December 14th, 2012

It’s December and this racing year, 2012 has passed us by. For my crew members and me it has been a year of frustration, but not without progress. Between family illnesses, overload on work responsibilities and the patience required to assemble a new car we have indeed made progress. We had hoped the new car would have been ready by mid-summer, but that goal is long behind us. We cannot complain or be discouraged about not having the car race ready. We all feel so fortunate to have the car and look forward to testing in the spring. A new car in September of 2011 was not in our sites and thus unfolds a story of its own.

As we drove the 600 plus miles returning home from our last race of the 2011 season in Dallas Texas, Ronny and I knew that some major things had to happen for us to continue. We talked and discussed the problems and the few options we had. The chassis was in dire need of major repair, we had broken the front upright chassis supports again and the car was just “tired out”. Spent. We needed to at least have the front half of the chassis replaced and a new body. The car was 100 pounds overweight and the total fuel system needed to be reviewed. We got home and unloaded the car for the winter with no answers. Later in the month Ronny took a trip to Houston Texas and visited Troy Buff, a friend and top fuel driver for Bill Miller, for some advice before we made our decisions on what to do to the tired chassis.

Troy listened and weighed the situation, but did not agree with what we were doing. He felt the car was old, and too outdated to continue to spend time and money on it. He had a solution. There was a car in Bowen’s chassis shop in Montrose Michigan that had been in the shop for over a year and with the bad economy the proposed owner had walked away from the fabrication. This left the chassis shop with the car incomplete and available for an unbelievable price. If I could fit in the car this was a deal that we thought was only a wish month earlier.

We took a trip to Montrose, where we met chassis builders Mike and his son Scott Bowen, and we were in luck. Only the pedals had to move and I fit comfortably in the seat. Mike and Scott helped make this deal possible for us. They completed the car and in late January 2012 we took delivery on the new car. Well, sort of. Ronny and I found ourselves towing the trailer up through the cold and snow in that part of the world in January 2012. We spent 2 days in the frozen tundra with some great people, but I promised the car a new home in warm weather and we headed SOUTH as fast as we could go.

Now a year later, we are 95% complete and a little behind, but content, sort of. Ronny, Bruce, Jay and I are anxiously waiting to get out and test. February can’t get here fast enough.

At this point I would like to introduce our new website manager, Rose Narvaez-Shuck. She has joined us to help with our website as well as attending races for 2013, helping us in any way that she can.

The crew and I are looking forward to this 2013 season with new goals, a new vision, a new vehicle and a new outlook on our drag racing adventure.