State of Union Address

[Chris K. Hale]

My fellow Road Race Modelers, in January we will celebrate 3 years of the Road Race Modelers proboards forum.. I have a huge appetite for all types of Race cars and maybe more so for Road Racing. I grew up watching my Father build an assortment of Race cars, spending many days at the race track with him and so I feel it is in my blood, I also have huge appetite for technical information and research on these cars, I hope my builds reflect this. I also feel model building is inherited from my Father who was a Master Model Maker for Cox and owned Santa Ana Hobbies and the infamous Slot Car shop named Santa Ana Raceways. With my mother being a master Artist and the life long partner in all my Father endevours, I have a lot to live up to! That brings us to Road Race Modelers... It has been my goal to share My 55+ years of Model building and real life automotive experience with my fellow builders, and I hope I have in some small way achieved that. I certainly have learned many methods and skills from my fellow modelers here, and in the coming year I am aiming to build several hi-detailed models. My wife and fellow Automotive Enthusiast, Yolanda, has been extremely supportive and even goes out of her way to make sure I complete my projects, she is instrumental in helping put on the annual So Cal NNL , model car show and charity event . Both of Us wish all of our members, now totaling 140, a Very Happy Holidays and a Great New Year, the coming year promises to another banner year for model builders of all types, and with that in mind We Thank You All for Your Support and Participation... Chris Hale
attached is a photo of my Deeks 1/24 Porsche RS60 WIP.. maybe it will get finished this year!!

[alterrenner]

Chris
It has been my honor to be a member of this board. I, too, feel the best part of building a model is the research, and then, of course to build the next model better than the last. Our members here have set a very high bar!
I am humbled by the talent that I see on the board, and resolve, in the new year, to visit the site more often.
Best wishes for the new year. Long live the road racing pro board!

--Frank

[afx]

Since my primary interest is road racing I certainly want to see this forum grow or at least continue. I made a concerted effort, in the past, to recruit new member as well as provide as much content as I could. I have fallen off a bit this past year. Hopefully I can regain my enthusiasm in ’17.

[Chris K. Hale]

JC, Your dedication to our little group is greatly appreciated I know we have talked in the past about making our group grow, and it has, but not in huge leaps and bounds... There are a lot of Road Race enthusiasts out there , but the number of Road Race modelers seems to be a little smaller as indicated by the numbers of Road Race models shown at shows all over and covered in the Model Magazines. I blame a lot of it on those magazines, Model Cars is a West Coast publication, and prefers Hot Rods and Kustoms, while Scale Auto is a East Coast publication and prefers Drag Racing and Muscle cars.. looking all over the world at builders I would say our group would do best in Europe or South America where to this day they still have huge races involving the kinds of cars we model. The US has no Can Am, Trans Am ( not like the old days) Indy Car cringes when they race anything but ovals, although they make the most $$ off of Downtown and road races. We do have 1 F-1 race, unlike Europe which has many and they are not to hard to go to. They have DTM, Interseries type races, Endurance races like Lemans and Spa, Vintage racing like Goodwood and more, many F-1 races and sedan series, not to mention permanant tracks.. I belong to many European & South American groups and Road Race models are big and the model shows there prove it. I have tried repeatedly to have Road Race related themes at the So Cal NNL with minimal results, its hard to have themes when like the Can Am theme last year there were only 4 models entered.. Back to Road Race Modelers. I am open to any Ideas to increase activity here, I check it every day and some days....well Ya know what I mean.. so Everyone just jump in and give us some ideas, a membership drive? a themed contest? A new member models contest?? I am always here Chris

[robhart]

