2002p51

Exactly. And nobody wants that!

The main reason they threw the red flag was because there were so few laps left. They were trying to save the finish of the race so there wouldn't need to be a green-white-checkered finish. That's the usual procedure with less than ten laps to go.

Harry, the restrictor plates keep the cars bunched up because there's no more throttle response left to give drivers the ability to get away from each other. They all have to drive wide open and if they lift even the slightest amount, they loose so much momentum that it takes several laps to get back where they were. The problem is that without some sort of engine restriction these guys would be doing over 220 mph. So what do you do? As a thirty year race photographer, I would not have shot some of those photos, and I sure as heck wouldn't have published them. No respect, no class, and very poor ethics. Thank you Martinfan5 for clearing up most of the misinformation in this thread. As for my take, there is no way you can build a race track that is 100% safe for the fans no matter what you do. The next time you are at a major race track read the fine print on the back of your ticket. Basically it says that we're glad you here but you should know that bad stuff can happen to you here and you accept that possibility just by buying this ticket. There are 2-1/2 miles of catch fence around that track and Larson's car found that one 3 foot section, the crossover gate, that was the weakest. What are the odds? Had the car hit almost anywhere else, the damage and injury would have been much less. Believe it or not the catch fence in this instance did it's job. The car, or at least most of it's mass, was stopped and projected back down on to the track.The engine and most of the front clip were stopped right at the fence, in the "buffer zone" between the fence and the first row of seats where spectators are not allowed to stand. Sure that one tire and hub assembly flew up 7 or 8 rows and lots of little pieces of debris and hot fluids injured people. But think of what it might have been like if that fence was not as well designed and strong as it was. We'd be talking about multiple fatalities this morning instead of recoverable injuries. And don't take this as my making light of the gravity of the situation, because I'm not. I'm just trying to inject a little perspective. It sounds cliche, but this really was a freak, unpredictable event that nobody could have planned for. NASCAR, the race track, and the designers of the cars, walls, and fences, have done everything possible to prevent a serious accident like this. Or at least to minimize the result. But in spite of their best efforts, the old saying the "Stuff Happens" is relevant. Stuff happens and stuff will always happen.

They do but it's at a minimum. It takes two days to paint a multi-color scheme, and less than two hours to wrap it in vinyl. Plus the wrap can be removed just as easily making it much easier to do the multiple sponsor changes that have become the norm in recent years. I don't know when wraps became almost universal, it was more of a gradual acceptance, but I do remember the first cup race I ever covered was in 1983 and the DiGard #88 Gatorade car was painted solid white and all the green panels and other graphics were vinyl. That was also the last year I ever saw a sign painter in the Cup garage.

This is a pretty cool time lapse video that shows how race cars are wrapped, not painted.

If you want another kit decal sheet I can send you one, no problem. Just not sure of the postage to the UK. PM me with address and details.

Like George said Harry, people just did a better job of driving in those days. They paid attention to what they were doing and respected the other drivers on the road. Many cars in those days only had a single, small taillight/brake light and that was good enough. Today we have huge taillights, third brake lights, (and some even flash several times) and we still have rear end crashes because people aren't paying attention.

Or heater hoses!

That's a good point. There are many times when something that is in correct scale size still doesn't "look" right. Sometimes dimensions and proportions just don't scale down. Like I said above, even though the Detail Master wires are slightly oversize, I think they look "right". However if you look at any photo of a 1:1 scale engine the plug wires don't usually dominate the view like some model plug wires do.

This engine was done with some armature wire that I found at Radio Shack. It's .016" which is also a little too large but doesn't look all that bad. On this one I used Detail Master ignition wire which measures .015" and is closer to scale. But I wouldn't use anything larger than either of these two.

.035" seems a little large to me. (.035" x 24 = .840") .84375 is 27/32" Most high performance plug wires are 8mm which is equal to only 5/16" (10/32") which divided by 24 is only .013" Just sayin'.

Oh a couple hundred probably, maybe 300 tops, more than enough in a car as small and light as that. But in reality, it isn't about horsepower. It's about style, tradition, and using something because it's "right". (And in the case of the Ardun heads there's just a little tiny bit of "showoff" because those things are seriously freakin' expensive!) I have two flathead powered cars and the more you know about flatheads, the more you find out that they are an absolutely terrible design for making horsepower. (And horsepower wasn't why Henry designed them that way anyhow.) For the same amount of money I have in the 110-120 HP engine in my roadster, I could've built a 500 HP small block Chevy. But the flathead was the "right" engine for the style of our car. Besides, at only 1,940 pounds, it scoots right along!

BINGO! That nails it right there!

Like I said at the beginning, the IPMS point system in use for this contest was very specific about deducting points for visible mold seams. I had to nick him for it. But my real point in telling this story was the guy's attitude about not being merely happy that he won by a wide margin and produced the best model in the place. He still wasn't satisfied.

This was sometime in the mid-eighties.

If I remember correctly there was a visible mold seam on a chrome part. This was in the days before Alclad. And that was his claim, no way to remove the seam without destroying the chrome.

I was once the judge of the automotive class in a local IPMS show. Being IPMS, they had a point system in place for judging with a maximum possible point total of 100. It was a very specific set of criteria and left little room for subjective opinion. The car that won the class and Best Car in the show scored 98 points. For comparison, the second place car scored a mere 57 points, and the rest of the class went down from there. The winning car was clearly head and shoulders above the competition and just may have been the best model I've ever seen. After the awards were presented we were all standing around when the builder of the winning car came up to me and was absolutely irate! I thought he was ready to fight. He demanded to know why he didn't get the full 100 points he felt he deserved and was almost screaming at me wanting to know why I didn't see this feature on his model or that one and didn't I know how much he had to rework a certain part to make it look better, and on and on! Here was a guy who won everything he could've in dominating fashion and wasn't happy. It takes all kinds!

I got one yesterday at Hobbytown USA in Johnson City, TN. They had a nice stack of them.

That's exactly what makes it so interesting and valuable.

British Motor Corporation has a board of tutorials?

Not at all, you simply brought some much needed perspective to this goofy little hobby of ours.

I buy 'em to build 'em. Case in point: Have you seen the price of these on eBay lately? Or these: This was a virgin, original AMT annual when I bought it.

Well that sure makes my troubles insignificant. Sorry for the loss.

I'm not, I'm experienced, er, seasoned , , , okay I'm old.

My first paint job of 2013 is currently covered in Easy Off! I'm going to watch TV the rest of the day.