Few things to smile about. :)

[Bob-Stormer]

Just a few things to look at that might not be very common. I apologize for the "spammy" nature of our logo on the images.

Got this from Bolink. Cut from clear lexan with the gold bits. Was used as part of their display at shows. I'm told it's the only one they ever did. Who knows... neat though.

[Bob-Stormer]

I actually raced a car very similar to this when the Hot Trick rear end came out. I'm accumulating parts to make this one look like it did when I raced it. Getting really close to starting on it.

this is the "before" picture.

Don't kid yourself... that differential the way it was designed SUCKED! but it looked pretty intimidating at the time if you had to race against one and hadn't seen it yet.

[Bob-Stormer]

This car project got started when I found a bunch of old dirt oval bodys from Premier Designs here in the building. Shame, bodys hide all the coolness. this will look a lot like it does now, only very likely with an Andys rack and some other JG bits. Match up the shocks and arms and a lot of vintage awesomeness!

[Bob-Stormer]

This car makes me smile. No better reason than that to show it.

[Bob-Stormer]

retired race car. I "think" I raced this truck for Pro-line during the first year when Trucks just started. You'd see guys with Blackfoots out on the track trying to hang. That was back when you had to call around and ask if electronic speed controls were legal for stock class racing at an event. This was right about the end of the time when we all hand counted laps.

Looks like the chassis at one time had trailing arms on it.

I think if you look back, Proline had a press release with me in it, with this truck. I think it was this truck. I've got to get with Todd over at pro-line and bring my memory back up to speed. Truck racing had just started with conversions and adapter wheels. nothing dedicated yet.

It's possible I raced and played with this one a few years later, as those rear tires I think came off of the Kyosho rampage?

Dig on the motor filter.

[Bob-Stormer]

Another retired racer. This was when the long front shock thing started. I recall this being a very good car. All the retired stuff is as it was taken off the track. Mud wiped off and put on a shelf 20-25 years ago. I haven't restored them or altered them. MIP gear diff transmission, MIP losi shocks, probably a Dialed front shock tower. looks like a mix of Lunsford and Tecnacraft Turnbuckles. looks like Losi bellcranks.

I wonder what speed control was in it. I'm betting it was a Tekin of some flavor. Prolly that smaller red one. name escapes me. Whatever it was, it was mounted on the shock tower. One of my favorite mods back then was countersinking the shock tower screws for more freedom in mounting the speedo. I see this one is countersunk.

[Bob-Stormer]

This was an "over the winter" project I did a few years ago. Took a fair amount of time to round up the parts. I remember agonizing over lot's of minor things, searching for original turnbuckle rod and the texture of every screw head. I spent a fair amount of time on this one. you'd never know it to look at it. I suspect that's how it goes.

[Bob-Stormer]

One of my favorite cars. An original Leonard Woods car. I love how mechanical it all is, and the NASCAR influence. I remember first seeing it in the TRC booth at the Chicago show in 1990? Blew my mind. I'm sure it was crazy fragile as a race car. Tim Morton, wonder what ever happened to that guy? He had great hair...

[Bob-Stormer]

I am relatively confident that this is what I call a "Frankenstein" car. Home made, lot's of odd parts, but interesting in and off it self. I enjoy cars like this a LOT!

I've showed it around before on a few forums. If this is actually a production car, somebody let me know. I've had people tell me the speedo is a one-off, hand made unit. Probably made by the cars original owner. I'd love to know the whole story on that one.

[Bob-Stormer]

Thought about it all day. What one offroad car has brought me the most entertainment, bang for the buck, and have I had the most fun with over the last 25 years? Was this car. I ran this car for fun, now and again, up until it's last running in 2003 at our state off-road championships where I took 3rd with it, thank you very much (and with that silly car body on it).

