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Author Topic: Inaugural Cox Coffee Can Race  (Read 606 times)

Offline Dave Hull

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Inaugural Cox Coffee Can Race
« on: November 24, 2019, 09:50:36 PM »
The Valley Circle Burners (Los Angeles, CA) held our newest event during the Tony Naccarato Memorial 1/2A Non-contest. We call it Cox Coffee Can Racing. Four teams competed and the winners completed the challenge in a now-benchmark time of 27:32.08. Congratulations to the team of Callas/Dinger.  (We list the mechanic first in this type of racing, because this is an oily rag mechanics event!) Second place was taken by free-flighters Norm Furutani and Terry Thorkildsen, who rallied from behind to steal second place just using old time skill and determination. Third went to Dawson/Kovak who looked like they were going to outclass everyone, but a takeoff problem (wingover into the circle) knocked them out on their first pit. Of course, one never knows that the unexpectedly fast coffee can motor is going to last all 50 laps...

So why did it take so long to complete a 50 lap race? Because in Coffee Can Racing, after drawing lots for your can, followed by a Le Mans start, you have to build your engine from a can full of parts and junk motors. Most were frozen up. Some were (very) non-standard. How do you turn a Cox dune buggy engine into something that will bolt onto your Baby Skyray? Do we have the parts for that? Oh, wait, that combination of tank and backplate don't actually have any fill/vent holes! Take that back off.  In fact, the second place winners hauled around some kind of a Cox car (?) mounting bracket off the front of the case. This prevented them installing a starter spring, but saved them the time and trouble of pulling off the crankshaft.

It was great fun to watch, and we hope to run this next year as part of our 1/2A day. Hopefully I will be able to provide a link to the photos and videos when the guys get them uploaded.

Dave
VCB

Offline Dave Hull

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Re: Inaugural Cox Coffee Can Race
« Reply #1 on: November 25, 2019, 09:48:23 PM »
Some of the first photos now hosted on the Los Angeles Area Control Line facebook page:


https://www.facebook.com/pg/LAACLMA/posts/?ref=page_internal_dIrL-VlQyD6YbN7fI1pMFzb3epn6IkAYIQw&__tn__=kC-R


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