SLOT-RACING'S WALL OF FAME (SEPT 1, 2007)

September 7, 2007 - Several racers - especially new ones attracted by the hobby sport of slot-racing - are curious who are the racers having their place at the slot-racing wall of fame. Endless discussions were made on several forums to detect slot-racing's wall of fame. Those discussions are highly emotional, far from objective, and in some cases totally ridiculous. Recently somebody proposed on the OWH that 'Erkle' Tylinski (USA), Reggie Coram (NL), and Greg Mills (CDN) should be considered as belonging to slot-racing's wall of fame. None of those racers won in their career important races, so they certainly don't belong to the wall of fame.
Let's make things clear. Before 1970 there was no international racing. During the golden sixties racers as Mike Steube, John Cukras and Philippe de Lespinay - all living in the States - had an international reputation. Unfortunately no results of the races they entered were saved. Only since 1970 most results of international races were saved. So if we want to make slot-racing's wall of fame we should take those results as objective criterion.
A first important thing to consider is that there are three different classes of slot-racing.
IMCA developped an international criterion to rank races, based upon racers's results at the most important races for res. wing cars, scale cars and (hardbodied) model cars. Those very international races are called IOC-races. In the early 1970s number of such races was restricted to eight per year. Later their number increased to reach 30 in 2000, even 32 in 2006, 30 in 2007. At those races entrants finishing among the top-8 can win points: 30 for the winner of an IOC-race of class 1 (e.g. Worlds, USRA Nats), 20 for the winner of an IOC-race of class 2, 10 for the winner of an IOC-race of class 3. It resulted in the famous IOC-Ranking, published since 1985. From 1970 until September 1, 2007 no less than 509 IOC-races were organised. Of them 107 were won by Americans, 69 by Germans, 65 by Czechs, 43 by Belgians, 40 by Italians, 38 by Britons, 27 by Finns, 25 by Dutchmen, 23 by Australians and 22 by Swedes. It are the 10 winningest nations in the world. Then follow Brazil with 17 wins, Austria and Spain with 7, Japan, Slovakia and Latvia with 6, New Zealand with 5, Switzerland and Norway with 4, Canada with 3, France with 2; Sint-Maarten, Rusland, Norway, South-Africa and Portugal with 1. Nations as Denmark (in progress), Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine, Malta, Argentina, Chile, Singapore, Hong-Kong, Dubai, etc. never won an IOC-race.
The best decision who are the racers meriting to figure on the wall of fame is to take those racers having won more than one IOC-races. Then the absolute number one is Czechia's Vladimir Horky, having won five world championships, more than anyone else. Horky won until September 1, 2007 no less than 25 IOC races. Then follows the other Czech ace, Josef Korec, four times world champion, and "Piki" van Rossem, five times world champion, from Belgium with 20 victories in IOC-races. On September 2007 there are 67 racers on the wall of fame, 11 of them being new as compared to the December 31 Wall of Fame. USA and Germany have 11 racers on the wall, Czechia and Italy 6; Belgium 5; Sweden, Finland, United Kingdom and Australia 4; Holland 3; Brazil 2; Austria, Slovakia, New Zealand, Latvia, Japan, Spain and Switzerland 1.

