Toward the end of the summer last year, I wrote this post explaining the rationale for a surprisingly difficult decision: to remove the few cars that were still in the customzied Muscle Car and Sports Car racing fleets that were still completely stock. In the case of each fleet, any cars that were still racing on stock Auto World wheels, tires, and axles and with completely unaltered chassis would either have to take the route to customization, or retire from racing. As I explained then, the reason for this was consistency.
In the case of the sports cars, there wasn’t much of a choice: the 3 cars in that fleet that remained stock went full custom! For the muscle cars, though, there was a 3rd option: migration to the Super Stock fleet, which at that time had only recently been inaugurated. Thus, two of my oldest and most beloved cars rotated out of the “official” muscle car racing fleet and became Super Stockers.
However, that wasn’t the end of it; there were still 3 cars remaining in that same fleet that were 98% stock. At the time, I justified this by saying that because all 3 of them had been fitted with MEV 5-lug wheels, they qualified as “customized.” But this was a cheat: in fact, the MEV wheels these 3 have fitted at exactly the same size and dimensions as the Generation II ThunderJet “Tuff Ones” wheels that Auto World adopted for their own chassis when they hit the market in 2000; so while the wheels themselves are not strictly “stock,” they are stock sized and fitted with Auto World tires, and they all have completely stock chassis and motors as well. If I’m going to do this right, these cars, also must “Customize or Die!”
Well, no, its not quite that dramatic! But it still feels a little dramatic to me, because these are some of my oldest cars that I’ve raced the longest and thus have the most memories attached and the most meaning to me. Taking them out of the fleet does feel like kind of big deal, especially since The Super Stock fleet now has only a single remaining vacancy…and it only has that because I recently decided to retire the “Dandy Dick Landy” Charger from racing entirely! That car was reboxed and turned into a display piece, in part because of its rarity but also because the thing was so damn fast that it was impossible to keep on the track during a race! Talk about too much of a good thing!
The Last Vestigages of the Earliest Days of what would become Drag City Raceway…
1. ‘59 Chevy Impala AKA “The Copper Crate”
This car’s main claim to fame is that it was the featured car in Drag City’s first ever “Meet The Fleet” post, which dropped on December 16 of 2020! Ironically this was initially fitted with custom wheels when I first bought it, but early on it was refitted with the MEV 5-lugs when I discovered that Auto World made wide whitewall tires, which I just had to have for this car! That early post shows early pics of the car with the Road Race Replicas “baby moons” initially fitted and with the subsequent MEV wheels and stock tires it still wears today. Looking at the Super Stock fleet and knowing there was no 1959 Chevy in it, I made the decision to give this car that last remaining slot in The Super Stock fleet where it now lives, so Frank “Elvis” Esposito and “The Copper Crate” have now joined the ranks of the Weekday Night “buddy racing” crew! It wasn’t an easy choice, and this next entry will tell you why…
2. ‘64 Pontiac GTO AKA “Old Reliable”
I’ll tell you: this one hurts! I have a real attachment to this car because it is the 5th Thunderjet I ever bought back in those earliest days in early January of 2020! Even before the lockdowns started when I just getting into this hobby, I bought this car online and, at first, I was actually disappointed with it because I thought it’s proportions were off (they are, a little) and that the body was too small in comparison to some of the other cars (and I still think that). What really irked me about it was the way the stock wheels a tires stuck out of the body, which was ugly an unrealistic. But then, I put it on the track and started racing it…and it didn’t take me long for me to get over all that! While this GTO was fast, it didn’t stay among the fatest for long, but what it did stay was consistent; it was a rock solid, predictable performer! And consistency is a quality that wins races! It was this quality that gave the car its nickname. The “Meet The Fleet” post introducting this car dropped on X-mas Eve of 2020, by which time she was already wearing the MEV 5-lugs, but even today she still runs on the while thinwall tires she came out of the clamshell with, an it remains the only car in my entire collection colored this particular shade of light metallic lime green, a subdued and “period correct” color.
My attachment to this car is making it very hard to part with it. I could, of course, choose to mount the body on a new customized chassis as I’ve done with many other cars, but after all the racing history she’s built up, all the hard miles she clocked, I just don’t have the heart to take it apart: I want to leave her as she is, and since there’s no place else to go, “Old Reliable” is going into semi-retirement. She’s long in the tooth now and due for an overhaul, and its better to let her bow out with all her trophies in-tact that subject her to the indignitiy of a potential engine fire or breakdown on the track. She’ll always be there in my collector’s case and will surely come out to run in certain special events from time to time, but for now, its time for “Old Reliable” to rest. Her driver, Case “Comeback Kid” Cunningham, is a different story. He is not going quietly into the night, and I’ll have more details on exactly why in an post coming up very soon!
3. ‘57 Chevy Bel-Air AKA “The Black Knight”
And then there was one: one of the most beautiful cars in my entire collection! I’ve always felt the ‘57 Chevy looks better in black than in any other color, and this little model proves it! Though this is another Auto World body where the proportions are less-than perfect, it still has the shape and detail that make the “last Tri-Five” so appealing. This car is quite a bit newer than the other 2, and it wears the MEV 5-lugs and wide whitewalls for 2 reasons: the obvoius one is that they look awesome, but the less obvious reason is that I was never able to find a custom wheel size or design that would fit that car would A) clear the rear wheel wells, B) provide good performance and C) look as good as the car deserved. That makes this one a little different than the others, since – having the stock I have today – I could have made the Impala and the GTO look just fine with customs.
Even though I don’t quite have the history with this car that I do with the other 2, I feel like I’m having the most trouble retiring this one of all these 3; it just looks so bad-ass, and you know about my passion for Tri-5’s! How can I pull the lone ‘57 out of my racing fleet?
So I have a plan settled for the others, but not this one: I’m going to have to think of something, but for right now, I don’t know what: my gut says its going custom, but if so I can’t keep those awesome whitewalls, so I might have to really go the extra mile on this car and try something I’ve never done before. Sometimes that turns into a mess, but other times the results are very gratifying. So, the future of Charles “Wheelspin” Wallace and “The Black Night” is yet to be written…and when it is, you can bet I’ll blog about it!
To those who think its goofy that I’m so intense about these decisions, all I can say in response is that its all part of The Lore: these cars and their names and their drivers and their backstories bring them to life, and the connectness of their stories forms a thread that runs through everything I do at the track and on this blog. The good news is that as old cars and drivers retire, new ones come into the fold, and the “classics” always wind up with new leases on life anyway!
After all the time and love you’ve put into these cars and Drag City, I’d think it was strange if you didn’t have emotions about replacing these cars, not to mention their beauty and performance all these years! I completely understand!