1989 Chassis Resurfaces

When enough time passes, it makes us wonder where things are today that we haven't seen since then.
You know, "I wonder what ever happened to that"

Dec 2017 I was very happy to have one of those mysteries solved.

In 1989 I was racing weekly at the legendary Bellflower Raceway - home of the original Hillclimb built by American Raceways. The first one. It had T-slots which wore away over the quarter century of use. The slots were on average 3/16" wide. A true drivers track.

The racers were mostly retired USRA pros and semi-pros. The manager was a proponent of group 12 arms before they were popular. So we came up with a class in 1987 that used scratch built chassis pro style, gr12 arms, c cans, ceramic magnets but beyond that no restrictions. we cut up the cans, used frontline low profile magnets, ball bearings everywhere. The bodies were GTP.

Big events usually had a raffle. I contributed a chassis which would serve the purpose of getting someone else into our races. The winner of the chassis never returned however, so I have always wondered what happened to that chassis. I've build a multitude of chassis over the past 40 years. I keep track of where they go for the most part. the commercial stuff I can't track since it was just sold retail, but one off customs I try.

Ebay Dec 2017 there it was. Couldn't believe my eyes. Looked new as the day I put it in the raffle. It is s thrilling feeling to see a blast from the past. 28 years.

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I emailed my friends a hey remember that day type of email. Turns out one of those friends won the bid, having wanting that chassis since the raffle. So now I know where that chassis will remain. Just where it belongs, took the long way to get there. He has since built it up and played with it at his local raceway. Says he found an era appropriate body from his stash and strangely the pinholes matched up. Meant to be.