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Building
Buddy's Indy 500 Winner - Formula Models' Reynard 951-Ford
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by Wayne E. Moyer
 I think that the
1996 Indianapolis 500 race will eventually be recognized as one
of the most significant events in the "Brickyard's" history,
and it gave me a lot of personal satisfaction. As a virtually unknown
photojournalist covering Championship Auto Racing Teams (CART) events
during the late 1980's and early 1990's for smaller magazines, I'd
found that the CART stars, unlike their NASCAR and IMSA competitors,
simply couldn't be bothered to talk to me, let alone the average
fan. If you didn't represent a major magazine or network, these
demi-gods pointedly ignored you, though John Andretti was a very
pleasant exception to this "rule".
When the Indy Racing
League (IRL) was formed by Tony George and included the Indy 500
in its schedule, the CART teams, rather than conforming to IRL rules
and competing at Indy, sanctioned their own series of events with
a 500 mile Memorial Day race scheduled at Roger Penske's Michigan
International Speedway, just a couple of hundred miles north of
Indianapolis. CART drivers were now willing to tell any journalist
they could find that the "real racing stars and cars"
would be at MIS on Memorial Day, as would the "real American
racing fans". One of the "second generation" drivers
was particularly vociferous, deriding the "amateur IRL drivers",
predicting massive wrecks, and wondering if any of the "cheap
IRL cars" would even finish the race. It was pretty clear to
everybody that the IRL had a LOT riding on the 1996 Indianapolis
500.
As it turned out,
the great majority of American racing fans did watch the Indy 500
and were rewarded with a close, competitive race that had a storybook
ending. Buddy Lazier, who'd broken no less than sixteen (16!) vertebrae
in his back in a practice crash just six weeks earlier, could barely
walk and had to be lifted into and out of his Hemelgarn Reynard-Ford,
hit speeds of 234 mph in his charge to the front. He duelled with
IMSA Jaguar star Davy Jones for the last third of the race, eventually
leading Jones to the checkered flag by only 0.695 second, the third-closest
finish in the 80-year history of the Brickyard.
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Meanwhile,
up North, the "real American racing stars" (most of whom
weren't from the U.S., by the way) committed what may have been racing's
all-time faux pau; after loudly predicting mechanized mayhem at Indy,
the CART "superstars" managed to crash 12 of their cars
on the Pace Lap before taking the green flag! When the 10 survivors
reached the end of "U.S. 500", only two cars were on the
lead lap and the margin of victory was 11 seconds. As Memorial Day
of 1996 ended, it was obvious that regardless of who or what ran there,
the Indianapolis 500 would remain the most popular open-wheel race
in the United States.
My collection of
Indy 500 winning cars is coming along nicely; most pre-World War 1
cars are available, along with many from the 1920's and literally
all from the late '40s, '50s, and '60's. Because of licensing problems
(and perhaps a lack of interest among European collectors), models
of recent Indy winners have been few and far between and nobody had
done Lazier's historic IRL Indy winner. So as soon as I saw Formula
Models 1996 Reynard 951-Ford (FM009) mentioned in FSW, I emailed my
order to GPM. Once the familiar brown box arrived in my mailbox the
kit moved to the top of my "to-build" list. Examination
showed a very well done multi-medium kit with the usual tan resin
body and upper cockpit padding castings, 27 white-metal parts, an
incredible 82 photo-etched chrome and brass pieces, four machined
brass hubs with disc brakes, rubber tyres, and the usual axles and
screws. The large instruction sheet has an exploded view and four
"step" sketches, two colour-copy photos for decal placement,
and drawings identifying the photo-etched parts. Apparently the photo-etched
trees are common with the Formula's 1995 Indy winner kit as not all
the photo-etched parts are used for this kit; in fact some appear
to be duplicates although they have different numbers.