It's always worked good, and we have beaten the tar out of this car for maybe 15 years. It's had maybe 20 different motors in it, 6-7 different bodys, and ton's of replaced broken parts. Even the chassis upper deck is cracking out if you look close. This car was awesome. Never got maintenance, only worked on it when it was broken. Even the switch... got loose and was ripped off in a wreck... we grabbed some random toggle switch somebody had in their pit, soldered it on and kept going. When somebody at the track announced something stupid that could potentially ruin your car, like a long jump contest... this car was the first car out of the trailer.

I have a lot of memories and great storys from this chassis. This is how it came off the track in 2003. Hard "chloride" packed track. A tire eater.

[Bob-Stormer]

See, I knew this would happen... I can't stop now. I COMPLETELY FORGOT about the best times we had doing what became known as driving the "Dork Missle". If you've hung around enough forums with old pics at one time or another you would had to see a "dorkmissle" sticker on a car. That phrase was coined by a guy that worked here named Bob Rheinhart. Back in the early 80's Bob was in a band that toured around the US. the phrase "dork missle" was what they gave to a dude with no dancing ability that was out on the floor, drunk, making a fool of himself, but thought he was all that. How it got to be an RC car term. Bob's on the phone some Sunday about 25 years ago and says, "Grab the... uh... dork missle and let's head over to the track." he was searching for a word and Dork missle came out. it became our phrase to go oval racing in the local hotel parking lot (asphalt oval track). "Whadda ya doin later? Wanna Dork missle?" YEA BUDDY!!!!!

We used to take plow discs lay out a track, grab a few lawn chairs, find an outlet on the building and play all day. I really miss that kind of thing. Usually just he and I, laughing our butts off, cars flipping end over end now and then, it was great. We painted around the dots so we knew where they went on the parking lot. Nobody ever complained and were in that lot for 8-10 hours some afternoons... never asked for permission... ...lol....

left front tire on the car is an MRP4027 off the pro-110 offroad buggy. Good working tire on a Dorkmissle. rears, weren't those Duratrax tires? I think they were. Man we balded off a lot of those. I think this car last saw action in 1988-1990. We had full bodied Dorkmissles as well. I think I have the original pics somewhere.

THIS car and it's full bodied brother were my favorites of all time... looking back. The whole Dorkmissle period from the mid 80's. If you should ever find this thread Bob, thanks man for some of the best times ever. You know I still love ya. Bob is out in Virgina now making amplifiers for his own company, He sent me a picture of himself with Marc Knopfler of Dire straights. Marc uses and digs Bob's amps... That's freaking cool, I don't care who ya are. Haven't seen Bob since maybe 1992 or 93. We email each other about once a year and see what we're up to. Our kids played together when they were babys... now the kids are all in their 20's and growd up. *sniff*....

[Bob-Stormer]

Here's some junk that was close to the Dork missle on the shelf so I grabbed it. There are about 15 more of them with similar amounts of RC10 junk in them on the same shelf. A random sample of fun. Lotta of the really cool stuff is under the chassis's in the pics.

There is one part that TRULY needs explaining. The part under the letters ER in Stormer. the light green fiberglass piece. with looks like a mutant on road part on it. THAT was the result of me one-upping Bob on the Dorkmissle, we had a gentelmans agreement NOT to use on-road parts from the 12i or 12L to make light weight front ends for the cars. Could only use RC10 parts on the RC10's. SO, what I did was take a set of rear RC10 arms, cut them down, mount them sideways on the fiberglass and put the original steering block in there using a shock shaft and a ball point pen spring for suspension.... Yea, it was awesome. It was an inspired work around. I'm still kinda proud of that one. I bagged it though for Dorkmissle'ing but used it a few times when we ran on-road carpet with offroad cars in Williston. Worked great on the rug. Crazy light car.

Right in the center of the pic under the OM in .com is an original chassis for a full bodied Dorkmissle oval car. I really should restore that one, if I think about the fun we had with them. Lot of memories on that piece of fiberglass.