I have thought of that. The body and chassis would have fully seperated. Another point on safety i want to make is this. Dont use improper fasteners. I had the bolts that are chrome moly hollow tubes with a nut welded on the end. While strong and light they were the wrong choice for the job i wanted them to do. I will use solid titanium bolts next time.
I hope others learn from my mistakes when i first built it. If it saves anyone from injury i did my job by sharing my story. I would have never thought the designs and ideas i used would some day hurt me later on
Glad you came thru to be able to rebuild. Looking forward to next years Drag Week coverage. As well as the rebuild story! jerry
I'm glad to hear you came out of it ok Brian that looked like it was a hard hit. As you know your coupe was/is one of my favorites and while I'm sort of sad we will not be seeing the car rebuilt "show coupe" style I'm excited to hear a new fuel coupe will be hitting the streets sometime soon. Sorry again about your loss but happy you weren't badly injured.
Something similar happened to a friend years ago. He fell asleep driving his '57 Chevy and hit a bridge abutment. The impact sent his Binks spray gun from the trunk, THROUGH the back seat and it lodged into the backside of the front seat right behind him!
Been there done that!!! The car in my Avatar I rolled 3 times. Cars can be rebuilt, Drivers not so much. I am glad you are OK. The deal with the safety locks is a real eye opener!!
I missed both of those. I spent about 6 hrs watching that over the last week, on the one hand, I would like to have watched more, but when I look at what I have done around here in the last few days, it was way too much! IIRC, Kennys Chevelle had buckets. Manual steering and manual brakes though. God only knows where that car is now, or if the guy who has it even knows what it was. My guess is its probably a race car. I'll be honest, most of my previous impression of Drag Week came from magazine coverage, and I thought it was a little bit of a freak show. Most of the cars that end up in the mags come across as cars that are primarily built to compete in Drag Week, and while its cool and kinda interesting, I had little interest in being involved in it. Watching the live streaming coverage, you get a very different view. Most of the cars involved are just real world, grass-roots fast street/strip cars, like I would see on any given street racer night at my local track. Its still too far away from me and too time consuming for an aging family man like myself to seriously think about participating in, but it has changed the way I look at it. I really liked watching the streaming footage, and for a drag freak like myself, it was WAY too easy for me to lose all track of time watching it. I could have watched all day, honestly. Its a lot cooler than I originally thought. I could see myself running the small-tire, BB non-power adder class, and I have a project car in the works that could probably run mid-pack in that deal. Probably doesn't hurt that I have successfully raced in a heads-up, no power adder BB 10 wide dot class in the past, so its familiar ground.
When i first built the car i wanted to compete in the good guys street car shootouts they put on a few times a year along with their car shows. The cars were run round robin. You kept racing one pass after another until there was a winner. I got the car done and went to kentucky to enter one. The car won its first time out. The next year good guys cancelled all the racing. I was left with no real place to compete with the car. Then drag week came along. I have done it the last three years. Its so hard to describe. Sure there are the lutz and bailey cars out there. Pro built purpose built cars. Most are true street cars built by their owners. I am out of my mind crazy about drag week. Its on my mind all the time. There will be alot of effort going into this to compete at a higher level. I will be trying to keep this rebuild up to date as much as possible without covering every bolt that gets tightened. Thanks everyone for all the kind words and well wishes. Im looking forward to building something very different. Stay tuned.
Wow - after seeing very negative results ending with bodily injury, and worse, with accidents discussed here in the recent past you are very fortunate. doubt if many here could have been able to build a car like it was, much less (or is that more?) that it will be. will be watching for info on reincarnation build.
This pic was taken at my sons house near detroit. The carcass is loaded up ready to come home. We used the trailer winch and two jacks.
Here you can see the trashed mid plate mounts and how they bent. The drivers side frame rail is bent and rolled over
I am glad you are with us to share your story. Sounds like the new version will be taken to a new level of safety, and performance. Your get back on the "Horse" attitude is really great to see. Keep us posted on the Rebuild, Everyone loves Nitro!
These followed me home from the cleveland area. They were on a fuel altered out there. The wheels still had the goodyear blue streaks on them and still hold air. They have been dismounted now. Both front and rear wheels are at the polisher.
The engine is apart to check the thrust. When the engine moved forward the lowee pulley hit the cross member. I think i should take a look while i have time. you can see some of the dents in the headers. they have been dropped off at a friends house. when that come back they will be perfect.
i had a duel master cylinder on the car. when the front line blew the rear tires were locked up. the car slid into the wall. The parking lot was very rough and bumpy. The slick surface didnt help. I needed to make a right turn and just ran out of room. parachutes don't work at 35 mph.
REALLY feel bad for your situation , makes me a little heartsick, you say you think a front brake line broke ? Since what I'm seeing is braided stainless hoses , did that break , or a steel line , or a fitting ?? Since many of us are running similar parts , it'd be good to know specifically what failed... dave
The Jalopy Journal