 In fourth position we find Paul Ciccarello (USA) with 14 wins, followed as fifth by Mario Schöne (D) with 11 wins. The same amount of won IOC-races is found also for Jan Limpach (USA) and Brian Saunders (GB). Paul Gawronski (USA) collected 10 victories and is eighth. Italy's Paolo Trigilio and Salvatore Noviello, res. with 9 and Below one finds the pictures of the 54 winningest international racers. Of them no less than 20 stopped their racing career (in the below pic-table their names are in italics. We note per country the following racers on IMCA's wall of fame (beginning the 2006 season).
USA (107 wins): Paul Ciccarello (14), Paul Gawronski (13), Jan Limpach (12),  'Beuf' Pedersen (10), Paul Pfeiffer (7), P-A Watson (7), Jon Laster (5), Mike Swiss (5), Csaba Szekelyhidi (4), Joe "Chubbie" Salz-man (3), John Montague (3) and Greg Gilbert (2).
GERMANY (69 wins): Mario Schöne (11), Christoph Kremer (7), Philip Kremer (5), Michael Niemas (5), Thomas Spicker (5), Ralf Seif (4), Dieter Jens (4), Achim Burgmann (4) Christian Schnitzler (3), Bernd Möbus (3),  and Jan Gürtzgen (2). 
CZECHIA (65 wins): Vladimir Horky (25), Josef Korec (20), Jaroslav Recek(5), Mikail Radkovic (4), Frantisek Poledna (3) and Jiri Micek jr (3).
BELGIUM (43 wins): "Piki" van Rossem (20), Geert Mertens (5), Jean Pierre van Rossem (4), Youri van Rossem (2) and Willy Heerwegh (2).
ITALY (40 wins): Paolo Trigilio (10), Salvatore Noviello (8), Sergio Maresca (8), Giovanni Montiglio (4), Alberto Capra (4).
UNITED KINGDOM (38 wins): Brian Saunders (16), Charlie Gooding (5), James Cleave (4), Paul Harwood (3).
FINLAND (27 wins): Juha Yli-Sipola (6), Matti Fyhr (6), Leo Hongisto (6), Einari Fyhr (5), .
NETHERLANDS (25 wins): Nick de Wachter (7), John van Hoornaar (3), and Leo Vogel (2).
AUSTRALIA (23 wins): Dennis Traeger (6), Wayne Bramble (3), Peter Dight (3), and Tim Tyler (2).
SWEDEN (22 wins): Lasse Åberg (6), Mikael Silén (3), Michael Landrud (3), Anders Gustafson (2).
BRAZIL (17 wins): "Gugu" Bernardino (8), Joa Carlos Geraldo (2).
SPAIN (7 wins): Dani "Giesse" Gonzalez (2).
AUSTRIA (7 wins): Martin Gramann (7).
JAPAN (6 wins): Tebu Satoh (3).
LATVIA (6 wins): Janis Rage-Ragis (4).
SLOVAKIA (6 wins): Vlado Okali (6).
NEW ZEALAND (5 wins): Dave Gick (5).
SWITZERLAND (4 wins): Hans-Peter Sutter (2).
NORWAY (4 wins): but nobody on the wall of fame.
CANADA (3 wins): but nobody on the wall of fame.
FRANCE (2 wins): but nobody on the wall of fame.
SINT-MAARTEN (1 win): but nobody on the wall of fame.
SOUTH-AFRICA (1 win): but nobody on the wall of fame.
RUSSIA (1 win): but nobody on the wall of fame.
PORTUGAL (1 win): but nobody on the wall of fame.
Eventually we used an objective criterion to make this wall of fame. Number of victories at IOC-races is an excellent criterion to get a better idea who are the most succesful slot-racers in the world, at least since 1970.

NOTE ON INTERTEMPORAL COMPARISON

In the here presented wall of fame older racers - most of them no longer active as racers - are certainly discriminated. For that there are two concrete reasons. Primo should one consider that in the 1970s and 1980s most racers had not the financial resources of the younger racers now. That implies that they could only go to a limited number of races. For racers as Jon Laster, Joel Montague, Bernd Möbus, Achim Burgmann, etc. that means that their number of IOC-wins should have been much higher if they were racing with appropriated financial means. Secundo one has to keep in mind that the number of international races was much more restricted during the 1970s and 1980s than now. That means that the generation of Ernie Provetti, Jan Limpach, Jon Laster, Csaba Szekelyhidi, Joel Montague, Bernd Möbus, Steve Walker, etc. had only a few opportunities per year to win IOC-Races - certainly as long that the G7 Worlds were only organised once every two years.

Some great racers of an older time era are not found on the wall of fame. That's the case for Ian Jensen (GB), Dave Harvey (GB) and Steve Walker (GB) as excellent British scale racers. It's the case for François Callat (F) and the late Philippe Thibault (F). It's also the case for Bert van der Heijden (NL), Theo Wegman (NL) and Peter Plug (NL); for Dan Debella (USA) and John Strachan (USA) as excellent all-rounders; for Vladimir Barros (PT), for THE coming man: Petr Krcil (CZ), etc.
Well-known racers of the 1960s such as Mike Steube (USA), the late Billy Steube (USA), John Cukras (USA), etc. are not on the wall of fame since no files with results of major races, contested prior to 1970, could be found. Otherwise their names should certainly have been added to the wall. Nevertheless I hope that this approach can convince nearly everybody knowing the history of racing since 1970 that the below Hall of Fame of Slot-Racing  is highly representative. [JPVR]

