Indyslotcar celebrated it's 25th season with a special rule; drivers could race cars that they previously ran in the championship. One driver who took advantage of this rule was Ev Kamikawa.
"It was a fun idea and I wanted to run some of the cars from the past. Some were great and some were duds but it was fun to get them out of the Rapids Museum and thrash them around a bit."
He enjoyed it so much, I asked him to write a little about it. Take it away...
Steve "The Wrench" Ratchett
This is the second car I ever tried to modify or paint. I rounded off the corners of the side pods and originally carried the logos for Red Dog Beer, a product of Miller Brewing. For one race I was the teammate to the Miller drivers of Chad Sorce and Dan Margetta. All the Ferrari cars and haulers were drowned in a flood, so we showed up at Sanibel and was lent equipment by the Miller team. So we slapped Red Dog logos on the car and won the race. The Red Dog logos were rubbed off during the race so "Ferrari" was painted on the sides later. This car ran at the Christmas race at Bermuda Raceway as that track was built with the parts of Sanibel and that was the site of this car's only start and win.
I'm proud to drive this car, but it always makes me a little sad when I do. This was originally Larry Rotter's car when he was teammates with Jim Kaehny at Penske. I race it at either Raven or Turtle Creek in his memory.
The car that no one noticed and everyone forgot about. The Canon Shell Marlboro Penske that ran in the 2016-2017 season. This was the team car to Penske teammate Dan Margetta, whose car was black in color. Dan never raced that car, as he was having too much luck with his yellow Penske Trucking car.
Almost identical to the championship winning car is the 1999-2001 backup car. It raced twice in the 25th season at the Turkey Trot, where it won back in the day, and again at the Christmas race. Very small markings are the indicator if you are seeing the backup or main car in a race. I'm not going to tell you what they are so I don't tip off the competition in case I race them again.
This car raced at Sanibel in the 25th season and is one of my favorite cars to drive. It is the Ferrari I started racing and took my first three victories with, including my first Indy 500. The Chaparral chassis was very nimble and the car was super quick in the turns. The front wing is metal as the rules allowed that when the front wing as broken. The "shark nose" design that replaced it was better, but that doesn't take away how much fun this car was. It was also torn down three separate times by the league tech crew and even returned to me in parts one time. It is also the car that finished first in the Ford Fall 500 when no video camera was aimed at the finish line and John Baas and I tied, with the victory eventually being handed to John for his first career win. Later it was also the car that got beat by the illegal "Bassford Device" car. It led the first half of the race, but when the cheater car got in the outside lanes where the wider radius allowed the front and illegal rear guide pins to work and keep the car in the lane there was no chance. The second of two victories snatched from this car that season, but I'm not still bitter about that 20 some odd years after it happened, no...
The
National Guard car was one that I never could get the hang of on the
track, but it looked great. When asked why I never paint cars, I told
everyone I couldn't paint anything except camouflage on military
vehicles, low and behold National Guard comes to Indyslotcar!
I still think I should have won "Best Paint Job" that year...ooops! Sorry. I guess I'm still upset after writing about the previous car. In 2018 I raced it at Quarryfest.
The
car that brought me back to Penske. Several wins in this car, including
the 4th Indy 500. It was painted and given to me as a gift by Mark
Walczak who was my teammate for one race. The original Verizon decals on
the side pods are long gone, but it was the first car to carry the logo
for Too Clean Laundry. This car raced at Turtle Creek in 2018.
A
great car to drive and significant in many ways. Upon returning to the
series in 2005 I had secured sponsorship from WiJobs.com for my teammate
John Shea and I. John painted the cars and did some decals. John
Wiedemann designed and printed the "WiJobs" for the side pods and I
placed them on the cars. It was a team effort. The car earned three wins
including my 3rd Indy 500 win. I raced it at the Lack Track in 2017.
Upon
retuning to the series, John Shea made up two different versions of
our cars. Shark nose style and Chaparral style. This car only made one
start in the league. John did too good of a job painting it I didn't
want to ruin it. I didn't run it in the 25th season but it was on
display by the hauler at a few races.
This is the car that started to make my name in the series, the
original Ferrari. I won a heat race at the first Valentine's day race in 1994 with this car.
The car handled great in the "drift track" at the Shrine and it went on
to a couple more race victories. I ran it at the Mini Mile and at Halloween in 2017.
Team
Australia! Another great paint job by John Shea for our team cars. This
car won on debut in 2007 for me and captured two more wins too. Still a
favorite of mine and also of Indyslotcar TV's Lee Skippy. This car
raced at the Deckertring in 2017, site of one of its wins in 2008.
Another small footnote was this car that I raced once in the 25th season at the Black Track for the Phil Hill Four Hundred race. The Ferrari body carries the ISF F1 division sponsorship. The year before this car won the ISF race in the track debut. Figuring it was a good car and sorted for the track, I raced and won the Indyslotcar event with it the next week. It didn't win a third race in a row at the track. In fact it barely made the show due to a qualifying accident.
A car that wasn't raced in the 25th season but made an appearance in the pits was the Penske Reynard chassis painted by John Shea when we moved from Team Australia to Penske. Both cars raced one time, mine getting broken in a crash. More famous is the role it played in the movie "Kittenzilla" where it was attacked by a giant kitten invading Rapids. The car is on display at the museum at Rapids.
A surprise was a gift given to me by Phil Cianciola at the driver reunion. The Mobil One car was the first car I ever raced (finished on the podium) and had two starts in. It hadn't been raced since by anyone. To this day I believe it is the only AFX and not TYCO car to race in competition. Back in the early races no one understood the difference between car makers, so we raced what we could.
This isn't a picture of my Ferrari, but rather of Mike Kristof's Benetton car behind it. The Benetton was the first car I bought and raced on two occasions. It was car I raced in my third and fifth races of my career before moving to Ferrari.
Another
note of trivia about my career: I had one start for the KMart team in
1993. The car was so slow and I crashed so much I was offered back to
Benetton. The KMart car was the second slot car I ever bought.
My favorite car of all time, the shark nose Ferrari. This car won two Indyslotcar championships and my second Indy 500. It was so smooth to drive. It was also the last car to win a championship before club cars, hence why it still carries #1. This car won the F1 title in the ISF after Indyslotcar switched to club cars and also was the winner in 2018 at Rapids. It finished third in the Indy 500 in 2018, the last race vintage cars were allowed.
For the final race in the 25th season we brought a display of most of the vintage cars and haulers. Souvenirs were fast selling that day!
It was a fun year running great cars from the past. I think the fans got a thrill. If you want to see them and learn more about them, the Rapids Museum has them all.
To paraphrase Steve's tag line...
Until next time I'll see you in the pits...with a new Indyslotcar!
Ev Kamikawa