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Parts
cleanup was quite easy as the resin body had one small feed tag
under the nose and just a couple of really small mould lines. The
white-metal castings had a little flash on the rear wing and a few
small parts along with the usual small mould lines, but these were
easily removed with files and sandpaper. Apparently these same castings
are used for the 1995 winner as you do have to make a couple of
minor modifications to this kit, but they are clearly shown and
easily accomplished. I also made the slots in the white-metal brake
calipers wider and deeper. I made sure that the baseplate would
fit up into the body, but neglected to try it with the transaxle
in place. This turned out to be a real mistake, as I had to do a
lot of carving on the inside of the bodyshell and filing on the
transaxle to get the rear of the body to fit down on the baseplate
- all after the model was painted and decalled, of course. I'd recommend
that you file the transaxle to get it to fit flush on the baseplate,
lightly tack it in place, and then grind away on the inside of the
body and the upper surface of the transaxle until everything fits.
Don't forget to drill out the suspension mounting holes in the body
and transaxle at this point, too.
I glued the photo-etched
upper body plates in place, built the photo-etched front wings and
fitted those, and also built the rear wing and the photo-etched
turning vanes before the parts were primed - the glue/metal bond
will be stronger than a paint/metal bond on these smooth, thin photo-etched
parts. The first primer coat was also the last as the castings were
really smooth and didn't need any filler or even a dab of thick
primer - they were ready to paint after block sanding. Painting
turned out to be a bit of a problem - the instructions say "Hemelgarn
Purple" with no clue as to what shade it really is. There are,
of course, lots of pictures in magazines and books but the car's
colour is a problem - no two of them are the same; everything from
light purple to something that's nearly blue. Model Car World (P.
O. Box 0518, Burlington, NC 27216-0518, PH: 336/228-0240 or www.ourworld.cs.com /mcwautofinishes)
has a colour, #2174 Purple, that's a perfect match for the photo
in "Racer", but most other photos are darker so I added
some MCW #2069 Benetton Blue as a compromise.
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I
built up the small turning vanes, wheels, and the highly detailed
cockpit in between spraying colour coats. When the body was dry I
applied the decals and airbrushed on a clear top coat which turned
out to be very fortunate in view of all the handling I had to do while
getting the rear end to fit. The decals, by the way, were very easy
to apply, responded well to a mild solvent, and match race-day photos
perfectly. You'll see quite a difference in sponsor decals between
early practice runs and the big event, but Formula got the graphics
right!
I think that assembly
would have been easy if I'd actually done the checking I recommend
first; the front suspension is simple but be sure to glue the turning
vanes to the body first. Formula's instructions were a bit vague on
just where rear suspension arms fit. I found the photo feature on
the Reynard 951 in the May 1995 issue of "Racer" to be very
useful but they did raise another question. They show large brake
cooling scoops on both the front and rear that aren't in the kit.
I finally found some pit-stop photos of Lazier's car with the wheels
off in the Indy 500 yearbook, and guess what? No brake scoops on the
Hemelgarn car. I guess Lazier didn't used the brakes that much at
Indy! The small vacuformed windscreen fitted well, as did the small
parts and the rear wing. My open-wheel models always need some "tweaking"
to get all the tyres "square" and touching the ground but
this kit didn't need much and it was easily accomplished. Aside from
the rear bodywork problem, everything fitted really well and I'll
be interested to see how the '95 Reynard goes together.
There are lots of
photos of Lazier's 1996 Indy winner and my finished model really does
match them well. It's also a lot more detailed, especially in the
cockpit area, than most of them and its dimensions check out to 1/43
scale pretty well, with slight variations to either side that aren't
big enough to be seen without an engineer's scale. To summarise -
Formula Models 1996 "Hemelgarn" Reynard-Ford is a very attractive
and accurate model that I'm REALLY happy (remember it's Ford-powered
and I collect Fords) to my collection. Anyone who's built a couple
of open-wheel kits should find it easy to produce a beautiful model
from this one. Now to build Villeneuve's '95 winner! I'll let you
know how that one goes, too.
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