If It Don't Have Wheels It Ain't a Sport
episode #2 -- by Phil Veldheer
When we last left you, we were busy with the UPS man.
He's at our house just about every day. I deal a lot with our local speed shop (Horse
Power Unlimited) but we also get a lot through the mail. Sometimes it's quicker. If you've
read Episode #1, you'll remember that this car was the NHRA record
holder for many years in V/SA. That kind of car is so slow they didn't even need a roll
bar. In fact at our local track (MARTIN US 131 Dragway), they race in the street class
(14.00 flat and slower). All you need for safety equipment is a helmet. That's nice on a
hot day.
We are planning on mid 11's with this car so the first thing we did was get the 8 point
roll bar ordered from CHASSIS ENGINEERING. We've used their products for the last three
race cars, and they really impress me. The roll bars are manufactured on a state of the
art computer controlled bending machine. They have the smooth round bends with no
deflection in the tubing. When we ordered for our 81-87 Olds Cutlass, they had the item in
stock and we received it three days later. The bars came pre-notched and also included
6" x 6" floor plates. The 8 point was built from 1 3/4" x .134" mild
steel. This can easily be updated if we go faster than a 10.00 E.T. [which would then
require a roll cage.]
Photo #2A shows Kevin Ten Brink in the back of our new race car. Kevin is a fellow drag
racer. He runs an 8.30 B-1 equipped Daytona. His goal is a 7 second run in 1997. Koeffel
has his heads now doing some port work, so I think he'll do it. Anyway, back to the
Cutlass. Kevin is an outstanding welder. He had this 8 point installed in less than a day
and a half.
In
photo #2B you see Kevin again finishing up. He did a great job. If you thought I'd bore
you with the whole installation, I won't, just read the instructions that came with the
roll bar.
The
next location we took the Cutlass to was Sharks Custom and Collision in Holland, MI. Marty
Hyson is the owner. He painted my red car and we've won a ton of trophies with that one,
so we twisted his arm to do one more. Luckily he lets us do a lot of the sanding, and
taping, etc. This cuts down greatly on the final cost to refinish our race car. In photo
#2C you can see the car with all the chrome removed, the doors off along with the trunk
lid and our new aluminum hood. This took about three weeks of hard labor to get to this
point. The body wasn't as good as we thought. When we removed some of the old contingency
stickers, we saw a little rust here and there.
In
photo #2D you see future drag race driver, Tom Tilton wet sanding the rear quarter. It
took about 15 total hours of wet sanding to do a perfect job (per Marty's standards). In
next month's thrilling episode you'll see an outstanding paint job. In fact we used DuPont
paint and now Marty is thinking about switching to that brand because it went on so nice
and it looks so nice. You'll have to wait a few weeks, til we get the photos back.
If anybody has any questions, comments or ideas for this race car, please e-mail me at veldheer@juno.com
Photo #2A shows Kevin Ten Brink in the back of our new race car. Kevin is a fellow drag
racer. He runs an 8.30 B-1 equipped Daytona. His goal is a 7 second run in 1997. Koeffel
has his heads now doing some port work, so I think he'll do it. Anyway, back to the
Cutlass. Kevin is an outstanding welder. He had this 8 point installed in less than a day
and a half. 
In
photo #2B you see Kevin again finishing up. He did a great job. If you thought I'd bore
you with the whole installation, I won't, just read the instructions that came with the
roll bar. 
The
next location we took the Cutlass to was Sharks Custom and Collision in Holland, MI. Marty
Hyson is the owner. He painted my red car and we've won a ton of trophies with that one,
so we twisted his arm to do one more. Luckily he lets us do a lot of the sanding, and
taping, etc. This cuts down greatly on the final cost to refinish our race car. In photo
#2C you can see the car with all the chrome removed, the doors off along with the trunk
lid and our new aluminum hood. This took about three weeks of hard labor to get to this
point. The body wasn't as good as we thought. When we removed some of the old contingency
stickers, we saw a little rust here and there. 
In
photo #2D you see future drag race driver, Tom Tilton wet sanding the rear quarter. It
took about 15 total hours of wet sanding to do a perfect job (per Marty's standards). In
next month's thrilling episode you'll see an outstanding paint job. In fact we used DuPont
paint and now Marty is thinking about switching to that brand because it went on so nice
and it looks so nice. You'll have to wait a few weeks, til we get the photos back.