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My tribute to "Dandy" Don klein's Ford Fiesta mod.
Ran all the dirt tracks here in Illinois/Missouri until he was in his 70's
Over 600 feature wins & I don't know how many track championships.
Just retired a couple years back & was running a dirt late model.
Never ran an engine that wasn't Ford.
Always a "Big Block" in the mods.



I re-purposed the chassis from a "Shootout" car from a while back.
It's a home-cast Ford Fiesta with Piranha motor, Parma gears, Pro-Track wheels with NY Modified inserts.
Brass 3/64 bass rod chassis, PG Urethanes & Dupli-Color paint.
Instead of decals, I ink-jet printed the livery on some adhesive backed vinyl that the General gave me to try
on my Labor Day visit. I get much brighter color than printing on label paper.
After printing a sheet, I covered with Scotch clear packing tape & cut with sharp scissors.
I shoulda' clear-coated it instead of furniture polish to smooth the edges of the "stickers",
but I like it anyway...............

I think you nailed this one!

I like it too, Brew!

Great job. Remember him well. Looks like you found a better printing method for you.

Your cars are always really nice but this one is the best you've done in my opinion.

I build tribute cars too honoring the short track drivers from the tracks I attended all over the northeast. They raced cars like the one you built before Kenny Weld and Gary Balough showed up at the 1980 Syracuse 200 in the infamous 'Batmobile' that changed everything.



Not only did Balough win the race, many in the know say he could have lapped the field if he wanted to. The 112 was not only the most aerodynamic modified anyone had ever seen, it had ground effects built into the chassis and bodywork that created additional downforce. Since then northeast modified racing evolved so that all car bodies are aerodynamic and made from sheet medal, not variants of actual car bodies.



So I print colors, graphics, decals, and car numbers directly on heavy photo paper stock and fold it as needed for bodies. Using this method I make replicas of current day modifieds whch like late models are pretty much all identical. Mine have nowhere's near the workmanship of your #28.

If I had access to 1/32 Gremlin, Pinto, Falcon, and Vega bodies I've thought about creating a retro series of the cars from the 70's. That was the era when I started attending races every week and became addicted to short track dirt racing.

The Real Secret to this car was the LINCOLN GRILL OPENING.
Duct work hiding under the hood gave it a "Ram Air" effect greatly increasing top end horsepower.
A lot of the aero effect was a diversion.
If I remember, all the entrants were allowed to add all sorts of aero that weekend to compensate for the
perceived advantage of Balough's. :? :?

I did some of that back in the day. Magicians call it misdirection.
I'd mount an old circuit board in an easy to see location with
wires running to various places on the engine & let the tech man try to figure out
WTF while he'd miss the painted aluminum wheels passing as STEEL......... :whistle:
The best one was an old spark plug used as a water pump plug on a Chevy small block
with a wire heading off to somewhere in the distributor. :D
He'd ask what that stuff was for, & I'd tell him POSITIVELY NOTHIN'
He'd never believe me & would outlaw it for next week. :lol:

Nice work on that "Fiesta" Strangebrew. :banana-dance:
While the modern day dirt mods do provide some great racing from a spectators view, I do miss the days when cars were built from factory sheet metal. It was cool to see Pintos going against Gremlins or whatever else someone drug out and put on their car.
Good thing we can still build slotcar versions though... :D

Excellent ! I remember well when they switched over from the old modified coupes to the Vega, Pinto, Gremlin bodies. Here's an old pic from Riverside Park Speedway in Mass from back in the day during those years.

Even though I've always been dirt modified guy, Riverside Park was one track I just loved going to several times a year even though it was a 3 hour drive away. I went there mostly in the later 80's and 90's till the track closed. By that time I think all of the asphalt modifieds used Cavalier bodies, so not as cool as in the above picture, but still very fun racing.

I agree the cars were very interesting in the era before bodies were made from sheet metal and specialty racing components. Good days never to be seen again.

In my opinion the Batmobile ruined modified racing in the northeast. It was the precursor to today wide body sheet metal slabs. I've done a couple of Gremlins using sheet styrene, Mike Grbac's 47 and Billy Pauch's 15.

Northeast dirt modified racing was never the same after that week at Syracuse, that's for sure.

Balough was at some of the major dirt races last year with a replica of the 112 to sign copies of his book. And he did a Dale Jr Downloaded podcast that covered his whole life and was very interesting.

If I were going to try to do what strangebrew did for a northeast modified car/driver I'd want to replicate a Grant King modified, probably the #73, which Balough drove at Syracuse before 1980, although I remember it best from Orange County Fair Speedway driven by Billy Osmun.


Even though I rooted for Buzzie Reutimann in his infamous #00 coupe back then, I admit the Grant King Gremlins were top notch cars. I could build a whole field of wonderful memories if that Gremlin body was available in 1/32 scale. And, while I basically only saw Billy Pauch when I attended races in NJ & PA, there's no doubt he was among the best of the best and would deserve a place in an all-time greats series.

I totally agree on the Grant King cars. They were beauties and the 73 you have pictured was one of the nicest along with Ken Brenn's 24. Billy Pauch is still running strong and won the track championship at Bridgeport this year. His son Billy Jr. won the track championship at New Egypt.

A great thing about this thread started by strangebrew is that we can all relate to having racing heroes we watched on the track, and one fun part of slot cars is being able to race our own replicas of their cars. Our cars and tracks create a space where we can honor greats and extend their legacies.

I have a Super Dirt Series on my oval where replica cars of Billy Pauch, Bob McCreadie, Jack Johnson, Alan Johnson, Brett Hearn, and others line up side by side and recreate battles both historic and imagined.

Didn't expect this thread to attract this much interest...so
I'll add a couple of previous replica builds from "back in the day"

Here's a couple Harry's familiar with form the 70's



I tried my hand behind the wheel for a couple of dismal seasons in this one.


Cigar chompin' Kenny Shrum with a 427 Chevy Camaro


A good buddy & one of my drivers from his ASA days runnin' with
Rusty Wallace, Mark Martin & Dick Trickle .