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It all started with a Denny’s breakfast conversation over bacon laced pancakes. I’ll never forget those tasty puppies. The first element we ordered was our belly tank fiberglass body from Class Glass back east. Very helpful staff. They manufacture fiberglass bodies for race vehicles, hot rods, Mustang hoods, you name it.
Keep in mind that; we don’t have an unlimited budget, so we are attempting a first with a hand full of dollars. But on the other side of the coin is the desire to create a classic racer, something that will stand the test of time, or at least my time. Belly Tanks are classic to the bone. Hard working guys with limited budgets, and a ton of desire used them. That’s us.
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I researched tube frame builders in the Los Angeles area and found one, but then it dawned on me. One of our very cool and talented friends also builds cars, sometimes from the ground up. We have worked with Kent Weeks of Lucky Devil Metal Works, in Houston for many years. Kent built the coolest bobber on the planet, the Root Beer Float, for the lovely Sin Wu. It was and still is a classic and Kent handled all the fabrication, assembly and paint.
I reached out to Kent and his sexual princess, Holly, on the off chance they just might want to help the gang at 5-Ball Racing created a tube frame. I also reached out to Ron Paugh and ordered a touring frame cradle for a Twin Cam and a swingarm with a 1-inch axle. Kent spent three full days in bed with Holly negotiating. Then he called me, and in a tired, worn-out voice said, “Yes, goddammit, we will build it.
That day made my year, and I started to find all the pieces we needed to ship to Houston. Initially, I considered throwing all the components in the back of the Bikernet high-top van and blazing a trail. Scheduling, time, you name it, became an issue. Then I focused on finding all the necessary components, and shipping. Why do so many services feel like scams? It’s like you’re stepping into a seedy cab in a foreign city.
Paughco was backed up over the holidays, which is usually a slow season. They are cooking with new product lines, new frames, trike kits and all their classics. This holiday season was very strong for some companies, while others are still struggling. The economy is coming back, but in some cases at a very scared snail’s pace. But Ron Paugh always comes across for the 5-Ball racing team, and Jason Rickman from Paughco helps with every element of the process.
Around Christmas I had all the swingarm, frame, and rubber mount components in hand. The crate could cost as much as $700 to make, and maybe $700 or more to ship. The shipping industry is a quirky one. Place a bid out there and 5000 companies will contact you with prices ranging from $49 to $2000. How the hell can your trust that? So, of course we decided to try something different, anything.
I had lunch with the gang at Arch Motorcycles and reviewed their production progress. Gard Hollinger has a TV industry friend who owns a rat Ferrari. He ordered some parts from Italy and they arrived in large crates. I drove home with a couple of massive official Ferrari crates in the back of the Bikernet van. We took the largest and went to work extending it with the help of Quality Refrigeration across the street. Will hooked me up with a couple of conduit extensions and I made one work to protect the rear end of the fiberglass belly tank body.
Then Jeremiah came into the office and helped with the other end using his carpentry skills. I must admit, his end was the stronger of the two. Then the shipping dilemma, the choices, and the scams surfaced. I called Andrew, our apparel Vice President. “I’ve been shipping with UPS for my entire life,” Andrew said. “Let me check.”
The next thing I knew, the UPS dispatch contacted me and made arrangements. I borrowed a forklift from next door and Kyle, the official Bikernet electrician hoisted the container into the UPS truck and it was gone, for a very reasonable price, about $280. A week later Kent called while Holly crawled around the official Ferrari crate with a screw gun removing screws, while commenting on how much she loves “a hard Italian” -crate, that is.
“It’s here and everything arrived safely,” Kent reported.
We started discussing the frame elements, the tubing dimensions, wall thickness, the bends, cage elements, the front-end geometry, you name it. We discussed the rear section where a fighter jet fin would hide the rear wheel.
We discussed buying race frame components from S&W, a racecar company, but they were all too wide. Kent also investigated the SCTA rulebook for guidance. We started to talk about the front end and I sent intriguing shots of a Belly Tank racer from the Don Gilmore team. It excited us because of the shocks hidden on the inside of the original Air Force body.
Aerodynamics are a big part of flying on the salt. We’ve seen 50 cc streamliners run over 150 mph, and a partially streamlined 650 Triumph run 201 mph. Aerodynamics work! I wanted to avoid any outbound elements that might slow us down. I didn’t want shocks sticking out of the body. At the same time, we need this puppy to be stable at over 200 mph.
