I have been modeling in one form or another most of my life, as a teen
and into my early 20s it was model cars, airplanes and a ship or two. I
got away from the hobby for a number of years then in my 30s got
interested in RC models. I built and flew a number of model aircraft and
even built a 1/10 sprint car that I raced once in a while. Then came the
pilots license and flying. The next step
came in a natural progression I
guess, I made a living as a machinist mostly in the aerospace and defence
industries. I decided to build the ulitmate model, my own airplane, a
Skybolt. When I got into my early 50s I became disabled due to a number of heart
attacks, lost my pilots license so I sold the Skybolt when it was 60%
complete. A couple of years later I took up scale modeling again, building
WWII aircraft. Now being a race fan as far back as I can remember, motorcycle and
sprint cars mostly. I decided to build some sprint cars, the ones Dad and
I watched at Ascot back in the 70s and early 80s. My second wife loved the
sprints and we attended them until Ascot closed in 1990. I got hold of a
1/24 Grant King kit built it and noticed it just didnt look right. The
biggest thing wrong was the rear wheel offset and they were too close to
the body of the car. Upon starting another sprint car I decided to make a
rear axle that was correct and put my machining skills back to work, and
made one scaled from a drawing of real sprint car axle. Next I found
aftermarket photo-etch detail parts, brakes, bird cages, all kinds of
goodies. Upon showing pictures of my
axle to others with all the goodies added, people started asking for the
axles for their builds. Next came the chassis drawings, I like what they call vintage sprint
cars late 60s up to 1990, but the only kit out is a 1986 or 87 Gambler
chassis. I found a few guys building and selling modern sprint car chassis
but nothing pre 1990. So I started making scale drawings of the different
chassis of the time, Nance, Maxwell and Gambler so far using Autocad. To
me they seem to scream sprint car unlike the newer ones. I guess its my
way of keeping these classic cars and chassis builders alive. I will be adding
to the collection as I can, hopefully soon Trostle, Stanton/Challanger, Super K,
Edmunds and others, I am planning on some 100 inch cars too. So this is how Robco Models came to be.
