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Sandy Gross 5 Rail Sports Car
A replica late 1967 chassis built by Steve Okeefe
Sandy Gross, a kid from New York City, and then member of west-coast based Team Russkit, won the Fourth Car Model Race held in California using this chassis. It's design is fairly typical for late 1967, just before the hinged body mount (a.k.a.: "Tilting Body Mount", "Sloppy Sam" or just "Floppy") made its appearance.
With it's five rail design, the fifth rail being mostly just ballast, it illustrates the growing tendency (in 1967) to add weight to improve stability and handling, and to keep the ever more powerful racing motors under control.
Here's the race report as published in Car Model magazine, December 1967:
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In March of 1968, Car Model magazine published this "X-ray" drawing of Sandy's car:
Based on the photos and the "X-ray" drawing, I came to the conclusion that the fifth rail went from front to back, and the fourth rail ended at the point where it attached to the fifth rail, just forward of the rear tires.
Sandy posted a message on Slotblog, and pointed out the error; the fourth rail goes from front to back, and the fifth rail ends and attaches just forward of the rear tires. More evidence that the fifth rail, while it gave the chassis a distinctive look, was just to add weight.
Here's some thumbnailed photos (click to enlarge) of the chassis as I built it (with the wrong rail arrangement):
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