IMPORTANT 2018 T/A Proxy Announcement - Please Read!
Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2018 11:43 amFor several years, I’ve asked proxy participants to ensure that their cars were packaged well in order to survive the vigor of shipping between multiple tracks. I was delighted to see that this year, every car was well packaged and no damage occurred during the travel between the builder and my track.
In the same vein, I had purchased some Plano cases and wrapped the cars with a cushioned shelf liner as I had seen employed on another forum, with the intent to provide better protection during shipping to the cars themselves and to help with the packing/unpacking each track host has to do as well as lower the overall shipping costs. One note: I used the cushioned liner instead of bubble wrap as several cars over the years with custom paint have reacted badly to the bubble wrap, destroying their paint.
I tested these new boxes by loading some of my own cars in them and dropping them from about 4-5 feet off the ground in the shipping box. I was thrilled to see that the boxes appeared to protect the cars perfectly and so I wrapped up each car carefully and shipped them to their next race host.
I received a phone call from the next host this week. He was rightfully concerned as several cars had sustained damage. After going through all of the cars, it appears that 17 of the 45 entries have sustained damages ranging from minor (a spoiler fell off) to major (total destruction of the car). In particular, a number of the Scalextric 1969 Camaros sustained bent or broken A-pillars, several cars did indeed have chin or tail spoilers come off, two cars (both custom) had their chassis separate badly from the body, and in one case – a car was completely destroyed.
The pictures the host sent me made me sick. I believed I’d built a better mousetrap only to have this happen. The box they were shipped in shows no sign of mis-handling, so the USPS is not to blame.
The host is going to bag the parts, wrap the cars in bubble wrap and send them back to me.
Once I have the cars in hand I will be cancelling the 2018 T/A Proxy and shipping the cars home. In fairness - several cars may never run the same and one car will never run again. I will be refunding the balance of the monies collected back to each participant and will notify everyone when their cars are on their way home.
I will have to re-think completely the shipping issues and we can try again in 2019.
Thanks, and again - my sincerest apologies to all affected.
In the same vein, I had purchased some Plano cases and wrapped the cars with a cushioned shelf liner as I had seen employed on another forum, with the intent to provide better protection during shipping to the cars themselves and to help with the packing/unpacking each track host has to do as well as lower the overall shipping costs. One note: I used the cushioned liner instead of bubble wrap as several cars over the years with custom paint have reacted badly to the bubble wrap, destroying their paint.
I tested these new boxes by loading some of my own cars in them and dropping them from about 4-5 feet off the ground in the shipping box. I was thrilled to see that the boxes appeared to protect the cars perfectly and so I wrapped up each car carefully and shipped them to their next race host.
I received a phone call from the next host this week. He was rightfully concerned as several cars had sustained damage. After going through all of the cars, it appears that 17 of the 45 entries have sustained damages ranging from minor (a spoiler fell off) to major (total destruction of the car). In particular, a number of the Scalextric 1969 Camaros sustained bent or broken A-pillars, several cars did indeed have chin or tail spoilers come off, two cars (both custom) had their chassis separate badly from the body, and in one case – a car was completely destroyed.
The pictures the host sent me made me sick. I believed I’d built a better mousetrap only to have this happen. The box they were shipped in shows no sign of mis-handling, so the USPS is not to blame.
The host is going to bag the parts, wrap the cars in bubble wrap and send them back to me.
Once I have the cars in hand I will be cancelling the 2018 T/A Proxy and shipping the cars home. In fairness - several cars may never run the same and one car will never run again. I will be refunding the balance of the monies collected back to each participant and will notify everyone when their cars are on their way home.
I will have to re-think completely the shipping issues and we can try again in 2019.
Thanks, and again - my sincerest apologies to all affected.