy for a moment (the motor climbing
up the crown gear arching the chassis slightly) which delayed the
onset of planting the rear tires. In order to create a more rigid
car, we triangulated the chassis with a third rail running from
the front axle up over the motor to eliminate the flex. A stiffer
chassis would plant the tires immediately which was important for
rails with very high torque motors. This formula worked but the
added length and stiffening also added considerable weight.
I needed a long but
stiff and light chassis to work with. The current full-size rear
engine dragsters were sprouting bigger slicks and longer
wheelbases. Real rails with monocoque construction (stressed skin
chassis like airplanes) were in the magazines although the racers
who used them were never happy with them. The stiffness generated
by these chassis was too much for real drive trains and the racers
went back to tube chassis and have stayed with them ever since. I
decided it was time to try a monocoque chassis myself.
At that time a model kit
of the “TV Tommy Ivo” fueler was on the market, which was just
right for the task. I borrowed construction techniques from the
monocoque Pro Stocks we had been experimenting with. We had
eliminated the need for a metal frame in under model car bodies by
adding a flat plastic floor across the bottom. I applied the
monocoque construction to the TV-Tommy kit with the raised wing,
side wings and podded fronts all in styrene.
I kept the height of the
body low and ran heavy automotive motor wires forward inside the
body. Since there was no drop arm and the car didn’t need to go
around turns I just glued a styrene slot pin into place. The
brushes were screwed to the underside of the chassis and the wires
just ran under the screws. By drilling holes into the bottom of
the motor can (on the flat surface on either end of the air
opening) I was able to screw the motor flat to the floor pan of
the chassis. A regular “C” type motor mount was narrowed, cross
braced and screwed to the end of the motor in the traditional
in-line configuration. The motor was thus a load bearing member of
the chassis just as it had been in the old CanAm cars. I painted
the car up in the Air Force Thunderbirds color scheme. The car
looked great and complimented my long arm high torque (Pusch arm)
motor very well. The mill included double red dot magnets and
shunted brushes.
Running the car was all
about the motor. In those days traction and surfaces were always
spotty and the local strips seldom used a lot of glue or more than
a single car battery. The car was low and light enough that the
front would stay down with only a little weight. The motor had a
distinctive howl that was so loud you could hurt your ears when
you revved it up in the bleach box. The full can open motor never
bogged on the line. You could lay goop for the first few feet and
the tires would just throw the car forward. Once the car was
moving the motor broke into a loud “song” as it ran through the
top end. In many ways it sounded like a real fueler. You could
tell which parts of the track had traction simply by listening to
the RPM. It made use of whatever the track could give it. I don’t
recall the car ever loosing a race although there were nights when
traction just wasn’t there and anything could happen.
I remember being at
B&J’s Raceway in New Jersey in the early ‘70s. I was visiting from
New York while visiting relatives. We were match racing some of
the locals when some well-meaning soul decided to lecture me on
how to build a dragster. At first sight, he probably thought I was
some poor misguided kid trying to turn a heavy plastic toy into a
serious slot car. He was advising me to learn how to solder, get
some steel rod and build a sturdy, drop arm rail like the Pros
were doing then. He held this opinion until I asked him whether he
knew which was heavier, steel or polystyrene? He got a quizzical
look in his face for a moment.
While he was thinking
about that I rolled a little goop into my tires and checked my
braids. The B&J’s strip was eight lanes wide with a throw switch
start. (Really separates the builders from the boys!) Then I
asked, with great interest, “Do you think I should install a drop
arm?” I set my car in an open lane next to his car, flipped the
switch and blew his hot rig into the next county! I wish I could
have participated in one of B&J’s weekly drag meets but I was only
visiting and had a date that night. Hey, life has priorities...
I still have the car and
I dust it off from time to time for various events. It was
undefeated racing among my friends in the old days and proved to
be the untouchable in some informal “run wha’chya brung” matches
decades later. However, on the current very smooth, very powerful
professional tracks the car is simply un-driveable. Traction and
amperes are far beyond what this car was ever designed for. The
old Air Force fueler is like a snapshot in time. It was part of a
period when racing was an expression of unlimited innovation and
creativity. I hope slot car racing will always be a place where
creativity and going faster is a part of racing.
