Home!

Hit the road at 2am yesterday morning and  drove to meet Mark in Fairfield to pick up the truck and trailer that his friend Randy so kindly lent us to go pick up Roc. We were headed to Burbank and the Old Crow Speed shop where Lucky Burton really helped us out by letting us store the dragster for a few days after Aaron Grote dropped it off for us on his trip out from Illinois to pick up his cool car “Atomic Punk” after the Grand National Roadster Show is over.

We hit the road shortly after 3am and pointed the car south, complete with the Austrailian lady in Mark’s GPS spouting off directions every mile or two, and in a thinly veiled, slightly frustrated, but persistant tone would say “recalculating” and then re-assert, and almost insist her directions every time I took a turn or road that I wanted to take that I thought was a better route. I felt like I was married again.

Driving the truck at 60 MPH down I-5 made for painfully slow progress.  Made a stop about a half hour out of Burbank to call Lucky and let him know we were close to the shop. Found a pay phone at the WalMart. Mark and I are both Luddites and don’t have electronic leashes, errr… I mean cell phones. (I know, I know…) I knew I was in Southern California because as I was walking to the pay phone in the store, I overheard a lady who seemed to be in her late 70’s, loudly exclaim to her girlfriend ”My vagina is tingling!” Yup, So Cal is a different planet.

Lucky was waiting and got to see my 3-Stooges act of making hash of trying to back a 20 foot trailer into his  driveway. I finally swallowed my pride and sheepishly asked him if he could do it for me.  Sigh.  Trailer backing is a skill that strangely has risen to the top of my “to-do” list.

Loaded the dragster onto the trailer and fiddled with the tie downs. Mark and I were functioning like the two guys working off of a couple hours sleep that we were, so coupled with my ineptitude at backing the trailer up, I’m sure Lucky looked at us and thought “These guys are going to run a dragster?!”  Really, I’m not normally that much of a knucklehead who looks like I might be defeated by industrial tie down straps. But with the way life usually works, we tend to have our bonehead moments in front of folks we’ve just met.  Or at least I do. Once again, sigh…

All loaded up, we took a quick tour of the shop, being mindful of the fact that we were probably keeping Lucky from getting over to the Grand National Roadster Show, so we shook hands and were back on the road by 11:45 with the truck pointed north again.

As is normally the case, the trip home felt a bit like the Bataan Death March as acute sleep deprivation kicked in and I was having to stop a bit more frequently to  stretch and walk around for a minute and pound caffinated drinks to make the slog back home. Mark had mercy on me and Adam (my 12 year old son who came along for the ride and was the total trooper the whole time) and rather than stop in Sacto to drop the dragster off and then slog back over to Fairfield to pick up my truck, we swung into Fairfield first so I could get my truck and not have to do a return trip, and Mark drove the truck and trailer from Fairfield to Sacto.

I made it back here ahead of Mark and quickly called up a few friends who kindly sped right over to meet Mark in front of the house and unload the dragster. The dragster gods were smiling upon us- I was worried that we’d have to just block traffic and stop the rig in the middle of the street, but the stars aligned and no one was parked in front of my house or my neighbor’s house, so Mark could pull to the curb. Andy, Allen, Tim and my neighbor Chris all helped us grunt the dragster down the long skinny driveway and install the car in my small garage. Mark was beat so he split, and I guess having the subconscious relief of completing the task of getting Rocinante from St. Louis to Sacramento unscathed, I had gotten a second wind and spent an hour or so talking about the car to the guys and making them all try her on for size.

Once I got inside, I checked my voice mail, and there was a message from Brian just checking to see how the trip went. It’s nice to know that we worked with a guy that has as much care and emotional investment in the car as we do. I can’t say enough about how I feel that Brian was the absolute right guy to build our car. I can’t imagine any other scenario or articulate just how pleased Mark and I are with Brian’s work and how much of a pleasure it has been to work with him. On some level, Brian will always be the 3rd partner in this car.

Anyway, here are photos that my son took during the day from the trip bringing Rocinante home. I hope you enjoy them.

Rocinante heads home

Just got an email from Brian, and she’s all loaded up and starting the journey out west. Now I’ve just gotta finish rearranging my garage so I can get her in there! Wishing Aaron a safe and uneventful trip.

More photos before the trip west…

View into the future!

Brian sent some final photos before Rocinante is loaded up to make here journey to Burbank next week. A borrowed set of  wheels and tires were put on for the photos to give an idea on the stance and look of the car. Brian originally put the wheels from Zorba’s Ghost on, but he said they didn’t look so hot- too small a diameter for the extra space between the rear axle and the back of the shoulder hoop… kind of a bummer on one hand, but on the other, he found a set of wheels from a buddy that are 10.5 x31s and they look bitchin’! I can’t wait! I wish we already had wheels and tires so it would look like this in my garage, but I guess that just means more incentive to make it happen… What looks like a fuel tank is actually a weight box. At some point this will be full of lead shot to help keep the front end down. I’ll take photos from the banzai trip to Burbank and back and post them when she’s safely home.

