“The Replacements” – Episode XII

It’s been quite a while since I’ve done a post in “The Replacements” series. This series of posts has always served multiple purposes. In some cases, it was to make a change to one of the fleets in order to remove a car that I felt had to be taken out of active racing duty for any number of reasons, often because the car itself just did not conform to the scale or the type of vehicles in the fleet, such as in Episode III. Or, it was to make a change to The Lore of the track and the cars and drivers, such as in Episode IX, or the complex story in Episode VI. After a while, some of these changes to The Lore became so complex that this special post was written to recap them all!

But let’s be honest: in a lot of cases, “The Replacements” posts serve little purpose other than to justify buying and building more slot cars, because that’s always been my favorite part of this hobby! With the last round of retirements of the few remaining stock cars from the customized Muscle Car Fleet now upon us, the time has come to dust off “The Replacements” concept to add a couple of new customs to replace the retirees.

Considering your humble blogger’s taste, discovering the recently re-issued ‘59 Chevy in satin black with silver pinstriping and rebadged from an Impala to a Biscayne (even if it is a hardtop) was just too much to resist, so it was inevitable that this release was going to wind up in the Muscle Car Fleet, and here it is! This time I decided to try something new: using one of my last remaining sets of Road Race Replicas chrome reverse wheels, and painting the centers in (what else but) “rockabilly red!” I used acrylic for this, and after it dried a little (but not completely) I went over the wheel centers with the tip of a toothpick to scrape some of the paint off of the axle centers and lug nuts to give it that delicious 1950s full kustom look I’ve been in love with since the famous “LA River” race scene in “Grease!” That took a hard stare into the magnification lens for my old peepers, lemmetellya!

Frank “Elvis” Esposito and his “Copper Crate” may have retired from active duty in the Muscle Car Fleet, but his mantle is being taken up by his son Robert! In addition to his hobby as a 6-string man in a roots rockabilly 3-piece Johnny Burnout & The Blacktop Stompers, the younger Esposito is following in dad’s footsteps as a wheel man at Drag City, and has earned the nickname “Ricochet” due to his “seat of the pants” driving style, a reflection both of his youthful exuberance and-truth be told-his youthful inexperience. As the Esposito family are Chevy men going back three generations, there wasn’t much question about what “Ricochet” was going to put on the track, but even his dad was surprised at how retro he went, obtaining the drivetrain-free remains of a Stovebolt-6/Powerglide Biscayne 2-door with a body good enough to bring back from the dead, and a date-coded correct 348 big block, and building it to within inches of its life, crowned with 3 x 2 carbs on a high-rise Weiand hooked to a race-hardened 4-speed based on an early ‘60s Saginaw.

Being a true traditionalist, “Ricochet” wanted to compromise on nothing, determined to use no parts built after 1962, his only concessions to maternity being fitting an elaborately built multi-sway bar suspension to tame the wallow and a set of powerful disc brakes at all four corners to curb the big block’s enthusiasm, all of which took over a year of custom fabrication to make work! “Ricochet” and his retro ride “Blacktop Stomper” may just be starting out, but they are honoring a proud family history which promises to carry on into the next generation, since his wife and his own new-born son are already regulars in the paddock and the grandstands at Drag City!