RC10Talk - The Net's Largest Vintage R/C Community

wierd, I raced parking lot with Gary Hamilton. I never knew he was a velodrome guy, I just knew he showed up to the track with a lot of very nice equipment. His kid was pretty fast too.

Can you please give some info on this Big Jim person shown in the picture. Thanks.

It wasn't talked about much, but I would love to see some pictures of the early Dominator you have. Maybe included in the 1/10 speed thread you guys talked about. I was raised in Texas, and about all we had in the 80's was dirt oval. Thank You. Chris

a01butal wrote:Can you please give some info on this Big Jim person shown in the picture. Thanks.

bigjimracing.com

his daugther kept the site up because of all the information he had up. which was nice of her. since his passing you can't order anything anymore off the site. i usually send anyone that's into brushed motors to this site. it has a fraction of information of what he has published. he had a lot more on 2 other forums, where people asked him for tips.

Thanks fo the info, sorry to hear of his passing.

littleVETTE wrote:you said you dabbled in off road. what did you have, and what would a clausen buggy or truck looked like?

I think the first off-road vehicle I ever built was an RC10T when they first came out. It had a black chassis and I dyed all of the parts flo yellow, including the wheels. The body was painted in Tide colors like my oval cars. I drove it once at a local track but I just wasn't very good at jumps and it felt so out of control compared to my on-road cars. I ended up giving it to my nephew as a birthday present.

I went to a Cactus Classic race in Arizona using one of Cliff Lett's 4WD cars, maybe a Yokomo. I ran a lexan shark fin on the roof of the buggy with "Dirt Shark" stickers that I had custom made. Cliff conveniently forgot to tell me to punch the throttle to get the nose up over jumps So I stuck it nose-first into the ground several times each heat. I remember one guy being mad at me because my buggy hit his in mid-air over a jump. I thought "hey, I can barely control this thing on the ground, let alone in the air".

I've always really respected the skills of the top off-road guys and enjoyed going to sevaral of the big races to watch. I went to the 1987 IFMAR off-road worlds in Romsey England when Masami won his first WC title, and Joel Johnson won the 2WD title at that same race. I also went to watch the 1989 worlds in Australia. Masami was dominant at that race, manhandling the car around a very slippery and difficult track.

xanadu wrote:It wasn't talked about much, but I would love to see some pictures of the early Dominator you have. Maybe included in the 1/10 speed thread you guys talked about. I was raised in Texas, and about all we had in the 80's was dirt oval. Thank You. Chris

Here are some photos of my Custom Works car. I was told it is one of the first ones they made but I don't really know the differences between the versions. I raced it at a JG Oval event at the Ranch Pit Shop.

Kent, first, I have to say that is very cool that you are on this board, and we get a chance to talk with you, thanks very much for adding historic and excellent info to this board, with pictures!!

it looks like that dominator used yokomo yz-834b arms all around, as well as wheels,probably more of the yokomo parts as well. very neat.

WC1982 wrote:

xanadu wrote:It wasn't talked about much, but I would love to see some pictures of the early Dominator you have. Maybe included in the 1/10 speed thread you guys talked about. I was raised in Texas, and about all we had in the 80's was dirt oval. Thank You. Chris

Here are some photos of my Custom Works car. I was told it is one of the first ones they made but I don't really know the differences between the versions. I raced it at a JG Oval event at the Ranch Pit Shop.

CIMG8157k.jpg

CIMG8158k.jpg

CIMG8159k.jpg

CIMG8160k.jpg

your custom works dominator just reminded me of joel johnson's "custom" custom works ride he put together for the insane speed run. it was fitted with 2 motors and 2 speed controls. if i remember right, he couldn't complete a run because of the chain snapping on him.

markt311 wrote:wierd, I raced parking lot with Gary Hamilton. I never knew he was a velodrome guy, I just knew he showed up to the track with a lot of very nice equipment. His kid was pretty fast too.

believe it or not, he's still at it. his creation for the 2009 insane speed run...


looks like someone is still trying to use the diesel truck at this years 2009 isr. remember the one from the earlier insane speed runs on the oval?

Kent-
I believe your Dominator is a 2nd Generation as it used Yokomo suspension arms (Nicest that I've seen as they were usually run pretty hard and put away when they broke). The 1st generation Dominators were handmade by Jerry Landgraph and I've been told limited to less than 24 cars. Perhaps Eau Rouge can ad input.

dirtdiver

Thank you for the Dominator pics. That is the first one that I have seen with the yokomo a-arms. You just made my day! I have one that is brand new and never driven. It is unreal to see how much a car from such a tiny company evolved and changed. They were so good in the 80's, that the 4wd class where I raced was just called the Dominator class! those things could fly. They all used sanyo 1700 sce's (yellow cells) and about 3 minutes into the race, they were only creeping along at about half of the speed they started with. It was mostly who could make the whole 4 minutes.

That Dominator is definitely one of the very first 4wd production cars from Custom Works, as it used Yok parts more than the eventually specifically made CW parts. The only older Dominator I have ever seen is the one owned by Gary McAllister, which may have been the second car that Landgraff ever built. Those first gen cars had all hand-machined parts, and there were only a few of them made.

The original dirt oval bad boy...

Wow!! That car is unreal. I had no idea that their first cars were so nicely built and machined. I always pictured them being pieced together and sloppy but that car looks almost as refined as the later production cars of the late 80's-early 90's. I guess they got it right early and just smoothed them out over the years. Thank you for that picture.

Not to get side tracked but I talked to Gary and he sold off his dominators last year. I almost cried! Invited him to join RC10talk.com

Kent-
After winning the World Championship or National Championship races was it common for the racer to keep their car or did it go on display with the trophy at AE? Also how often did your race cars last before being retired or worn out?

Thank-you

dirtdiver