1st full view!

Well, here she is in her naked unveiling! Looks pretty cool! The shorty aluminum body gets built in a couple of days, then the rear axle narrowed and a weight box built, plus it looks like the roll cage finish welded, and she’ll be ready to ship to Burbank! I can’t wait!

On a roll!

Wow- two sets of photos in one week! Here are pics of the car with the cage tacked in place. I think it has enough of a layback to look vintage and it will still pass tech. Brian wanted to lower the cage another 1 1/2″, which admittedly would look amazing, but I have to make sure I fit in the car, and that I can get my head back far enough that the front hoop is 4″ past the front of my helmet.

Words can’t describe how disappointed I am to not be able to use an open face helmet and breather mask setup. But that’s a whole ‘nother futile discussion for another time. I only hope that there will be some more un-sanctioned west coast meets so I can use an up-to-date open helmet and a brand new mask to help complete the vision. (plus in the interest of full-disclosure realize a big part of that childhood dream. Nothing looks as cool as the breather mask and goggles.)

Words also can’t describe how cool this car is- viva Rocinante!   

The hook goes in deeper

I can already tell that the hardest part of this whole project is going to be those months on end when we’re saving for the next big purchase and progress is at a stand-still. The reason I say this is a Sunday night came and went with no new photos of the car and it was murder. Thankfully Brian sent a cyber care package a few days later with photos of the latest progress.

We now have the frame rails at the front pie cut and pinched, the torsion bar mounted, the front axle fabbed and mounted, with the radius rods fabbed and mounted as well. Out back, he’s fabbed and mounted the anti-rotational device. A few posts ago my head was thanking Brian for beefing up the top rails around the roll cage mounting area. Well, even though I don’t plan on having any more kids, I’m still glad that the anti-rotational device is in place… before those were made it was bad news. I know that’s what got Jack Christman, and I believe the same thing happened to Rich Guasco and ended his driving career back in about ‘62/’63. Having an axle housing spin with you sitting on top of it would make for the textbook definition of having a crappy day.

So the progress is huge! Brian has moved Rocinante from his shop into the garage, and the next things to do are mount the steering and the roll cage, narrow the rear end, and build the weight box which will be mounted between the frame rails behind the torsionbar tube. We’re going with a slightly longer box because I want to be sure it’s big enough for us to be able to fit 100lbs of lead shot in there should we need it. I’m hoping we don’t, but better safe than sorry, and I like the idea of having the weight all between the frame rails rather than hanging off the front axle. 

I’m guessing the last thing to do will be to fab up the shorty aluminum body and then she’ll get packed up and start her trek to Burbank, where we’re due to pick her up in a little over a month. It seems unreal!  Here are the latest photos:

Brian Fox: man, or mad man?

It’s gotten to be a habit to look forward to the Sunday night email from Brian with photos on the progress of the car! He’s working like a mad man on the car and it’s really exciting. I know this comes across as blatant ass-kissing, but you know what? Some folks deserve it… This weekend the aluminum seat was fabbed and installed, as well as the  front motor mounts, and the rough of the firewall made. The jigsaw bit the dust and impeded further progress…

Checkout how low profile the drivers compartment is! Super cool! When I was first discussing the car with Brian, I had mentioned that I wanted to make sure the car had a laidback, low profile roll cage for the period look. To help accomplish this and still have me fit in the car, the top rail of the chassis is 5″ longer  than standard as measured from the rear axle location, and the lower frame rail is 3″ longer. Seeing how the car is coming together, Brian figures the roll cage will only be about a foot high.  I figure the layback of the roll cage should mimic the early Don Garlits chassis for the Swamp Rat VI from 1964, so if I’m right, it’ll look similar to this, only with a double hoop in front:

(all photos are thumbnails- click on photo for a larger view)

Anyway, here’s the shots from the progress this week!

Cookin’ with gas

Man, Brian is really going to town with the chassis! He made the mounts for the rear axle and welded them in place. It is held in by 3/16″  4130 moly plates.   One plate welded to the housing and one to the chassis.  Of course everything was welded together and drilled  as one.  Then taken apart so everything is perfect. 

I can tell you that Mark and I are so jazzed that we went with Brian and King Chassis- I’m so impressed with the work and the work ethic and this car will be really special. We’ve come up with solutions and specs, so we’ll end up with the exact car that we want, rather than one that is sorta close. It’s an amazing feeling to have a dragster custom built and fitted to you.  Again, as cool as an old car would be, I think this is even cooler because we’ll be the ones making all the history with the car, so it’s the closest thing to time travel. Sweet deal!

Getting ever closer

Brian sent more shots- he’s working away and this is very cool! In the mean time I’m doing more research. I think the biggest possible mistake we can do is to save up and buy pieces that we don’t end up using because they end up not being right for our combo. So it makes things slower in the aquisition stage, but if we can get everything right in order to zero in and only buy pieces we need, we’re all that much better off.