I really like this site. The membership includes some superb model builders who also seem to possess an endless fountain of knowledge about road racing in particular and motorsports in general. I don't have a background in building real race cars nor any family tradition of building models (the closest I come is my father worked at the parts counter of a Ford dealership in the early 1960's). However, I have been a motorsports fan for as long as I can remember and consider it a distinct pleasure to participate on the forums here and I am constantly learning something new. I'm not sure I agree with the assessment that SAE and Model Cars magazines are to blame for the lack of interest in Road Racing Modeling. I think the magazines and their site forums simply reflect the interests of the readership. It looks to me that most car modelers in the USA are not all that interested in any form of motorsports with what little interest there is devoted to Nascar and drag racing. This is not to say that I think there is anything wrong with that, but it is not what I'm interested in. My focus is on building scale replicas of actual race cars. My primary interest in motorsports is on sports/endurance/GT racing with open wheel racing being a dead heat 2nd (but, to be honest, if it has an engine and wheels and they race it, I'm interested). I don't have any suggestions for attracting more U.S. modelers to this site, but I wonder if an effort to attract more European and South/Central American modelers might help boost the membership. I've seen some spectacular road racing models on the internet built by non U.S. modelers and, as already stated, they are already steeped in road racing. I also suggest considering group builds and perhaps a monthly/quarterly/annually 'featured modeler' showcasing an individual member complete with mugshot, short bio, and gallery of finished models.

[afx]

Hey Rob my dad was the Parts Manager and then Service Manager for a our local Ford dealership. He worked there 30+ years from the 60s into the 90s. That's where my interest in cars started.

[checkeredflagdetails]

Hi everyone, I came to this board after seeing it mentioned on another. I am not that good of a modeler but find the notion of a board such as this to be  a great addition to the modeling community. It gives a outlet for some truly wonderful builds. As for my little part I intend to do more WIP'S in the new year and try to grow this board in any way I can. I came to love road racing when I was involved in the Detroit Grand Prix and other races around the country.  I came for the Indycars but there was this thing called "support races" The other racing that goes on during the race weekend. I didn't know anything else was happening other than the main event till I got involved. That was in the late 80's, I've been hooked on road racing ever since. (Loved all racing from the mid 60's) I like the history of all racing and have learned more about road racing from books and youtube. Thanks to Chris and all that support this fine board....Take Care...Lew

[dustymojave]

So this onion...is not political...whew! Worried it was going to devolve into rants on politics....J/K

I like this board. One reason being that so far there has been a notable lack of intra-group politics. Not so much bickering as on TOS ("The Other Site").

But I, like others, have really not promoted the site., Nor have I even attended Chris' NNL, even though it takes place 15 miles from where I grew up. There just always seems to be something else I'm involved in. Generally a 1:1 scale offroad race. I spent years commuting daily within blocks of the place. Even worked for a while at a race car shop nearby. There just always seems to be that schedule conflict.

I'm not real big on "growing" the group. Probably mostly from personal experience running web groups where when they get big, the problems seem to increase exponentially. But then, I'm not big into crowds anyway.


My discomfort in crowds and people in general when young is probably why Chris and I weren't pals when we were kids growing up around the same racing. I knew the race cars, and the people around them were not of much interest to me. We may have seen each other many times, but I never noticed. In Tech Inspecting race cars as many times as 40 weekends a year, I SAW LOTS of people, but most I wouldn't recognize from race to race. That's just me. I became more people oriented about the same time I wandered away from road racing and became heavily involved in offroad racing. Now my wife wishes I would shut up and pay more attention to the races than the people, as now I always seem to find SOMEONE to have endless (in her view) conversations with.

But I've not BUILT much of any models lately, just one straight out of the box new model this past year. And I DID restock my display case 2 years after packing it all up and moving to a new home. It was just re-filling it with old builds, many of which needed repairs. That provided me with lots of model building this year while I was recovering from cancer surgery. But it wasn't creating anything new or increasing the detail or correcting wrong details. Other than fabricating a few replacement suspension bits like spindles. I counted 85 built models on display (and really no room for more). Compared to the 112 built model cars on display (not counting aircraft and military models) I inventoried a week before the earthquake in February of 1971, I can't say I've made much progress over the years. So I have to confess that my interest in this group is not as one who actually BUILDS beautiful models these days. But my dwindling memory can still spit out some info about the sport I grew up around. Although some of those memories aren't nearly as clear as they used to be. I DO still like to be reminded of those race cars, and even some of the people.

I can't say I have much to offer in terms of increasing the active (or in-active) membership. I HAVE been somewhat surprised at some of the people I knew from other road race model car groups (including those I knew face-to-face) who have NOT shown up in here. Maybe they're happy with the status quo elsewhere.

[mustangrex]

JC told me about the site and I am glad he did. Although I build some replica stock stuff I like racing versions of anything Ford powered.
I have not see a lot of 1/43 models and I used to build a lot of them but the subject is not what it used to be.