roadhawg

I've seen several people who are building short track race cars ask about "wide 5" wheels. There's several different sources for these, but if you don't want to order them and have a few tools and supplies, it's easy to make a basic set. Here's what you need:


Materials needed:
.010 sheet styrene
3/8" styrene tubing
.060 and .030 Plastruct hex rod
5/8 nylon washers from the hardware store
Deep open wheel backs from parts box



Tools needed:
Hobby knife
ruler
tweezers
Micro mark punch set




Start by finding some suitable open wheel backs from your parts box. An alternative would be to cut away the centers from a set of deep wheels, as shown.



Next, cut a 3/8" long piece of the styrene tubing. This will become your hub.



Cut a disc from the .010 styrene sheet slightly larger than the inside diameter of the wheel. As you can see, it doesn't have to be perfect. Glue the piece of tubing to the center of the disc, as shown.



Next, punch out some discs from the .010 sheet using the punch set. I have no idea what the sizes are, but the biggest holes on each side of the punch set look good to me. Glue the larger disc to the top of the hub, then glue the smaller disc on top of that in the center.





If you don't have a punch set, an alternative way would be to slice off pieces of appropriately sized styrene rod.

Next, slice off some pieces of the .030 hex rod and glue them evenly spaced around the top of the hub plate. For the front hubs, use 4. For the rear hubs, use 8.



This completes the hub assembly. Paint it the color of your choice, in this case aluminum. Now we move on to the rim itself.

Just finished up another All Pro car. This is the famous Dillon Chassis "carbon fiber" car that short track legend Gary Balough raced in the All-Pro and ASA series in 1986. The car was very innovative for it's time, for one..the entire interior was made from carbon fiber, which was both lightweight and made the car more rigid. They also used the new hub "top hats", which made changing the wide-5 wheels much quicker during pit stops. Balough won just about everything there was to win in this car that year. I've always liked Balough, even in spite of his personal issues, and I've always thought this was a beautiful race car.

The model is a Revell ASA Camaro. The rear end and front A-arms were narrowed slightly (just like the real car) to get the tires under the fenders. The dash panel was made from styrene, and that tiny little kit steering wheel was swapped out for one from a Nascar kit. I also added simple seat belts made from masking tape. I made the hub top hats from styrene tubing and sheet, and the wheels are my own castings.
Paint is Model Master Italian Red lacquer with their Ultra-Gloss clearcoat, and the decals are my own. It is built curbside style, so there is no engine wiring or plumbing...not sure my arthritic fingers could even do that kind of detail anymore!

It's not perfect, but I'm really happy with the way it turned out. I'm hoping Balough will make it to Georgia for the World Crown 300 this year, so I can get him to sign it for me.

Comment, criticism, complaints, or questions welcome! Thanks for looking.

As far as I'm concerned, the late Buck Simmons of Baldwin GA was the best dirt late model driver in history. His first win was in 1960 at the age of 15. His last win was in 2009 at the age of 64. Between those two, he had 1022 other main even wins....yes, that's right, 1024 feature wins in a 50 year career. He is in both the National Dirt Racing Hall Of Fame, and the Georgia Auto Racing Hall Of Fame. He won just about everything there was to win on dirt at one time or another, and was one of my all time racing heroes.

I've decided to build a few of Buck's most famous rides, starting with the black (Buck's trademark colors were black and gold) "Jig-A-Lo" Camaro, owned by Billy Thomas. Buck drove this car from 1979-1981, when he picked up his first NDRA National championship. This car also won the very last race at the historic Lakewood Speedway in Atlanta.

I built the model up from an AMT Nascar chassis...totally inaccurate for a dirt late model, I know, but since this is meant as a curbside model it worked out just fine. I did have to build a new upper roll cage to match the body, and lower the suspension slightly. I also had to make a new rear frame section and fuel cell, along with the interior "tin".
The actual body is one of Jackie Sims' vacuform Camaro bodies, my first time working with one...a little tricky at first, but once you get the hang of it, it works out good. The wheels are some I cast myself and had chromed, but I'm not sure if I like them or not...this is one case where Alclad might have been a better choice, to look more like polished aluminum. Paint is plain ol' Model Master black, decals are my own.

I have a few more of Buck's rides in the planning stages, but since this was probably my favorite, it's the first.
Thanks for lookin'!

Just finished another one of my All Pro Racing Series cars from the mid 80's, this time it's the 1984 series champion Darrell Brown. Revell ASA kit, paint is Duplicolor white and Testors gold with Duplicolor Chevy Orange chassis/cage. Decals are my own. Thanks for looking!

This is what I chose for the 7th annual 24 Hour Build starting today. I don't build too many Nascars, I much prefer short trackers, but I had this in the stash and I had a set of Powerslide decals, so why not?
To me, this era of Nascar was the best looking cars. They still looked like their factory counterparts, but looked like a racecar too.



Had Tim lived, he would probably have 7 or 8 Championships by now.
I won't be doing any plumbing or wiring, but I will be making a few corrections to the basic kit...IF I get finished at all, lol.

Waiting for the start in 21 minutes.....well, 20 now........hope to be back in a couple hours with updates!