The National Constructor's Trophy

Page updated  2021 with the 2021 winners

Since the very first National Championship in 1964 there has been a constructors trophy. In the early years, this was open to any car that could complete a lap of the track. This left it open for constructors like Graham Green and Mike Pannett  to build magnificent scale models with little regard to performance. 

As can be seen, Graham Green's 1969 winning Mercedes W196 has a complete space frame chassis, full cockpit and engine detail under a removable body. Hidden inside is a Ks motor which provided enough power to spin those scale rear tyres up the hill on its lap of the ECRA A track. The following year Graham won the event with a Lancia Ferrari D50, which if anything had even more detail.

Constructor's trophies then became a prize for the best built slot car - the car had to compete in the Nationals and complete at least 75% of the fastest time in the class. This promoted the building of  high quality chassis, of the type that were winning - indeed in the late 1970's Steve Walker had a string of Constructor's trophies with the cars that were winning! 

Tony Mills won the trophy in 1981 with this Grand Prix car. It's fairly typical of cars of the period except it has 4 wheels (most of the winning cars were 6 wheeled Tyrrell P34).  Note the Johnson 111 can with an endbell from a Mura motor machined down to fit. These cans were fitted with polymer bonded cobalt magnets - not quite as strong as today's sintered cobalts, but vastly  stronger than the "ordinary" ceramic magnets that came with the can. You can also see the length armature - around double the 0.25 inch stacks we use today (see the more recent cars below).  The two layers of brass over most of the chassis is also typical of the period - heavy by today's standards.  Also note the wire frame to support the body sidepods - that's all the rules allowed outside the 32mm width limit. The orange tyres are what everybody used - when these photo were taken in 2001, the tyre surface had degraded to a powder that would have provided no grip at all!

mills11.jpg (36831 bytes)      mills12.jpg (46677 bytes)       mills13.jpg (40225 bytes)

Colour photos by Carl Dale  - Click on the photo for enlarged image

The constructors trophy also gave recognition for technical innovation as well as quality of workmanship- witness the car below.

Gary Fletcher's 1990 winner featured a flywheel for extra gyroscopic effect. As can be seen, the motor is mounted off set and at a rather large angle driving the rear axle. The flywheel (immediately above the motor in the photo) was driven off the back axle at above motor speed. Despite the theoretical advantages, and some later development in a F1 car, the idea hasn't caught on. More on Gary's gyro cars.

The 1999 winner was this car (above) from George Kimber.  Not only is it superbly built - it was also very quick - George finished 3rd. overall with it. The chassis was cut from spring steel using a hand held Dremel with cut off discs. George used brass strip soldered to the steel sheet to guide the cutting disc - the brass strip is removed after cutting and the surface polished. The side pans are rectangular with triangular brass let into the rear to add extra weight to the rear. This photo was taken in 2001 when it had gained a few scratches from 2 years competition use.  Its also interesting to compare with Tony Mills 1981 car above - look how much smaller motors have become. 

In the late 90's a constructor's prize for  the most successful builder was introduced. Builders like Ian Fisher and Geoff Mitchell often have built more than one of the cars in each overall final - this type of achievement is now recognised by the constructors trophy.  

THE F1 at the 2001 Nats -  Geoff Mitchell won the  2001 Nationals and also took the constructors trophy with this "Gem 2".  (Geoff also won " most successful constructor " at the 2001 Nats). The spring steel sheet back end is hand cut, and the beryllium copper (!) pans are machined thinner at the front to give a rearward weight bias.

For many years there was little in the way of hand crafted chassis  at the Nationals so the constructors was not awarded..   In 2021  Bob Budge and  Richard Mack were constructors champions (chassis by Richard and electronics by Bob)   for the first brushless motored car to race at the Nats.  Brushless motors have been used in radio controlled racing for years, and there have been slot car experiments using off the shelf radio control electronics in the car and full power on the track all the time.   The key difference in Bob’s cars is they are driven with a normal slot car controller which gets away from all the issues of having power on the track braids all the time.  The clever bit that makes that happen is the electronic speed control (ESC) board which Bob is developing.

 

Surely other past winning cars still survive, if you have some photos why not send them to me so I can give a more complete story on this web page.

Chris Frost

slot_racing@yahoo.co.uk

links

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National Champions through the ages
Historic racing link page

 

Copyright © 1964 - 2021 British Slot Car Racing Association    Photos copyright C.Frost    All rights reserved

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