“Yes, I did take a look at the suspension. There was a lot I like and some things I’d do differently (as Mrs. Devil put’s it, I just can’t leave anything alone),” said Kent. “I think that by working with a narrower dragster or funny car front-end design it will be even more stable. I think going with tubular side rails will work out better to keep it lighter, with a more of a laid back seating position to drop the top of the roll cage down.” He was referring to the Gilmore belly tank.
We also discussed flattening the bottom of the tank and running it as close to the ground as possible, much like the Poteet & Main Speed Demon car team who run the world’s fastest piston-driven car at well over 462 mph.
As it turned out, the Grand National Roadster Show devoted an entire building to land speed record racing and we attended the show. The Ack Attack team was on hand. Dennis Manning stood with his magnificent bullet, and Sam Wheeler’s sleek Drag Specialty streamliner made an slick fast impression on onlookers.
I was caught red-handed in the center of the room looking at a most magnificent streamlined trike, I thought. As it turned out, to my relief, it’s a four-wheeler, but I had a very interesting discussion with one of the Carbinite team members, the driver, and an engineer, Brandon Barnhart. We discussed the jet styling of this space-age rocket and how to prevent lift. They decided to make the rear axles into operational wings capable of 3000 pounds of force on the front wheels at speed.
Here’s a news story about their car:
By Rick Wills
http://triblive.com
With no practice or trial run, Rob Freyvogel of Butler hopes to reach a speed of more than 500 mph in a streamliner car he has spent four years building.
“We are going for the all-time land speed record, which is 472 mph. You have to do it twice. Computer models are telling us this car can go 550 mph,” said Freyvogel, a mechanical engineer who runs Carbinite Metal Coatings, a Renfrew company.
“It would be hard to test it around here. There is a place in Ohio where we could have tested the car, but we’ve been too busy with the car’s finishing touches,” Freyvogel said.
He and about eight other men built the car, which weighs about 3,000 pounds — similar to the weight of a Honda Accord.
Work on the car has become more demanding in recent weeks, said Freyvogel, who built it at his business.
“We used to have eight guys working here on Thursday nights. Then we added Tuesday night. Now we’ve been here on weekends,” he said.
Freyvogel, along with his engineer friends Brandon Barnhart and Eric Ahlstrom, spent two years designing the car and considering everything from tires to aerodynamics.
He has spent about $100,000 on parts. The vehicle’s cost would be much higher without donated parts and labor.
“We’d like to have a sponsor. We have not been able to get one so far,” said Andy Hixon, Freyvogel’s co-worker.
Known as a streamliner, the car is long, slender and has enclosed wheels.
In order to break a record, Freyvogel will have to get the car to reach a record-breaking speed twice.
“You have to build something that is not a one-shot deal,” he said.
Located near the Utah-Nevada line, the 30,000-acre Bonneville Salt Flats are administered by the federal Bureau of Land Management. It has attracted car racers since the 1920s and is where many of them set land-speed records.
Races at the flats are among the last amateur events in racing, said Ellen Wilkinson, secretary of the Utah Salt Flat Racing Association, which sponsors the World of Speed races.
“These races attract people who have a dream or a concept they want to test,” she said.
Parts of the area’s salt surface are flattened for the races by pulling a large drag across it.
The flats are more likely to be dry in the summer, but the salt surface is an unusual place to drive, Wilkinson said.
“Even at the dry time of year, the salt always stays kind of damp. People say that makes racing feel like hydroplaning,” she said.
Rick Wills is a staff writer for Trib Total Media.
I was also informed about cars running close to the surface of the track or salt and how it creates a shear factor element. We also discussed the dynamics of a canoe in the water and how it flows, but a rowboat won’t coast at all.
The next week, I attended Sonny Nutter’s birthday party at Yoshi’s Classic Cycle near the LA airport. We discussed Formula One racing aerodynamics and front suspension with Kelli and Marty while cutting Sonny’s birthday cake. He was an old flat track racer in the ‘70s and hangs out with racing legends such as Dan Gurney. We discussed winglets on our front axle capable of keeping the front end on the salt. That could be the answer to the lift issue.
Now, the real work begins as Kent and Holly order the tubing bends the frame begins to take shape.
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