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SHORT TRACK MODELS by MR NASCAR

Jean-Guy Chartrand's "Sixty Nine" HemiCuda Modified

decals by BULLRING GRAPHIX!


This little project all started after I recieved a book from John Bisci, called Lancaster Heroes. John, an Upstate western New Yorker who now works in the Southwestern USA, wrote this book to commemorate the heyday of short track racing at Lancaster Speedway in upstate New York in the 60's and early '70's. Ramjammed FULL of pictures of incredible racecars from the period. I was very impressed with the book, but it was when I saw the shot of the "Sixty Nine" HemiCuda, that I really got excited. Now HERE was a very cool modified, that would look great on my shelf, providing I could make it happen.

The HemiCuda was the brainchild of Ed Cloce, from Potsdam, New York, interestingly about 25 miles as the crow flies from where I grew up near Morrisburg, Ontario. Hemi Cuda Racing was still active up to a couple years ago, but were running Toyota modifieds - nice, but not quite the same panache, if you get my drift...Jean Guy was one of the higher profile Canadian racers back in the day, specializing in running modifieds, mostly on pavement. (A lot of this is based on inference, I could not find much info on old JGC...) JGC drove the HemiCuda from 1968-1974, and it was one of the wilder mods to run in the Northeast, being a huge crowd favourite, even though it didn't win all that much... Mighta been that boat anchor of a Hemi in the front - lots of power, but I'll bet it was a handful to control and real hard on tires!! (understeer, anyone?)

I went online to find more info, and found the HemiCuda website, where there was a neat article on a model under construction by Scott Pacich. (CLICK HERE to check it out. It provided me a lot of ideas as to how the chassis and rollcage needed to be constructed. I also owe a lot to Glen Norris of Cornwall, Ontario, who sent me couple great shots of the car as it was being restored a few years back. They helped me with body modifications and the front suspension. Thanks, Glen!!

The starting chassis for this was the frame from the 1936 Chevy "8-ball" reissue from AMT. I added front and rear nerf bars to lengthen the frame, as this car had a longer wheelbase than the Chevy. The body, and engine block, came from the Hurst Hemi Under Glass reissue. The body was heavily modified to match references, in particular, I was trying to recreate that car as it appeared in a period shot in John's book. The front clip was removed, the rear fenders hogged out, the tail was bobbed to match the photos. Glen's shots of the restoration were particularly valuable here!

I built the upper chassis/rollcage from Evergreen rod, relying heavily on Scott's website for the cage layout, and the configuration of the radius rods for the suspension. All these were pinned, my original idea being a functional suspension. Coulda worked, but once it was finished I was concerned it was too delicate, so I Krazy-Glued some of the links to hold everything together.

One of the features I found particularly unique about this car was the front suspension towers and coil-overs, projecting proudly up into the airstream. I had originally planned to simply use the '36 Chevy kit's suspension, but these just didn't seem realistic enough, so when I ordered my wheels and tires from Fred, I also ordered a couple sets of R&D Unique coil-overs. I drilled and pinned them as well, front and rear, to simulated the suspension as shown in Glen's resto pictures. To use one of my mother's favourite words, this was the "fiddley" bit, but once finished, they really added to the look of the car, particularly those front towers. During the making of the suspension, the front axle was shifted forward about 14 scale inches to match references. The axle I used came from the Monogram '41 Chevy kit, it seemed most similar to the reference shots.

New motor mounts were made, to set the engine back to the firewall, and off to the left (inside) based on info and pictures I could find. I also offset the front and rear axles to the right, to mimic the offset seen in Glen's shots. This meant fabricating a rear axle with an offset differential (quick-change), as is seen on a Supermod these days. Not sure how it was handled on the actual car, but I couldn't see a better way to do it. (seems to me this car had a number of features that are pretty common on today's supermodifieds...) I also placed the seat and steering wheel/dashboard to the right side, the only place it would fit once I'd offset the engine to the left. As I understand it, that configuration was actually used with this car, although ultimately the rules were changed to keep the driver on the left side. I could not determine if that was the configuration with the actual version I was trying to recreate. As with most racecars, there was significant variation from season-to-season, even race-to-race.

Engine block and valve covers came from the Hemi Under Glass reissue, I stuck a more current NASCAR highrise intake manifold on it, plus the carburator. The air cleaner was scratchbuilt. Exhaust headers and sidepipes were made from Evergreen rod and tubing, to try and duplicate the car as in the shots in John's book. I added a distributor and plug wires, and a fuel line. Other than scrounging a belt and pulley set and fan that kinda fit from the parts box, that was it for the engine. The wheels once again were some of Fred's masterpieces. I simply told him what car I was planning, and he advised me on the correct wheel/tire combo to get. They look fantastic, and were easy to paint and detail, and installation was quite simple. That left front "pony(??) wheel" really adds to the authentic feel of the model. Thanks, Fred, for your great advice, and equally great products!

I made the engine/cowl cover by starting out with paper templates, that I cut and formed until I had what looked close to the actual car, including the "scoop" under the front of the frame. I then reproduced it in Evergreen sheet plastic. I was intrigued about how much the shape of the front bodywork resembled a '60's Lotus Super 7 on steroids from the side, and worked hard to recreate that.

Once all the chassis and bodywork were done, I primed it all with PlastiKote white primer. The frame was painted Tamiya French Blue, and the rollcage and body were done in a GM bright red, a lacquer touchup aerosol from Canadian Tire.

While this was all happening, I was working on the graphics. I used a scan of the car from John's book as a template to develop the side lettering in CorelDraw. The roof number was never clear in any of my references, but I did what I could to duplicate what I could see of it. (I did have a small reference shot of the number on the nosecone, and assumed the general shape would be similar...)

I started this project back in the spring (2008), and, with about a 5-month hiatus from model building during the summer, finally finished it in late October. Overall, I was pretty happy with it, although it was a struggle to get it to sit as low on the frame as in the shots of the actual car, and I never got it hunkered down as much as I'da liked...

Thanks again to John, Glen and Fred for their insight and help with this project. This was one of my more ambitious projects, and I think I'll do a couple NASCARs now to relax a bit! (Only problem is there are all these neat ideas in John's book....)

The "REAL" HEMICUDA...

For anyone else of a masochistic bent who might wish to try this, these decals are now available from BULLRING GRAPHIX - Click Here!"

I also see Fred has a Cuda body that could be easily adapted for this car, if you don't want to cut up the plastic kit. This and many of the products mentioned can be obtained from Fred's Resin Workshop. Click here to access Fred's site! Then click on "Bodies" to check for the Cuda shell.

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