2019 Prison City Contest

Several Slammer members attended the Prison City Modelers show and contest in Leavenworth this past weekend. This show comes around every year as summer is ending. It is put on by an IPMS club, so the majority of models were aircraft, armor, ships figures and Sci-Fi related, but there were 7 categories for automotive. Long time Slammer, Bill Barker took home the Best of Automotive award for his 1:24 scale Jaguar D-Type. In Bill’s world, this is considered LARGE scale as he builds quite a few 1:43 scale cars.

Leavenworth Kansas is such a pleasant, laid back sort of place. We always have a great time at this show. The Prison City guys are a nice friendly crew and excellent modelers. Even though they focus on mostly non-automotive subjects, we don’t hold that against them. There’s a great deal that can be learned in techniques, especially in regards to painting and weathering. IPMS judges focus on builder skills and basics, so these contests help us improve on the little things that we sometimes overlook. There’s also a vendor area. Through the years I’ve picked up some great deals here, and some really cool tools and supplies.

Slammers September Meeting

At our meeting this month, we discussed plans for the upcoming Slammers end of summer picnic. Last year the event was held at Shawnee Mission park on the shore of the lake. This year one of our members has graciously offered to host the picnic at his place in southern Johnson county. We held our monthly raffle (Alyn Loya took home the prize; a model kit of the ZZ Top Eliminator 33 coupe).

We then used the remaining time to view a video presentation from a recent road trip to the Bonneville Salt Flats. Slammers member Richard Zimmerman brought along his scratch built 1:8th scale Bonneville lakester RC car. Richard talked the head official into letting him run the car on the track at the close of regular runs on one of the Speed week event days

RIP Jessi Combs

Motorsports lost a great one in August. Jessi Combs, 39, died when the North American Eagle jet car crashed during a run on an Oregon dry lake. Known as the “Fastest Women on Four Wheels” for her 4-wheel record of 398 MPH, she was an energetic and always positive ambassador for motorsports, both 4-wheel and 2-wheel. She appeared on episodes of Monster Garage and Overhaulin’, then went on to Host Xtreme 4×4, All Girls Garage, Mythbusters and The List. She had a class win at the King of the Hammers and a podium finish in the Baja 1000. She was the first women to be the Grand Marshall at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally and first women to compete in The Race of Gentlemen.

Jessi has driven the North American Eagle as fast as 483 MPH (one-way run) and was attempting to surpass Kitty O’Neil’s record speed of 512 MPH. She is an irreplaceable asset to the motorsports community and will be greatly missed.