good afternoon, y'all... finished this one up last night. i always bought these Slixx sheets when i could find them cheap, for the contingencies. Decided to finally build it ;)
i couldn't find too much about it online, or more than 2 pictures online. the car never seemed to run a tour, just kinda a hit and miss schedule of where they wanted to run. for those of you who follow sprint car racing today, this IS NOT the same CJB team that runs now. Chris J. Black was a businessman from Jacksonville, IL; the sponsor company was owned by Vern Massey, who was also from Jacksonville. i sent a message to Flea Ruzic to see if he can tell me anything about the history of this team. Danny Lasoski lost his ride in the #1W Conn West ride in, i think, the summer of 1997 and hopped in this car and ran the rest of his season in it, including the Knoxville Nationals (hence the Amoco decal as they were the title sponsor of the nationals at that time). Lasoski also ran it for a handful of races in other years, just a run where ya want to set of races. I think that i read somewhere that Jimmy Carr ran it at times (he later became Lasoksi's crew chief on the #83 that he was so successful in).
anyway, enough babbling... though i do love my racing history, especially when it's from my home state.
(https://i.imgur.com/PWwTKcil.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/4dL9Lycl.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/tStK0NWl.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/sY1P33tl.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/y2nAPYRl.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/Mmnsa2El.jpg)
(https://i.imgur.com/A8D36kEl.jpg)
so the kit is a Revellogram Sammy Swindell Channellock kit, Tamiya pure white for the body panels and wings, flat white for the cage, various metallics throughout. the wheel centers are Tamiya gold and the wheels themselves are Revell Chrom coated with floor polish stuff. the shocks and seat support are from Jaye and the absolutely bad @ss seat is from Ron Coon. it really represents the minimalist seats they ran back then in sprint cars to save weight, even has the rib supports. i just ordered from him and ordered again, his stuff is really nice - seems to be mostly 3D printed. the wheels are from SWS Chassis (another bad @ss item) and tires are from Modelhaus. i needed another set of these tires for another build and they have been showing out of stock for several months now. i ended up ordering wheels and tires from Ron Coon and they are nice too, they just don't have a separate hub like the SWS ones do. i added some head staining on the headers with Tamiya weathering dust. i made the nerfs out of rod, modified the headers with tube, added some chassis bars to mount the rear shocks, and made all 4 shock mounts. added the wing supports made from rod. had to modify the rear axle to make the wheels space out far enough. decals are Slixx and held together ok, the numbers cracked a little bit.
alright y'all, that's it. have a good rest of your day.
well, that was fast... heard back from Flea already. for those of you who don't know who Flea Ruzic is, he is the guy you sent a bent sprint car or midget frame to fix it. he's an amazing fabricator and welder, used to run a midget team, and is a helluva good guy. i talk to him whenever i run into him at the races. Sammy Swindell has been running for him the last few years in a sprint car. he has a Youtube page also.
Flea once said that his mom used to bartend at Little Springfield and once told AJ Foyt where he could stick it ;D don't mess with Ms. Rose.
anyway, he said that Chris Black was a real estate developer and ran a construction company, and Vern Massey was a diamond broker and partners with Chris in the real estate and construction. said that the car was ran for 3-4 years (his estimate) in the mid to later 1990s and the main drivers were Donnie Beechler and Lasoski.
so, there is your piece of midwest sprint car racing history for the day.
That's a really fine build. Great looks and detail.