For real?!
 

I wonder if someone is willing to pay that price for it....

http://www.ebay.com/itm/OT-103-Rubbe...item3a824a5749

I am sorry if the seller is watching this, but man this is expensive!!!

This is the reason I will not EVER bother to race my vintages.

wow
 

has to be a man on medication lol.....

I guess if you need that one part for a vintage buggy, its value is a little higher than reasonable but that price, well, a bit mental.

What on earth, you could make one out of a old bike tyre or something O_o

The vintage market is crazy just now. People are just wanting silly money for stuff and this just highlights it.

A bit back i saw someone on ebay wanting £130 for an empty Tamiya box as it was from the 80's!

I'd like to think this is a typo or oversight as Chris' prices are normally reflective but reasonable. Hey ho.

Fireboy isn't known for selling cheap ($70 for a mid gear diff anyone?) and can make Myles seem cheap. For something particularly rare such as this he will see what he can get for it. If one part is missing from a runner Mid it's usually this rubber seal.

I have no problem racing and bashing vintage, but then if I'm going to run it I won't be replacing perfectly useable parts on the chassis with new ones just because they have a few scratches as I would be putting plenty of scratches on it myself.

In the case of this belt cover seal, if it's missing on my runner just like the old days a piece of gaffer tape will do the same job for a lot less money.

To be honest, if it were a vintage class here where I live, I most definitely would race an original Optima or Javelin and forget about everything else. It would be all Bandaid with homemade parts and the ones that would need to be original would be bougth.
I am currently out of the race tracks, about two years ago I would race 4wd & 2wd buggy, stadium truck and short course trucks and it was a PITA. Races were held locally and since there were no sufficient staff every racer would need to help on the next race to assist on the track. So imagine me racing one class then assisting the next race while charging batteries and making repairs on all four classes.... DISASTER. It wasn't even enjoyable.
But... with one high spirited, metal grinding chain driven Optima I would definately return to the tracks!!!

There was a time when I just threw this part away.

I use to check the market now and then via the completed listings function on Ebay and the prices has gone up a lot under the last 1 1/2 year. Especially the interest for Optima and Optima Mid cars has exploded during this period.