You don’t see many of these Indy car models around, either built or on eBay. They’re rare, the old ones like this, when USAC was cool and the cars were all in their experimental stages. I actually remember this car racing against the field at the Scheaffer 500 races that were run up at Pocono International Raceway in the 1970s for 8-9 years. I used to go to all of them with my dad. Nowadays it’s rare to catch an Indy car race up there, and all the cars are homogenized like NASCAR…yawn…booooooring… [|-)]
The only mod I did was to cut out the oil cooler intake on the top of the rear side. All else is basically stock. I used decals from “Indy Car Decals” as the kit ones were toast. Hope you all like it; maybe it will bring back some fond memories… [:)]
I don’t have cable, so I don’t get to see much racing these days. Met Bobby one time- local SAE chapter had an event where he spoke. Nice, interesting guy.
Thanks, Don, and mississippi. I wish they would do more Indy Racing here in Charlotte but there were three fans killed in 1999 and that pretty much pit an end to that. Honestly, it’s pretty insane racing these cars at the speeds they do. I’ve been reading some autobiographies of the drivers and the risks they take are harrowing. Too much for me, honestly.
It is sad to me that Indy car racing, along with USAC, has fallen so far in popularity. I suspect it will be a long time, if ever, before we see a new Indy car kit, or any non-F1 open wheel kit.
Yiou know, I read a post on another forum where some guy who has a background in AMT said that Indy Cars were hard to “sell” because they were really such a limited-area sprts phenomenon. Same thing with Nascar which is why you don’t see a lot of old kits despite the large numbers of possible subjects. There were also some weird variants as well, which made them expensive to mold if the market wasn’t there. Today, all the cars are homogenized to death, like NASCAR.
I think that the sport itself suffered greatly from the USAC-CART split. I am reading Johnny Rutherford’s autobiography and he addresses that in the later part of the book but I haven’t gotten “there” yet. It promises to be interesting reading; the book itself is a GREAT read so far.
There was an interesting article and follow-up in the local paper here about the bad attendance at NASCAR races lately. It was interesting to read the comments—lots of people annoyed at the constantly-changing rules and the boring homogenization of the cars. THAT aspect of it really turns me off. The amount of similarity is disturbing–at the NASCAR museum here, they show a computerized machine which literally scans the car’s body to ensure absolute homogenity within like, millimeters. All the “lights” are fake, of course, and the car is basically just one big, painted eggshell. I hate it. I used to see the classic days during the 70s when the cars were cool. Same with USAC–I used to go to see these early indy cars run at Pocono, and it was amazing to walk pit row and see all the coolr varieties, always changing year after year.
I also think the danger inherent in the crazy speeds they go now has hurt the sport because the tracks weren’t designed for 225 mph with 40 cars running that–it’s just insane!
Thanks, Don, I appreciate that—and I wish more people would build these up, but then again, they’re kinda hard to score on eBay, so maybe not…lol. I am building up a little collection/stash of them.
Beautiful build, Karl! The Olsonite Eagle is one of my all-time favorite cars, so glad to see one built so well.
I do have to ask how you did such a gorgeous job on the helmet? I’m assuming you meant you used Indycals decals, but unless I’m mistaken, the Indycals decal sheets for the 1972 thru 1975 eagles do not include any helmet decals. Yours looks too good to be hand painted. How did you do the helmet?
And BTW, it’s a good idea to listen to Don Stauffer. He’s senior member of our model club (http://www.rpmmodelclub.com), has a wealth of racing knowledge, and has had models and articles in numerous model magazines over the years. [:D[
Cameron, thank you for your kind comments and praise. [;)] Yes, I do enjoy hearing from Don; he’s always a welcomed commmentator on any given build, no matter the genre.
I actually DID paint the helmet by hand, with one caveat–the “Bobby Unser” letters are part of the decal sheet included in the kit; however the actual decals used are form IndyCar Decals, available on the internet. They’re a better alternative and more reliable than those old kit decals, most of which were badly cracked in this kit.
I painted the helmet slowly, step by step. The eagle itself is a crude rendering, but it gets the job done. I just took my time and approximated what needed to be there. The stripes were a pain, but careful, patient painting helped me get there.
Watch for it in a few weeks…