WALL OF FAME BASED ON NUMBER OF WON IOC-RACES SINCE 1970

Vladimir Horky (CZ)

Jozef Korec (CZ)

"Piki" van Rossem (B)

Brian Saunders (GB)

Paul Ciccarello (USA)

Paul Gawronski (USA)

25 victories - 5 Worlds

20 victories - 4 Worlds

20 victories - 5 Worlds

16 victories

14 victories - 2 Worlds

13 victories - 2 Worlds

Jan Limpach (USA)

Mario Schöne (D)

'Beuf' Pedersen (USA)

Paolo Trigilio (I)

Salvatore Noviello (I)

Sergio Maresca (I)

12 victories - 4 Worlds

11 victories - 2 Worlds

10 victories - 3 Worlds*

10 victories - 1 Worlds

8 victories - 3 Worlds

8 victories - 2 Worlds

'Gugu' Bernardino(BR)

Nick de Wachter (NL)

Paul Pfeiffer (USA)

P-A Watson (USA)

Martin Gramann (A)

Christoph Kremer (D)

8 victories - 1 Worlds

7 victories - 5 Worlds

7 victories - 3 Worlds

7 victories - 3 Worlds

7 victories - 1 Worlds

7 victories - NEW

Lasse Åberg (S)

Vlado Okali (SVK)

Juha Yli-Sipola (SF)

Matti Fyhr (SF)

Dennis Traeger (AU)

Leo Hongisto (SF)

6 victories - 2 Worlds

6 victories - 1 Worlds

6 victories - 1 Worlds

6 victories

6 victories

6 victories

Mike Swiss (USA)

Jon Laster (USA)

Jaroslav Recek (CZ)

Geert Mertens (B)

Einari Fyhr (SF)

Charlie Gooding (GB)

5 victories - 2 Worlds

5 victories - 1 Worlds

5 victories - 1 Worlds

5 victories - 1 Worlds

5 victories

5 victories

Thomas Spicker (D)

Michael Niemas (D)

Philip Kremer (D)

Dave Gick

Jean P van Rossem (B)

Giovanni Montiglio(I)

5 victories

5 victories - NEW

5 victories - NEW

4 victories - 2 Worlds

4 victories - 2 Worlds

4 victories - 1 Worlds

Szaba Szekelyhidi(USA)

Mikail Radkovic CZ)

Alberto Capra (I)

Dieter Jens (D)

Achim Burgmann (D)

Janis Rage-Ragis (LV)

4 victories - 1 Worlds

4 victories - 1 Worlds

4 victories - 1 Worlds

4 victories

4 victories

4 victories

James Cleave (GB)

Ralf Seif (D)

Joel Montague (USA)

Michael Landrud (S)

Frantisek Poledna (CZ)

Mikael Silén (S)

4 victories

4 victories - NEW

3 victories - 1 Worlds

3 victories - 1 Worlds

3 victories

3 victories

Bernd Möbus (D)

Wayne Bramble (AU)

Peter Dight (AU)

Paul Harwood (GB)

Jiri Micek jr (CZ)

John v Hoornaar (NL)

3 victories

3 victories

3 victories

3 victories

3 victories

3 victories

Tebu Satoh (J)

J 'Chubbie' Salzman(US)

Christian Schnitzler (D)

Dani  Gonzalez (E)

Franco Gianotti (I)V

Leo Vogelr(NL)

3 victories

3 victories - NEW

3 victories - NEW

2 wins - 2 Worlds- NEW

2 victories - 1 Worlds

2 victories- 1 Worlds

Joao Carlos Geraldo(BR)

Hans-Peter Sutter(CH)V

Anders Gustafson (S)

Willy Heerwegh (B)

Youri van Rossem (B)

Jan Gürtzgen (D)

2 wins - 1 Worlds- NEW

2 victories

2 victories

2 victories

2 victories - NEW

2 victories - NEW

Tim Tyler (AU)

2 victories - NEW