Dirtdiver wrote:If you had to pick a favorite car from your collection, which one would you pick?
Like a favorite song or child? Hard to pick. Although my neighbors kids... There's a few I can't wait to see leave for college.
Now were talking, I'm gonna get to reminisce!!!!
Irrational emotional favorites, MRP GP-10 and Agitator. I think it's because I drove for Bob Welch and MRP at the time, and I had one of the first ones. Diff was terrible on that car (wasn't even that great a car looking back it was kind of a piece of crap, really) But it was the first of it's kind when we were all racing foam tires on old RC10's and grasshoppers, scorpions in parking lots. Agitator because I was driving for Twister at the time with Soderquist. I met Lucas Garneau (great dude) at one of the Cleveland races where we all ran the agitator 1/12th car that year with Lucas' help. I think that was the year Luis Leblanc won. Twister had me and Soderquist roomed up doing team motors for the guys, I think it was the first time I bumped into Jeric, he was a twister guy back then. 87-88?
Offroad, gotta be the RC10, just so MANY mutant variations of it. Was a fun car. followed by the chain drive yokomo and the PB mustang. Chain drive optima gets an emotional soft spot.
1/12th, Seems I'm always happy to have a Delta in my hand. I spent a lot of time on the phone with Ken back in the day, and he was such a nice guy, I think those memories go with the car for me. Favorite obscure car, the k12 made by Stan Witteman and Mitch. I think it's because Stan was one of the first guys I knew to pick and choose chassis bits from different brands and make some VERY cool cars that nobody had seen before. We were just playing with 1/12th scale until we met the Minot guys. They were so fast. Mitch is still fast. I've slowed a bit, but I can still put in a good lap now and then.
Single favorite car, based on obscurity, the Leonard Woods nitro car that TRC marketed through Horizon at the time. nobody made anything like it at the time or since. It was LW letting his mind wander, and doing a bunch of engineering things that (arguably) didn't transfer well over to small cars. Was a great car (so I'm told, I never drove one) as long as you never hit or touched anything.
I bet there weren't 100-200 of them total. It was expensive, and really, either ahead of it's time, or behind it. But it is an engineering wonder. I love to hand it to people so they can be a part of it.
Mutant favorites: The 235mm Stormer SR5. in 1990 before CAD, I hand drew and developed that car. tested and raced it, it was beautiful. We had just bought Stevens and sons (axles, hubs, pod bits, few of you guys will remember that) and Sent a few cars around the country. Stevens and sons eventually became Barracuda we sold that line through GP and Horizon. Remember, no email or web then. No flaws in the pre-production cars. I kitted 24 of them for the first run, we sold 12 via interest created in a flyer we mailed out. We waited to see what happened sold 12 over the next few days. I hand built all 12 as we didn't have instructions yet and I was thinking of doing the "corally thing" with assembled cars to control quality. That next Monday morning. All 12 guys were ecstatic, kicked ass, etc. They all called up looking for small advice on how to tweak the car and get the last little bit out of it over the next few days. ALL of them called on our toll free number back when it was like 60-90 cents a minute or more. I spent about $2500 in phone calls over the next few days and pulled the car from sale while I tried to sort what to do about it. THAT problem, hadn't occurred to me. The what if we have to spend $200 per car on toll free support phone calls. never sold another one. Lot easier now with forums (guys sharing setup tips online) and email, etc. Back then, you called the company, and because we were a mail order company we had a toll free number. There's 12 of SR5 out there somewhere. I have 2 I raced and whats left from the other 10 cars we sold parts off to keep guys going. I'll start a thread about the car some time. I don't think I've ever posted pictures of it. If anybody has one, I'd love to hear about it. It was just before we started computerized invoices and related record keeping. No idea where they went. Sr5 stood for the "5th" car I designed. the first three were 1/12th cars based on Delta and then agitator parts. "4" (1/12) was pretty bitchen. or maybe it was "6" that was so different, crap... I don't remember. Sold a few of them as conversions for 12l's.
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