Post by dustymojave on Nov 24, 2017 22:08:07 GMT -6
I 1st ran across this site quite a few years ago. Don't remember how that happened. Sometimes I don't remember why I walked into the room of my home that I find myself in...
That pic was taken in my back yard. The background is the hills above El Mirage Dry Lake, where the Bonneville racers play most of the season.
This is my own Baja Bug near home.
In the background is Edwards Air Force Base.
I've never posted on here before and have to confess that I'd forgotten the site until I got an email the other day about old members/new members/old members who haven't posted, and all that.
I'm currently (November 2017) 62 years old. A retired race car fabricator. My wife of 35 years and I live in the Mojave Desert with our 23 yo son. I've been around motorsports my entire life. In fact, my parents met at a car race. I started building models in 1960 after visiting the home of a fellow car race official. He had a collection of model cars he had built from scratch using wood, wire and sheet metal. He was in his 50s and worked on models often. He told me he had built them when he was a teenager. That would have been in the late teens or early 1920s. He had an old one like a Mercer Raceabout and some newer ones that were like a deuce coupe hot rod and a sports racer similar to an Aston Martin Le Mans racer. None were intended to be precise copies of specific cars, but were surprisingly detailed and realistic. Inspiration for a little kid. So a couple weeks later the family went to a book store in Burbank that also sold model car kits. I got a 1/24 or 1/25 kit of a Corvette for my 1st build. that bookstore, Autobooks, is still around, though under different ownership and has more recently been a regular stop for Jay Leno and lots of other car enthusiasts.
Through the 60s and early 70s, I built plenty of aircraft, ship and military models and have paid a lot of attention to model trains as well. But my preferred type of model is cars, and I still stick to 1/24 and 1/25. I occasionally stray if the subject and a kit of it grabs my attention.
I grew up spending most of my weekends at car races in So Cal. Mostly road races, but many other types as well. My parents worked as Timing officials at the road races, and I started helping out when I was about 4. Then when I was 7, they switched to working Technical and Safety Inspection, and I did too. I rejected a race car for the 1st time before I turned 10. That was a new race car that cost more to build than my family's home in the San Fernando Valley. Some folks don't like a kid who has that sort of authority. But the partner that was the driver later thanked me for saving his life. I am still a Tech Inspector now, though I'm pretty much retired from that too. My son is a Tech Inspector too, 3rd Generation. His experience has been with off road race cars, like the Baja 1000 that he was a Co-driver in a Baja Bug last week. They got 2nd in class.
That pic was taken in my back yard. The background is the hills above El Mirage Dry Lake, where the Bonneville racers play most of the season.
This is my own Baja Bug near home.
In the background is Edwards Air Force Base.
I've never posted on here before and have to confess that I'd forgotten the site until I got an email the other day about old members/new members/old members who haven't posted, and all that.
I'm currently (November 2017) 62 years old. A retired race car fabricator. My wife of 35 years and I live in the Mojave Desert with our 23 yo son. I've been around motorsports my entire life. In fact, my parents met at a car race. I started building models in 1960 after visiting the home of a fellow car race official. He had a collection of model cars he had built from scratch using wood, wire and sheet metal. He was in his 50s and worked on models often. He told me he had built them when he was a teenager. That would have been in the late teens or early 1920s. He had an old one like a Mercer Raceabout and some newer ones that were like a deuce coupe hot rod and a sports racer similar to an Aston Martin Le Mans racer. None were intended to be precise copies of specific cars, but were surprisingly detailed and realistic. Inspiration for a little kid. So a couple weeks later the family went to a book store in Burbank that also sold model car kits. I got a 1/24 or 1/25 kit of a Corvette for my 1st build. that bookstore, Autobooks, is still around, though under different ownership and has more recently been a regular stop for Jay Leno and lots of other car enthusiasts.
Through the 60s and early 70s, I built plenty of aircraft, ship and military models and have paid a lot of attention to model trains as well. But my preferred type of model is cars, and I still stick to 1/24 and 1/25. I occasionally stray if the subject and a kit of it grabs my attention.
I grew up spending most of my weekends at car races in So Cal. Mostly road races, but many other types as well. My parents worked as Timing officials at the road races, and I started helping out when I was about 4. Then when I was 7, they switched to working Technical and Safety Inspection, and I did too. I rejected a race car for the 1st time before I turned 10. That was a new race car that cost more to build than my family's home in the San Fernando Valley. Some folks don't like a kid who has that sort of authority. But the partner that was the driver later thanked me for saving his life. I am still a Tech Inspector now, though I'm pretty much retired from that too. My son is a Tech Inspector too, 3rd Generation. His experience has been with off road race cars, like the Baja 1000 that he was a Co-driver in a Baja Bug last week. They got 2nd in class.
